Our editorial team is keeping abreast of the current status of federally funded opportunities. Such opportunities advertised here, to our knowledge at time of publication, are active. However, please continue to check solicitation websites for updates to U.S. Government opportunities of interest.

What is a Limited Submission?

A limited submission solicitation places a cap on the number of proposals Auburn may submit to a sponsor. Auburn coordinates limited submissions with notifications via this newsletter and competitions created in the Auburn University Competition Space (InfoReady). To apply to any limited submission posted in this newsletter, click on the link within the announcement. Please refer to the Limited Submission Procedures page for a general list of requirements.

Found a Limited Submission opportunity that interests you?

If so, please contact the PSFS office sooner than later so that an internal competition can be created for a timely, university-wide, fair and equitable selection process that allows for ample time for review, feedback and revisions.

2027 Pew Biomedical Scholars



Pew Biomedical candidates should demonstrate outstanding promise as contributors in science relevant to human health. Strong proposals will incorporate particularly creative and pioneering approaches to basic, translational, and applied biomedical research. Ideas with the potential to produce an unusually high impact are encouraged. Candidates whose work is based on biomedical principles but who bring in concepts and theories from more diverse fields are encouraged to apply.

Candidates must meet all of the following eligibility requirements:

• Hold a doctorate in biomedical sciences, medicine, or a related field, including engineering or the physical sciences.
• As of Sept. 3, 2026, run an independent lab and hold a full-time appointment at the rank of assistant professor. (Appointments such as research assistant professor, adjunct assistant professor, assistant professor research track, visiting professor, or instructor are not eligible).
• Current appointments such as research assistant professor, adjunct assistant professor, assistant professor research track, visiting professor, or instructor are not eligible to apply.
• Must not have been appointed as an assistant professor and run an independent lab at any institution prior to June 10, 2023, whether or not such an appointment was on a tenure track. Time spent in clinical internships, residencies, in work toward board certification, or on parental leave does not count as part of this three-year limit. Candidates who need an exception on the three-year limit should contact Pew’s program office to ensure that application reviewers are aware an exception has been given.
• May apply to the program a maximum of two times. All applicants must be nominated by their institution and must complete the 2027 online application.
• If applicants have appointments at more than one eligible nominating institution or affiliate, they may not reapply in a subsequent year from a different nominating entity.
• May not be nominated for the Pew Scholars Program and the Pew-Stewart Scholars Program for Cancer Research in the same year.

**Requirements for this competition differ from the standard Limited Submission competition requirements.

Institutional Limit: 1 Nomination

Internal Deadline: March 31, 2026, 4:45pm

Nomination Deadline: May 13, 2026, 5:00pm CT

American Diabetes Association: Pathways to Stop Diabetes Accelerator and Initiator Awards

The Pathway to Stop Diabetes Accelerator awards are intended to provide flexible, long-term salary and research support to early career researchers who are proposing innovative and ambitious diabetes-related research programs, and who have distinguished themselves as exceptionally talented and promising research investigators. This call for nominations will prioritize translational applications that move knowledge and discovery gained from basic research to its eventual translation into patient and population benefit. Pathways offers two programs of funding: Accelerator Award and Initiator Award.

Accelerator Award 

Candidates for Accelerator awards should be in the process of establishing successful, independent diabetes research programs, and have records of independent productivity in research. For this award, demonstration of independent productivity should include that the candidate is currently in an independent faculty position, has demonstrated the ability to perform a particular set of experiments at a high-quality level, including senior author publications (independent of training mentors) and/or has demonstrated the ability to obtain independent funding/support for their work.

Initiator Award

Initiator award is designed to support early career researchers who have distinguished themselves during their research training as exceptionally talented and promising research investigators with a high likelihood of establishing successful, independent research programs and making seminal contributions in diabetes research.

Institutional Limit: Two (2) Applications for either the Accelerator Award or the Initiator Award, with one (1) nomination spanning basic through preclinical research and one (1) nomination spanning clinical through public health research.

Internal Deadline: March 31, 2026, 4:45pm

Funder Deadline: May 19, 2026, 5:00pm ET

DOE: Genesis Mission - Transforming Science and Energy with AI

We are accepting mandatory notifications of Intent to Submit to Genesis Mission - Transforming Science and Energy with AI to expedite the limited submission process.

Please note permissions to submit to the funder will only be granted to those who have indicated their Intent to Submit.

Should any notifications disclose duplicative "Intents" for the same Challenge Focus Area, an internal competition will be scheduled for those focus areas.

Institutional Limit: *One (1) Application/LOI Per Focus Area within a Challenge Area

**Applicant institutions are limited to no more than one application as the lead institution per focus area for Phase I and Phase II applications combined.

Full Announcement Here

Intent to Submit Deadline: Wednesday, March 25, 2026, 9:00am

Genesis Mission Webinar

March 26, 2026

2:00pm CT
Register Here

Funding Opportunities

PCORI: Engagement Awards

The Engagement Award Program supports PCORI’s goal to increase engagement in patient-centered Clinical Effectiveness Research (CER) - meaningful involvement of patients, caregivers, clinicians and other healthcare stakeholders throughout the research process.

The Engagement Award: Capacity Building opportunity funds projects that build communities prepared to participate in patient-centered CER. TThese projects will focus on building the knowledge, competencies and abilities of their community to be meaningful partners with researchers throughout the research process.

The Engagement Award: Dissemination Initiative funding opportunity aims to support projects that help organizations and communities actively communicate pertinent PCORI-funded research findings to their specific audiences, including patients, clinicians, communities and others, in ways that will command their attention and interest and encourage use of this information in their healthcare decision making.

The Engagement Award: Convening Support funding opportunity seeks to fund projects that support patients, families, caregivers and the broader health and healthcare community to hold convenings, meetings and conferences that: 1. Promote focused discussion of patient-centered CER. 2. Share patient-centered CER engagement methods. 3. Disseminate PCORI-funded research results. 4. Plan for future patient-centered CER (with the exception that the funds cannot be used to develop funding proposals, grant applications or similar requests for project or research funding.)

LOIs Due: March 30, 2026, 5:00pm ET

PhRMA Foundation: Faculty Starter Grant

This program offers financial support to individuals beginning independent careers in drug discovery and drug delivery research at the faculty level at accredited U.S. universities. Research areas could include, but are not limited to:

• Target identification and validation using genetic engineering (e.g., CRISPR-Cas9) and phenotypic screens (e.g., 3-D cell culture)
• Mapping disease mechanisms using single-cell and spatial multi-omics approaches to identify disease-relevant targets (e.g., scRNA-seq, spatial transcriptomics, spatial proteomics)
• Hit and lead identification with validation and molecular modeling (including structure-enabled discovery of novel drug modalities)
• Protein biochemistry and structural biology, including computational approaches
• Cellular and molecular biology approaches to elucidate therapeutically relevant pathways and mechanisms
• In vitro (cell-based) and in vivo (animal) studies that assess drug candidate pharmacological profiles (e.g., mechanism of action, effectiveness, safety and toxicity)
• Applications of advanced biomedical imaging in vitro (e.g., cellular high-content screening for target identification and validation) and in vivo (e.g., PET, MRI/CT for drug target engagement and biodistribution)
• Artificial intelligence (AI) and computational approaches that directly advance a therapeutic hypothesis

LOIs Due: April 15, 2026, 12:00noon ET

Gates Foundation Grand Challenges

The Grand Challenges family of initiatives fosters innovation to address key global health and development priorities.

• Innovations in Cost-Disruptive Tools for Diagnosis and Screening: This request for proposals (RFP) seeks cost-disruptive devices and diagnostics that cost less than US$1 per test or person, that can stand up to the real-world constraints of frontline public health, and that provide rapid, reliable results.

• Novel Interventions Targeting Placental and Gut Inflammation to Improve Fetal Growth: There are currently no scalable, effective therapies that directly prevent or reverse fetal growth restriction, which affects more than 20 million infants annually. This RFP is designed to accelerate the discovery and development of interventions targeting maternal gut–placenta inflammatory axes and oxidative stress to improve fetal growth outcomes.

• Addressing Physiological Barriers to Micronutrient Absorption from Fortified Foods: This RFP seeks innovative approaches to overcome the biological constraints that limit people's ability to absorb micronutrients in fortified foods in high-burden settings, such as chronic inflammation and gut barrier dysfunction.

• Cost-Disrupting Innovations to Reduce the Cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Food: With increasingly constrained resources to address Severe Acute Malnutrition, this RFP seeks innovative approaches that will reduce the cost of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia by at least 30%.

• Breakthrough Innovations to Significantly Reduce the Cost of Severe Acute Malnutrition Treatment: This RFP seeks transformative, system-level innovations that can substantially increase the number of children treated per dollar spent by reducing the total cost per child treated—without changing the ex-factory price of Ready-to-Use Therapeutic Foods (RUTF) or substituting RUTF with an alternative product.

• Artificial Intelligence (AI) to Accelerate Charitable Giving: This RFP seeks ideas that use AI to connect potential donors (from everyday givers to established foundations) to the causes they care about and make it easier for them to contribute.

Applications per RFP Due: April 28, 2026, 11:30am PT

Creative Capital: Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant 

The Andy Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant supports emerging and established writers who write about contemporary visual art in four categories—articles, books, short-form writing, and translation. The grants support projects addressing both general and specialized art audiences, from short reviews for magazines and newspapers to in-depth scholarly studies. The program also supports art writing that engages criticism through interdisciplinary methods and experiments with literary styles.

Applications Due: May 6, 2026, 11:59pm ET

NEH: Collections Stewardship

This program seeks to advance the preservation and availability of physical and digital collections important for research, teaching, and public engagement in the humanities. Planning and implementation projects may include conservation and preservation; digitization and description; enhancement of long-standing digital resources in the humanities; and preservation services or education and training for students and professionals in collections stewardship.

Applications Due: May 11, 2026, 11:59pm ET

Important Updates

Important Updates to the Proposal Submission Process

The university is implementing an important update to the university’s proposal review and submission workflow to reduce administrative risk and ensure Auburn is positioned for success in an increasingly complex research environment.

This updated process adds a final, standardized step in which all proposals—across all colleges and units—route through the Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) for compliance review and submission.

• Begining May 1, 2026, OSP or the appropriate College Level Designee must be engaged in the review process at least fourteen (14) business days prior to the sponsor deadline to allow for adequate time to review any request for proposal (RFP) and all associated proposal documents prior to submission.

• The final and complete proposal package must be in the OSP queue in Endeavor (Specialist Review) at least seven (7) business days prior to the sponsor deadline for OSP to complete the final compliance review before moving forward with submission by OSP. 

Further guidance will be located on the OSP website under Guidance and Forms.

Need Help with the Updated Proposal Submission Process?

Any unit/researcher who would like to schedule time with the Proposal Team to review the new process is welcome to reach out to Jenny Kelley, Sr. Sponsored Program Officer, to schedule a Teams or in-person meeting. 

On-Campus Drop-In Office Hours
The Proposal Team will be holding 'office hours' on campus for any researcher or interested individual who may want to drop by to ask questions.

**On-demand training videos soon to be available! More information coming soon.**

2026 Alabama AI Innovation Summit 
AI Operating Systems & Knowledge Infrastructure
April 9–10, 2026 
Bryant Conference Center
Tuscaloosa, AL

This Summit is Alabama’s statewide convening focused on building the partnerships and infrastructure needed to scale applied AI. Researchers, educators, industry and workforce partners, and policy leaders will come together to shape the system-level foundations for scalable, trustworthy and impactful AI. A key outcome will be a Summit Technical Report/Roadmap.


NSF and NIH program leadership will join the Summit for keynotes and discussion.

Register Here

Co-located with the 25th Annual Rural Health Conference and other domain groups.



25th Annual Rural Health Conference: AI and Resilience - Empowering Rural Healthcare

April 9, 2026
8:00am - 3:30pm
Bryant Conference Center
Tuscaloosa, AL

This conference offers a day of Medical and AI speakers as well training sessions in the mission to raise the standard for rural health through AI and statewide collaborative initiatives.

Compliance with NASA's China Restriction

NASA grant and cooperative agreement recipients are reminded that NASA is restricted by law from using appropriated funds to engage in bilateral participation, collaboration, or coordination with China or Chinese-owned companies. This restriction applies to all activities conducted under NASA awards.

When submitting grant proposals, applicants’ Authorized Organizational Representatives sign an attestation affirming that the applicant will not engage in such restricted activities, at the prime recipient level or at any subrecipient level. Additionally, the NASA Grant and Cooperative Agreement Manual (GCAM, Section 9.4 effective March 21, 2025) - which governs all NASA grants and cooperative agreements - contains explicit language regarding this restriction.

What this means for our institution:

• Do not engage in bilateral coordination, collaboration, or participation with China or any Chinese-owned companies or Chinese universities, including individuals working for such entities, under your NASA award. This restriction includes direct sharing of NASA-funded research data through any means, including IT systems, as well as bilateral joint publications with authors affiliated with the Chinese government or Chinese companies or universities.
  
• Ensure all project activities comply with the terms and conditions of your award and the GCAM.
  
• Failure to comply may result in remedies for noncompliance, including award termination, disallowed costs, or referrals for consideration of suspension or debarment proceedings.

For questions regarding NASA grants, please contact your NASA Grant Officer.

Hanover Research Webinars

Reimagining the Broader Impacts in Grant Writing

Thursday, March 26, 2026

11:00am CT

​This session will present strategies for designing and communicating broader impacts that align with current federal priorities, including practical ways to demonstrate project relevance and impact for a wide audience.

Register Here.

• 2026 Calendar of Webinars
• Recently posted to the archives: Revamping Your Grantseeking Strategy in a Changing Landscape

Hanover Research Queue Proposal Review Availability

Slots available April 3 - May 26 and June 17 - July 20


Auburn University has partnered with Hanover Research for a number of grant development solutions including Pre-proposal Support; Proposal Development; and Capacity Building. Hanover's full-service grant development solutions are available to set goals, build strategies to achieve key grant-seeking objectives, and develop grant proposals that are well-planned, researched, and written. 

For information regarding Hanover’s core capabilities and project timelines, click here. If you are interested in a slot in the queue, please e-mail Tony Ventimiglia.

Council on Government Relations (COGR) Resource Page


This resource page offers continually updated information concerning Administration Transition in regards to federal funding.

Hanover GLC Modules for NIH, NSF-CAREER & Grant Development


The Hanover Research Grants Learning Center (GLC) on-demand grant development training portal offers faculty enrollees the unique opportunity to receive targeted training through self-paced, interactive modules with step-by-step guidance and templates for prospective applicants to develop compelling proposals. In addition to NIH and NSF-CAREER modules, AU faculty now have access to a variety of new modules on grant seeking, development and revisions.

Auburn faculty interested in signing up for this training should contact Christine Cline for registration information.

Free CITI Training Modules

Auburn subscribes to several training modules via the CITI Program website that may be of interest to researchers and research administrators. Each module is self-paced and can be finished in one or multiple sessions. Click on the link above to read descriptions.



• Essentials of Grant Proposal Development
• Essentials of Research Administration

AI@AU/Team Science Series: Building Research Communities in AI Showcase & Workshop Event Resources Now Available

Resources from the AI@AU/Team Science Series: Building Research Communities in AI Showcase and Workshop, held Febraury 13, 2026, are now available on the Team Science Page.

Check out the event program, faculty posters and student slides, as well as slides from the program workshops & lightning talks. And see Aubria, our AI generated keynote speaker!

These resources offer great insight into the current applications and investigations of AI in research and who to contact if interested in an AI area. 

Check it out here.

The federal funding landscape is changing daily, necessitating extra due diligence on the part of funding seekers. When perusing a solicitation, 1) make sure you are viewing the latest version, 2) read all notes in the headers and margins, and 3) follow provided links to ensure a solicitation is still active and accepting applications.