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.

Bureau of Justice Assistance: Student, Teachers, and Officers Preventing (STOP) School Violence Program - Category I

This NOFO supports programs designed to prevent and reduce school violence by 

implementing training, developing school threat assessment teams and/or intervention teams to identify violence risks, introducing technologies like anonymous reporting tools, or applying other school safety strategies that assist in preventing violence. The goal of the STOP School Violence Program is to improve school safety by providing students and teachers with the tools they need to recognize, quickly respond to, and help prevent acts of violence.

• Objective 1: Train school personnel and educate students on preventing student violence against others and themselves. This can include anti-bullying training and/or specialized training for school officials and law enforcement to respond to mental health crises.
• Objective 2: Increase school safety by developing and implementing threat assessment and/or intervention teams to identify school violence risks and implement strategies to mitigate those risks.
• Objective 3: Implement a technology solution, such as an anonymous reporting technology that can be implemented as a smartphone app, a hotline, or a website in the applicant’s geographic area designed to provide a way for students, teachers, faculty, and community members to anonymously identify school violence threats, or other technology solutions that will improve school safety

STOP funds may not be used to address violence on the campus of an institution of higher education. Applicant institutions of higher education may apply to implement programs in other educational environments, such as K–12 schools

Institutional Limit: One (1) Application

Internal Deadline: October 14, 2025, 4:45pm

Funder Deadline: October 27, 2025, 11:59pm ET

Machines & Methods: AI for Research

Thursday, October 9, 2025 
Ralph Brown Draughon (RBD) Library

Mell 2550 (Main Event) | Mell 3546 (Relaxation Room)

7:45 AM – 4:45 PM CST

The Biggio Center and the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment are excited to host this one-day, hybrid event designed to give Auburn & AUM faculty and researchers a practical understanding of artificial intelligence, its applications across disciplines, and its implications for research integrity and collaboration.

Breakfast and lunch will be provided for registered attendees.

About the Speaker

Dr. Jiaqi Gong - a recognized leader in artificial intelligence and machine learning - is the Director of the Alabama Center for the Advancement of Artificial Intelligence (ALAAI) and an Associate Professor of Computer Science at The University of Alabama. His contributions extend beyond academia, shaping the broader societal impact of AI and setting new standards for translational research and ethical innovation.

Registration required and closes October 10.

AU Libraries Open Access Week
October 20 - 26, 2025

Faculty Lunch and Learn
Tuesday, October 21, 2025

2:30pm-1:30pm

RBD Library

Open Access (OA) refers to free and immediate digital access to the results of scholarly research. Publishing open access allows you to boost your research impact while also fulfilling federal funding mandates. 

Join AU Libraries for a Faculty Lunch & Learn during Open Access Week to learn about the benefits of OA and hear about the different options for making your work more open and discoverable (including ORCID, green and gold open access publishing, and the AU Scholarly Repository). After the workshop, there will be an opportunity to receive assistance with setting up your ORCID account. 

Buffet lunch provided!

Registration is required and ends October 15.

Funding Opportunities

DOD DARPA Young Faculty Award

The DARPA Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior research positions in academia and non-profit research institutions, particularly those without prior DARPA funding, to expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) needs and DARPA’s mission to create and prevent technological surprise for national security. DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals that investigate innovative approaches enabling revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. 


**Prior to submitting a full proposal, proposers are strongly encouraged to first submit an executive summary. See Grants.Gov listing to download all related documents.

Executive Summary Due: October 15, 2025, 4:00pm ET

(Not required but strongly encouraged)

Proposals Due: January 20, 2026, 4:00pm ET

Amazon AWS: Agentic AI - Advancing the Frontiers of AI

AWS Agentic AI aims to advance agentic AI research by funding development of open-source tools and research that benefit the AI community at large, or impactful research related to agents. It seeks proposals related to agentic AI in the areas below:

1. Development and application of no-code / low-code solutions for agentic AI, which facilitate the rapid deployment and management of AI agents at scale
2. AI-enhanced productivity applications, which enable seamless human-AI collaboration and improve automation
3. Multi-agent systems and collaborations, which enable agents to work together securely and effectively

Applications Due: November 5, 2025, 11:59pm PT

Wiley Foundation: Language Learning Early Career Research Grant Program

The Early Career Research Grant program provides limited and relatively rapid financial support, on a competitive basis, for research in the language sciences. Funding decisions will be based on scientific merit as determined by peer review using the review criteria, with priority given to research that has the potential to lead to larger projects that are likely to attract future funding by major funding agencies. Application should include an explanation of how the data and materials relating to the proposed research will be made available for open access in some form of registered archive such as IRIS or the Open Science Framework. 

Applications Due: December 1, 2025

American Heart Asssociation

Career Development Award

This grant supports highly promising healthcare and academic professionals, in the early years of one’s first professional appointment, to explore innovative questions or pilot studies that will provide preliminary data and training necessary to assure the applicant’s future success as a research scientist.

Proposals Due: December 1, 2025, 3:00pm CT

Innovative Project Award

Supports groundbreaking research to advance cardiovascular and cerebrovascular fields through innovative approaches that challenge paradigms, explore new perspectives, or introduce creative concepts. Proposals must demonstrate high-impact potential without relying on preliminary data, focusing on unexplored ideas with transformative implications.

Pre-propsals Due: December 10, 2025, 3:00pm CT

**Applicants to each program must be AHA Professional Members at the time of proposal submission.

Andrew W. Mellon Foundation: The Mellon Emerging Faculty Leaders Award

This award supports junior faculty committed to balancing their research, leadership, and mentoring responsibilities while working toward tenure. Emerging Faculty Leaders may be working in any field of the humanities or social sciences - including, for example, history, sociology, anthropology, literature, art, and related fields - with an emphasis on scholarly topics that relate to or provide context for the study of democracy, society, and education in the Americas.

Applications Due: December 1, 2025

2025 Merkin Prize in Biotechnology

The Richard N. Merkin Prize in Biomedical Technology recognizes pathbreaking technologies that are demonstrably improving human health and the key individuals who contributed to their development. The prize illuminates the important work taking place across multiple disciplines, and in doing so supports and inspires continued innovation.

This prize recognizes one specific technology; for the purposes of this prize, a technology is defined as an innovation or invention of a method or device, such as a technique used in a research or clinical laboratory, a computational method, a therapeutic medical device, or a diagnostic test. 

Nominations Due: December 5, 2025, 11:59pm ET

Important Updates

OMB FY2027 Priorities Released

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has released "Fiscal Year (FY) 2027 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities and Cross-Cutting Actions" to include five R & D budgetary priorities and five high-priority crosscutting actions.

Hanover Research Webinars

Engaging Non-specialist Audiences in Grantwriting

Thursday, October 30, 2025

11:00am CT

Unlike most federal grantmakers, foundations can be mysterious and opaque – from the guidelines they publish to the decision making process. This session will delve into strategies and engagement practices to successfully develop relationships and partnerships with foundation funders.

Register Here.

• Upcoming Webinars in 2025
• Recently posted to the archives: Cultivating Relationships with Foundations

Hanover Research Queue Proposal Review Availability

Slots available after October 11

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 the 2025 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

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.