Funding Opportunities

External Funding

The university provides access to database tools for use by University faculty and staff to search for external funding opportunities. These include federal, state, and local agencies in addition to private funding sources. More information can be found at the UA Research, Innovation and Impact website.

Internal UArizona Faculty Funding

The opportunities listed below are supported by units across the UArizona campus. If you have questions about one of these opportunities, visit the link and follow the unit’s site contact information.

AIR Annual Resilience Theme Grant

The Arizona Institute for Resilience (AIR) seeks to use TRIF Water, Environmental, and Energy Solutions (WEES) funds to support an interdisciplinary team to develop and execute a creative and inspiring yearlong agenda of events and activities focused on a single, resilience-related theme-of-the-year. This theme will be investigated, explored, and examined through a series of activities using a wide variety of venues.

Asset Development Program

Tech Launch Arizona's Asset Development funding helps advance inventions that aren’t yet ready to attract licensees or investors. In executing an Asset Development plan, we validate an invention's market potential and requirements and ready it for commercialization.

Big Idea Challenge

The U of A Big Idea Challenge (BIC) is an initiative by the Office of Research and Partnerships (ORP) to incentivize the formation of transdisciplinary research teams tackling grand global challenges. It provides seed funding to develop innovative ideas that can lead to significant external funding and societal impact.

It is open to transdisciplinary teams that include U of A faculty, students, postdoctoral researchers, and research staff. The team must include a project champion who is an experienced tenured, or tenure-track, faculty member.

Bridge Funding Program

The University of Arizona Bridge Funding Investment Program (BFIP) is designed to support faculty with an established track record of extramural funding who are experiencing temporary disruptions in external research support. While the program was originally focused on addressing delays tied to federal funding decisions, it is now open to all faculty experiencing any form of short-term funding interruption, regardless of cause.

The goal of BFIP is to ensure the continuity of active research programs and to preserve Ph.D. student support during short-term financial gaps. This mechanism helps sustain momentum for competitive research groups across the university and maintain progress toward new or pending awards.

Catalyst for Creative Scholarship Grants

Recognizing that scholarly activity at the University of Arizona spans multiple fields and mediums, ORP offers dedicated internal grants to aid in the production of original creative works and scholarship. This funding may be used for costs associated with producing a product, performance, or installation, e.g., time in a recording studio, film and videography expenses, installation expenses, travel, and other expenses related to the production of innovative and creative scholarship.

Catalyst for Early-Career Research Acceleration Grants

The Catalyst for Early-Career Research Acceleration Grants are designed to jump-start innovative projects and new collaborations by providing short-term support for early-career faculty. These grants are typically single PI awards, but collaborative proposals are strongly encouraged and will be given priority. Funds may be used to support proposal development activities, one semester of graduate student/postdoc effort, data collection costs (including access to databases), community engagement activities, travel, etc. Grants provide up to $35,000 in support. Early-stage faculty are strongly encouraged to utilize their start-up funds before applying.

Catalyst for Innovation and Collaboration Grants

The Catalyst for Innovation & Collaboration Grants program is designed to support the growth and development of cross-disciplinary, novel, collaborative research, particularly in areas of strategic importance to the University and the State of Arizona. These awards are intended to support the development of new extramural research proposals by fostering collaborations and partnerships, exciting research ideas, and new approaches to community engagement in the following overarching areas:

Catalyst for Research Dissemination Grants

The Catalyst for Research Dissemination Grants are designed to augment research resulting from a prior ORP Research Development Grant by providing support to offset dissemination costs that were not allowable during the initial period of performance due to timing offsets. The proposed dissemination must be related to a previous ORP Research Development or TRIF-funded internal grant, and the submission must be within three years of the original award period. Other campus internal grants (non-Research Development Grant or non-TRIF-funded grants, e.g., the Provost's Investment Fund and specific strategic initiative seed grants) are not eligible for funding consideration. If you are unsure if your previous award qualifies, please consult resdev@arizona.edu.

Catalyst for Research Infrastructure Enhancement Grant

The Catalyst for Research Infrastructure Enhancement grants are designed to add new, or augment existing, research infrastructure in strategically important areas through the acquisition of equipment (or other resources) for use by multiple investigators in shared facilities or approved university core facilities. For the purposes of this program, the strategic areas include:

Space Science, Technology, and National Security
Promise of Fusion Energy
AI-driven Health Innovation
Future of Sustainable Mining and Critical Minerals
Arid Lands Agriculture and Water

Catalyst for Research Planning and Implementation Grants

The Catalyst Research Planning and Implementation program supports workshops, conferences, and symposia that bring experts and research collaborators together to discuss recent research or education findings to support the long-term planning of interdisciplinary, team science programs. Ultimately, these activities should enable the future submission of a high-quality and relevant research proposal to an external sponsor. ORP is particularly interested in funding workshops to further the University of Arizona’s Strategic Imperatives and Strategic Research Initiatives.

Community Engaged Partnership Grants

Accelerate for Success Grants are awarded to catalyze strategic transdisciplinary research programs-by creating teams, broadening partnerships, and supporting the proposed plan to result in proposal submission and successful funding. For FY21 there are three areas of focus, the implementation of the strategic plan, advancement of graduate and undergraduate research opportunities, and COVID-19 pandemic response.

Confluencenter Director's Fund for Excellence

The Director’s Fund for Excellence awards are intended to provide critical support for short-term collaborative projects undertaken by UA faculty and graduate students in the Colleges of Fine Arts (CFA), Humanities (COH), or Social & Behavioral Sciences (SBS), especially projects that reflect an interdisciplinary orientation or a commitment to public outreach.

Confluencenter Faculty Collaboration Grants

Faculty Collaboration Grants are seed grants intended to support creative, interdisciplinary projects that result in outcomes enabling researchers to apply for other external funding to continue and expand the project. Faculty from the Colleges of Fine Arts, Humanities, and Social Behavioral Sciences can apply for these grants if they have creative, collaborative, and interdisciplinary research to pursue.

Core Facilities Pilot Program

The CFPP is designed to support three key types of activity within the RII-managed core facilities. The program provides funding to facilitate early stage research program creation and development to enable interdisciplinary investigator groups to incubate promising new research ideas that will lead to new extramural funding. These groups should address broad interdisciplinary themes, convene on a regular basis and include researchers from multiple disciplines across campus. This is a quarterly program

Research Infrastructure Enhancement Grant

These grants are designed to add or augment research capacity through the acquisition of equipment for use by multiple investigators in shared facilities or approved university core facilities. The proposed equipment should have multiple committed users from at least two departments and preferably, from at least two different colleges. In extremely well justified cases, a single department request may be considered. Preference will be given to multi-department/multi-college equipment with a priority for equipment located in the RII Core Facilities.

George H. Davis Travel Fellowship

The Fellowship supports promising tenure-track faculty members (in any field) in becoming more widely recognized for their work and more closely connected with colleagues, nationally and internationally. In particular, the fellowship defrays costs associated with invited participation in a national or international professional meeting, where the awardee will present research findings, scholarship, and/or creative activities.

International Research Grants

International Research Grants are designed to jump-start either international research done by transdisciplinary collaborations, or the development of new academic programs in collaboration with international partner institutions. Applicants may request up to $30,000.

Through TRIF, or the Technology and Research Initiative Fund, the University of Arizona creates impactful solutions to state and global problems, prepares students for the workforce of tomorrow and contributes as one of the largest economic engines for Arizona. TRIF support the five following initiatives: Improving Health; Space Exploration & Optical Sciences; Water, Environmental, & Energy Solutions; Access & Workforce Development; and National Security Systems.