COVID-19 Funding Opportunities
Currently Available Funding Opportunities
Contact the program manager of the respective agency prior to applying.
The following is not a comprehensive list. We will add to the list as we learn about these opportunities for COVID-19 related research.
Federal Agencies
National Science Foundation (NSF)
- Dear Colleague Letter on the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
- This mechanism can also be used for research on the impact of COVID-19 on undergraduate education. Contact a program officer in DUE prior to applying.
- Dear Colleague Letter: Provisioning Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Further Research on the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)
- Dear Colleague Letter: Request for SBIR/STTR Phase I Proposals Addressing COVID-19
- COVID-19 HPC Consortium (through XSEDE): Potential benefits for COVID-19 response, Feasibility of the technical approach, Need for high-performance computing, High-performance computing knowledge and experience of the proposing team, Estimated computing resource requirements (rolling due date)
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
The NIH has made supplements available for currently funded projects; the parent project must be realistically related to the COVID-19 research, and must be in the original performance period (not in an extension). New funding opportunities are expected to be published on an ongoing basis.
- NOT-HL-20-757 (NHLBI)
- NOT-TR-20-011 (NCATS)
- NOT-DA-20-047 (NIDA)
- NOT-HS-20-007 (AHRQ)
- NOT-HS-20-008 (AHRQ)
- RFA-HS-20-003 (AHRQ): Novel, High-Impact Studies Evaluating Health System and Healthcare Professional Responsiveness to COVID-19 (R01)
- NOT-MD-20-019: Competitive and administrative supplements for the impact of COVID-19 outbreak on minority health and health disparities
- NIH COVID-19 related funding opportunities
- RFA-AA-20-009 on Alcohol-HIV/AIDS Program Project Comorbidities, Coinfections, and Complications Research: Intervention and Cross-Cutting Foundational Research (deadline of LOI: October 17, 2020).
- PA-18-591: Administrative supplements to existing NIH grants and cooperative agreements
- PA-18-935: Urgent competitive revision to existing NIH grants and cooperative agreements
- PA-20-135: Emergency competitive revision to existing NIH awards
- PAR 20-178 Emergency Awards: Rapid Investigation of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed) (rolling deadline)
- NOT-OD-20-097: Administrative supplements and urgent competitive revisions for research on the 2019 novel coronavirus and the behavioral and social sciences
- NOT-EB-20-007: Development of biomedical technologies for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
- NOT-EB-20-008: Emergency competitive revision and administrative supplements on biomedical technologies for coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19)
Health and Human Services (HHS)
- BARDA (Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority)
- National Infrastructure for Mitigating the Impact of COVID-19 within Racial and Ethnic Minority Communities (Budget up to $40,000,000 for 3 years; due date: May 11, 2020)
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)
Department of Defense (DOD)
- Prototype Development to Combat Novel Coronavirus Disease COVID-19
- Newton Award for Transformative Ideas during the COVID-19 Pandemic
- DARPA: DSO and BTO Joint Acquisition Task Force: COVID-19 Innovation Challenge
- Medical Technical Enterprise Consortium
- Office of the Director of National Intelligence
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity
Department of Energy (DOE)
- DOE COVID-19 Response Lead Request for Ideas
- Dear Colleague Letter—Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19): Through its user facilities, computational power, and enabling infrastructure, DOE has unique capabilities that the scientific community may leverage for the COVID-19 response and recovery. (rolling due date with review starting March 18, 2020)
- Brookhaven National Laboratory
- COVID-19 NSLS-II Rapid Access Proposal: The Center for Biomolecular Structure team is supporting remote macromolecular crystallography experiments at Beamlines 17-ID-1 (AMX) and 17-ID-2 (FMX) for research projects related to COVID-19 (rolling due date)
Department of State
- Combatting COVID-19 Pandemic and Proliferation Threats: Build Export Control and Related Border Security (EXBS) partner capacity to continue to safely prevent, contain, and mitigate threats and impacts posed by the rapid spread of destabilizing biological and chemical threats at national borders and points of entry, including infectious diseases such as COVID-19 (award ceiling: $5,000,000; due date May 29, 2020).
- DRL FY19 Countering Corruption amid COVID-19: The Bureau of Democracy Human Rights and Labor (DRL) announces an open competition for organizations interested in submitting applications in support of the goal of combatting corruption arising in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.t those sizes.
Foundations/Corporations
Cisco Research Center- RFP-20-04 Pandemic/COVID-19 Science, Technology and Social Impact Grants. Areas of interest include mathematical models for the spread and the impact of pandemics; scalable simulation techniques for pandemics; biomedical/nanosensor devices for detecting symptoms and agents; algorithms for rapid exploration of the drug screening and discovery workflows; advanced computational biology techniques for sequencing, detecting viral evolution; and algorithms and systems for contact tracing.
Draper Richards Kaplan Foundation
CETF and Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors
NDN Collective
Ferring Pharmaceuticals
American Diabetes Association
Rheumatology Research Foundation
- The Rheumatology Research Foundation is issuing a notice of special interest (NOSI) to highlight the availability of funds for projects exploring the relationships between rheumatic and musculoskeletal diseases and SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19.
American Lung Association
- COVID-19 and Emerging Respiratory Viruses Research Award (budget up to $100,000; due date May 30, 2020)
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
- Health Security & Pandemics Challenge (due date June 18, 2020)
Pfizer, Inc.
- COVID-19 Competitive Grant Program (budget $20,000-$250,000; due date May 22, 2020)
- Category A: Independent Medical Education Grants
- Category B: Quality & Process Improvement Grants
23andMe Research Innovation Collaboration Program
- COVID-19. These proposals can include studies of outcomes, comorbidities, health disparities, and impacts of policies implemented to address the pandemic (GWAS, Genetic Research) (Due Date: June 12, 2020)
Internet Society
- Emergency Response Programme: COVID-19 for projects that utilize the Internet to improve lives during or in response to an emergency situation (budget: $250,000 for 1 year; rolling due date until May 17, 2020)
Social Sciences Research Council (SSRC)
- Rapid-Response Grants on COVID-19 and the Social Sciences (awards will range from $2,000 to $5,000; due June 01, 2020)
Mercatus Center (George Mason University)
- COVID-19 Response: A Call for Ideas: Proposals for policy briefs, working papers, and articles that address the next round of challenges facing the United States and other countries in the response to the pandemic (rolling due date)
American Heart Association (AHA)
Russell Sage Foundation
Amazon Web Services (AWS)
Google (Google Cloud Research Credits)
Microsoft (C3.ai Institute)
- Economic Impact of Digital Technologies Request for Proposals: Addressing the economic consequences and implications of developing digital technologies for small businesses, specifically asks for Academic Proposals (budget: $50,000-$100,000; due date May 20, 2020)
Fast – Grants
- (Due to the large number of applications, this is currently paused.) Fast Funding for COVID-19 Science: If you are a scientist at an academic institution currently working on a COVID-19 related project and in need of funding, we invite you to apply for a Fast Grant. Fast Grants are $10k to $500k and decisions are made in under 48 hours.
Donaghue Foundation
- Greater Value Portfolio (Budget: $400,000 for a max of 2 years; LOI Due Date: May 11, 2020)
International Opportunities
The GrandChallenge
- Billion Molecules against COVID-19: Jedi GrandChallenge (Stage 1 deadline: June 6, 2020)
Merck KGaA (Germany)
- Research Grant for Pandemic Preparedness (deadline: August 31, 2020)
EdTech Hub
German Research Foundation (DFG)
- Call for Multidisciplinary Research into Epidemics and Pandemics in Response to the Outbreak of SARS-CoV-2 (LOI Due 07/01/2020; Applications Due 09/01/2020)
Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Mastercard
- COVID-19 Therapeutics Accelerator: Focus on clinical-phase research into a limited range of repurposed therapeutics with potential for pre-exposure prophylaxis in high-risk populations (particularly in healthcare settings); and post-exposure prophylaxis in mild/moderate cases
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act was signed into law on March 27. It will provide significant funding to “prevent, prepare for, and respond to coronavirus, domestically and internationally.” The bill includes funding for research. Some of the funds will be available to higher education. We will follow this closely and update you as opportunities come up.
The final bill is available here. The amounts appropriated for several federal agencies give an idea where funding opportunities should be expected:
- National Science Foundation: $76.0 million
- Department of Energy: $99.5 million
- National Endowment for the Arts: $75.0 million (60% of the funds are for direct grants)
- National Endowment for the Humanities: $75.0 million (60% of the funds are for direct grants)
- National Institutes of Health
- National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute: $103.4 million
- National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases: $706.0 million
- National Institute of Biomedical Imaging and Bioengineering: $ 60.0 million
- National Library of Medicine: $10.0 million
- National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences: $36.0 million
- Office of the Director: $30.0 million
- Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
- Health Surveillance and Program Support: $425.0 million
- At least $250.0 million will be made available for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinic Expansion Grant program
- At least $50.0 million will be made available for suicide prevention programs
- Health Surveillance and Program Support: $425.0 million
- Environmental Protection Agency: $1.5M for research methods on reducing the risks from environmental transmission of the coronavirus via contaminated services or materials.
- Department of Commerce, National Institute of Standards and Technology: $6M for Scientific and Technical Research And Services to support continuity of operations, including measurement science to support viral testing and biomanufacturing, $60M for Industrial Technology Services, and $10M for the National Network for Manufacturing Innovation to support development and manufacturing of medical countermeasures and biomedical equipment and supplies.
- Department of Commerce, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration: $20M for operations, research, and facilities.
- Department of Defense, Defense Health Program: $415M for research, development, testing and evaluation.
- Food and Drug Administration: $80M for work on medical counter-measures, therapies, vaccines, and research.
- Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response: $27B will go to the Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority (BARDA) to support research and development of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics to prevent or treat the effects of the novel coronavirus.