Sponsored Grants and Research Opportunities

The New School now has COS Pivot (PDF). Read the overview of this searchable database and see how it works.

Are you a faculty member interested in applying for external funding? Complete the Intent to Apply Form for sponsored research, programs, and projects. See the FAQ (PDF), and review the required university application process to learn more.

COS Pivot, one of the largest databases of public and private grants and awards, is now available to all New School faculty, graduate students, and research staff with the university subscription. COS Pivot is searchable by discipline, amount, deadline, purpose of grant, and other filters. With the university subscription, all New School faculty, students, and staff have unlimited access to COS Pivot. Faculty researchers also have the option to claim or update a profile in Pivot, which allows for targeted recommendations.

Click here (PDF) for tips on advanced searching.

Contact ProvostFRF@newschool.edu if you would like to request a training session with your department on COS Pivot.

Members of the faculty are encouraged to review the monthly "Grants Advisor" (pdf). Contact the University Development Office for the latest issue.

 

This list of funding opportunities below is updated on a regular basis. Check back often.

Arts, Media, and Design [+]


Manhattan Community Arts Fund (MCAF) 
Grant Title
 Commissioning Music/USA
Sponsor
 New Music USA
Deadline
 March 19, 2013
Amount
 $20,000
URL
 New Music USA
Description:
 Commissioning Music/USA supports not-for-profit performing and presenting organizations that wish to commission a new work in any style or genre. The program provides full or partial commissioning fees primarily for composers as well as technical assistance regarding contracts, copyright, collaboration issues, and other areas where needed.
 
Grant Title
 Women's Film Preservation Fund (WFPF) 

Sponsor
 New York Women in Film and Television (NYWIFT)
Deadline
 March 1, 2013
Amount
  
URL
 NYWIFT
Description:
The fund seeks proposals for the preservation or restoration of American films, from any era, in which women have held significant creative positions, including but not limited to, writing, directing, producing, editing, and performing. Films may be of any length, on any subject matter and in any format or base.

The mission of the Women's Film Preservation Fund is to:

  • identify and preserve Americans films in which women have played a significant creative role;
  • present these restored films publicly as a way to increase awareness of women's contribution to medium and the importance of film preservation;
  • contribute to enhanced knowledge of the important role of women in film history; and,
  • work with organizations with similar goals, sharing resources and information.
 
 
Grant Title Visual and Film/Video Grants        
Sponsor Creative Capital Foundation
Deadline March 1, 2013
Amount $87,000
URL Creative Capital
Description:
Creative Capital is the only national grant-making and artist service organization for individual artists with an open application process.

Film/Video may include animation, experimental film or video, installation, interdisciplinary projects, non-traditional documentary or narrative. Projects may be intended for projection, hand-held devices, the web, television, galleries, etc.

Visual Arts may include architecture/design, contemporary crafts, installation, interdisciplinary projects, moving image, painting, photo-based work, public art, sculpture or works on paper. Projects may be site-specific or intended for display in galleries, on the web, etc.
 
Grant Title  New Media Women Entrepreneurs
Sponsor McCormick Foundation
Deadline January 27, 2013
Amount $12,000
URL New Media Women
Description:
The fund supports individuals who have original ideas to create new Web sites, mobile news services, or other entrepreneurial initiatives that offer interactive opportunities to engage, inspire and improve news and information in a geographic community or a community of interest.

Funding is available for start-ups only.
   
Grant Title Artist Grants      
Sponsor Puffin Foundation, Ltd.
Deadline December 30, 2012
Amount $2,500
URL Puffin Foundation
Description:
The Puffin Foundation Ltd. continues to make grants that encourage emerging artists whose works might have difficulty being aired due to their genre and/or social philosophy. The Foundation does not have the means to fund large film/documentary proposals, grants for travel, continuing education, or the writing or publishing of books. Starting in 2011, the Foundation implemented a new two-year grant cycle for specific artistic disciplines. The Foundation will review grants only in the following disciplines this year: theater, music, and photography.
 
Grant Title Creative Work Fund      
Sponsor Haas Fund, Walter and Elise
Deadline  December 2, 2012
Amount  $40,000
URL Creative Work Fund
Description:
The Creative Work Fund invites artists and nonprofit organizations to create new art works through collaborations. It celebrates the role of artists as problem solvers and the making of art as a profound contribution to intellectual inquiry and to the strengthening of communities. Artists are encouraged to collaborate with nonprofit organizations of all kinds.
 
Grant Title Documentary Film      
Sponsor MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T. General Grantmaking 
Deadline December 2, 2012
Amount  
URL MacArthur
Description: The program seeks to fund documentary projects that address the significant social challenges of our time or explore important but under-reported topics. Domestic and international topics are welcome, and preference will be given to projects that align with one of MacArthur's grantmaking areas. Support will be provided primarily for production and post-production activities, and to experienced filmmakers based in the U.S. with a track record of completing feature-length films that have been broadcast nationally and internationally.
 
Grant Title Education Grants
Sponsor Shubert Foundation
Deadline October 17, 2012
Amount  
URL Shubert Foundation
Description: A limited number of grants are made to graduate drama departments of private universities. These departments are evaluated principally in terms of their ability to train and develop theatre artists.
 
Grant Title Art-in-Education Fellowship
Sponsor Women's Studio Workshop (WSW)
Deadline October 15, 2012
Amount  
URL

WSW
Description: This opportunity is for artists with teaching experience and knowledge of intaglio, silkscreen, or hand papermaking who are interested in creating their own work while also working with local public school students. 

Women's Studio Workshop's Art-In-Education Program, Hands-on-Art (HOA), is a collaboration with the Kingston City School District and has become a national model for arts education. HOA provides a high quality arts experience by bringing students to a professional arts space to spend concentrated time learning printmaking, papermaking, and book arts.
 
Grant Title Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants
Sponsor  National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities, National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH), Office of Digital Humanities (ODH)
Deadline September 27, 2012
Amount $50,000
URL NEH
Description: The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) invites applications to the Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants program. This program is designed to encourage innovations in the digital humanities. By awarding relatively small grants to support the planning stages, NEH aims to encourage the development of innovative projects that promise to benefit the humanities. Proposals should be for the planning or initial stages of digital initiatives in any area of the humanities.
 
Grant Title Manhattan Community Arts Fund (MCAF)
Deadline September 13, 2012 
Amount $5,000
URL LMCC
Description: MCAF supports local arts organizations and artists that have little access to government funding sources. MCAF is funded by the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA). The program seeks to provide local seed grants for individual artists, collectives, and small arts organizations to bring high quality arts projects to Manhattan communities. The program supports projects and activities that will enable the public to directly experience and engage with the arts.
 
Grant Title Fund for Creative Communities
Sponsor Lower Manhattan Cultural Council (LMCC)
Deadline September 13, 2012
Amount  $5,000
URL LMCC 
Description:
The Fund for Creative Communities supports small and mid-sized nonprofit organizations that provide high-quality local arts programs. The Fund also seeks to increase access to arts and cultural activities in neighborhoods throughout Manhattan and to encourage new arts activities in communities where the need exists. Projects funded in the past include concerts, performances, public art, exhibitions, screenings, festivals, workshops, and readings.
 
Grant Title NEA Arts in Media
Sponsor National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
Deadline September 6, 2012
Amount $200,000
URL NEA
Description: Grants are available to support the development, production, and national distribution of innovative media projects about the arts (e.g., visual arts, music, dance, literature, design, theater, musical theater, opera, folk and traditional arts, and media arts including film, audio, animation, and digital art) and media projects that can be considered works of art. The NEA is seeking and will give priority to artistically excellent projects that have the potential to reach a significant national audience through their primary platform, regardless of the size or geographic location of the applicant organization. 
 
Grant Title J.J. Reneaux- Emerging Artist Grant
Sponsor National Storytelling Network
Deadline September 6, 2012
Amount $1,000
URL Storytelling Network
Description: The JJ Reneaux Emerging Artist Fund supports two different grant programs, both of which provide funds for activities to advance storytelling skills. The Emerging Artist Grant is awarded to a storyteller of major and unique performing talent who has not yet received wide public recognition. 
 
Grant Title Bridging Cultures Through Film
Sponsor National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Deadline June 29, 2012
Amount $800,000
URL Bridging Cultures
Description:
The Bridging Cultures through Film: International Topics program supports projects that examine international and transnational themes in the humanities through documentary films. These projects are meant to spark Americans' engagement with the broader world by exploring one or more countries and cultures outside of the United States. Proposed documentaries must be analytical and deeply grounded in humanities scholarship. The Division of Public Programs encourages the exploration of innovative nonfiction storytelling that presents multiple points of view in creative formats. The proposed film must range in length from a stand-alone broadcast hour to a feature-length documentary.
 
Grant Title Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film
Sponsor Foundation for Jewish Culture
Deadline June 22, 2012
Amount $50,000
URL Jewish Culture
Description: The Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film provides grants for the completion of original documentary films that promote thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity. The priority of the fund is to support projects in the latter stages of post-production that address significant subjects, offer fresh, challenging perspectives, engage audiences across cultural lines, and expand the understanding of Jewish experience.
   
Grant Title Creative Capital.Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant
Sponsor Creative Capital Foundation
Deadline June 6, 2012
Amount $50,000
URL  
Description: The Arts Writers Grant Program supports individual writers whose work addresses contemporary visual art through grants in the following categories: articles, blogs, books, new and alternative media, and short-form writing. It aims to support the broad spectrum of writing on contemporary visual art, from general-audience criticism to academic scholarship. The Arts Writers Grant Program aims to strengthen the field as a whole and to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging the visual arts.
   
Grant Title Grants for Artists and Arts-Related Organizations
Sponsor Celebration Foundation
Deadline June 1, 2012
Amount $10,000
URL Celebration Foundation
Description: The Celebration Foundation looks for highly motivated artists who are working with projects to further their artistic development and accomplishments in their given field of creative endeavor. Recipients are chosen on the basis of integrity and performance and on the extensive written application for the grant.
   
Grant Title Zildjian Family Opportunity Fund
Sponsor Percussion Arts Society (PAS)
Deadline June 1, 2012
Amount $3,000
URL PAS
Description: The purpose of the fund is to provide funding for percussion-based presentations directed to underserved youth, ages preschool through high school. Utilizing outstanding percussion presenters, programs are to be presented at schools, community centers, or other publicly accessible facilities at no charge to participants. Awards will be granted based on artistic quality, content of presentation, and demonstrated ability to carry out the proposal as submitted.

General Humanities [+]

Grant Title Literature Fellowships: Creative Writing
Sponsor National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA) 
Literature Fellowships
Deadline March 1, 2013
Amount $25,000
URL NEA
Description:
The NEA Literature Fellowships program offers grants in prose (fiction and creative nonfiction) and poetry to published creative writers that enable the recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. The NEA Literature Fellowships program operates on a two-year cycle with fellowships in prose and poetry available in alternating years. For FY 2013, fellowships in poetry are available. Fellowships in prose will be offered in FY 2014 and guidelines will be available in the fall of 2012.

 
Grant Title Literature Fellowships: Translation Projects
Sponsor National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities
National Endowment for the Arts (NEA)
Literature Fellowships
Deadline 5-Jan-2013
Amount $25,000
URL NEA
Description:
Through fellowships to published translators, the Arts Endowment supports projects for the translation of specific works of prose, poetry, or drama from other languages into English. The Arts Endowment encourages translations of writers and of work that are not well represented in English translation. All proposed projects must be for creative translations of published literary material into English. The work to be translated should be of interest for its literary excellence and value. Priority will be given to projects that involve work that has not yet been translated into English.
 
Grant Title Youth Garden Grant Program
Sponsor National Gardening Association
Deadline November 28, 2012
Amount $1,000
URL Kids Gardening
Description:
NGA awards Youth Garden Grants to schools and community organizations with child-centered garden programs. In evaluating grant applications, priority will be given to programs that emphasize one or more of these elements:
1. Educational focus or curricular and program integration
2. Nutrition or plant-to-food connections
3. Environmental awareness and education
4. Entrepreneurship
5. Social aspects of gardening such as leadership development, team building, community support, or service-learning
 
Grant Title State Farm Good Neighbor Service-Learning Grants
Sponsor Youth Service America (YSA)
Deadline November 9, 2012
Amount $1,000
URL YSA
Description:
State Farm is proud to team up with Youth Service America to offer grants for youth-led service-learning initiatives in all 50 states and the District of Columbia, and in the Canadian provinces of Alberta, Ontario, and New Brunswick. Each grant engages participating youth in service-learning, an effective teaching and learning strategy that promotes student learning, academic achievement, workplace readiness, and stronger communities.

 
Grant Title United Health HEROES Service Learning Grants
Sponsor Youth Service America
Deadline October 17, 2012
Amount $2,000
URL YSA
Description:
The UnitedHealth HEROES program is a service-learning, health literacy initiative developed by UnitedHealthcare and YSA. The program awards grants to help youth, ages 5 to 25, create and implement local, hands-on programs to fight childhood obesity.
 
Grant Title Discovery Research K-12
Sponsor National Science Foundation (NSF)
Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR)
Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) 
Amount $4,000,000
URL NSF
Description:
The DRK-12 program seeks to significantly enhance the learning and teaching of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) by preK-12 students, teachers, administrators, and parents. All DRK-12 projects should be framed around a research question or hypothesis that addresses an important need or topic in preK-12 STEM education. DRK-12 invites proposals that address immediate challenges that are facing preK-12 STEM education as well as those that anticipate a radically different structure and function of preK-12 teaching and learning. DRK-12 especially encourages proposals that challenge existing assumptions about learning and teaching within or across STEM fields, envision the future needs of learners, and consider new and innovative ways to support student and teacher learning. DRK-12 is particularly interested in projects that hold promise for identifying and developing the next generation of STEM innovators.
 
Grant Title
 Seminars on Teaching About Japan
Sponsor Association for Asian Studies, Inc. (AAS)
Northeast Asia Council (NEAC)
AAS NEAC Japan Studies Grants
Deadline October 1, 2012
Amount  $5,000
URL NEAC
Description: The NEAC, in conjunction with the Japan-United States Friendship Commission, supports a variety of grant programs in Japanese studies designed to facilitate the research of individual scholars, to improve the quality of teaching about Japan on both the college and precollege levels, and to integrate the study of Japan into the major academic disciplines. Projects should be designed to promote public and scholarly knowledge about Japan, including seminars and workshops designed to improve Japanese language teaching and pedagogy in Japanese studies.
 
Grant Title Enduring Questions
Sponsor National Foundation for the Arts and the Humanities
National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH)
Division of Education Programs
Deadline  September 15, 2012
Amount  $25,000
URL NEH
Description:
The NEH Enduring Questions grant program supports the development of a new course that will foster intellectual community through the study of an enduring question. This course will encourage undergraduates and teachers to grapple with a fundamental question addressed by the humanities, and to join together in a deep and sustained program of reading in order to encounter influential thinkers over the centuries and into the present day.

 
Grant Title Economics Program
Sponsor
National Science Foundation (NSF)
Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE)
Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES)
Deadline August 18, 2012
Amount  
URL NSF
Description:
The program supports research designed to improve the understanding of the processes and institutions of the U.S. economy and of the world system of which it is a part. This program also strengthens both empirical and theoretical economic analysis as well as the methods for rigorous research on economic behavior. It supports research in almost every area of economics, including econometrics, economic history, environmental economics, finance, industrial organization, international economics, labor economics, macroeconomics, mathematical economics, and public finance.
 
Grant Title Study of the United States in Japan
Sponsor Japan-United States Friendship Commission (JUSFC)
Amount N/A
URL JUSFC
Description: The commission has committed itself to the development of both institutional and individual expertise in the Japanese academic community in the study of the United States. The commission will consider support in the following project areas:
- Exchanges between Academic Organizations in the two countries
- Research Projects on the Study of the United States
- Research Center Development
- Faculty Development
- Curriculum Development
- Conferences and Seminars

The commission supports programs of bilateral exchanges at the highest institutional levels of scholarly expertise in order to contribute to an understanding in Japan of important aspects of current American cultural and intellectual life, and of social, political and economic conditions in the United States. Such exchanges should foster as well an understanding of the current interdisciplinary and theoretical approaches to these subjects as practiced in the American academic community.
 
Grant Title Cultural and Heritage Grant Awards
Sponsor National Italian American Foundation (NIAF)
Deadline June 30, 2012
Amount $15,000
URL NIAF
Description:
These awards are available to to individuals and organizations pursuing projects to promote, research, educate, or preserve Italian American culture, history, or heritage. Examples include documentaries, doctoral research, exhibits, conferences, books, media stereotyping/antidefamation surveys, campaigns, etc., plays, and course syllabi.
 
Grant Title
Dear Colleague Letter - CREATIV: Creative Research Awards for Transformative Interdisciplinary Ventures
Sponsor National Science Foundation (NSF)
Deadline June 15, 2012
Amount $25,000
URL NSF
Description:
Creative Research Awards for Transformative Interdisciplinary Ventures (CREATIV) is a pilot grant mechanism under the Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) initiative, to support bold interdisciplinary projects in all NSF-supported areas of science, engineering, and education research. Proposals on any NSF-supported topic will be accepted.
 
Grant Title Creative Capital/Warhol Foundation Arts Writers Grant
Sponsor  Creative Capital Foundation
Deadline June 6, 2012
Amount  $50,000
URL Arts Writers
Description: The Arts Writers Grant Program supports individual writers whose work addresses contemporary visual art through grants in the following categories: articles, blogs, books, new and alternative media, and short-form writing. It aims to support the broad spectrum of writing on contemporary visual art, from general-audience criticism to academic scholarship. Designed to encourage and reward writing about contemporary art that is rigorous, passionate, eloquent and precise, as well as to create a broader audience for arts writing, the Arts Writers Grant Program aims to strengthen the field as a whole and to ensure that critical writing remains a valued mode of engaging the visual arts. 
 
Grant Title Publishing Historical Records
Sponsor National Archives and Records Administration (NARA)
National Historical Publications and Records Commission (NHPRC)
Deadline June 9, 2012
Amount  $250,000
URL Archives
Description:
The NHPRC seeks proposals to publish historical records of national significance. Projects may focus on the papers of major figures from American life or cover broad historical movements in politics, military, business, social reform, the arts, and other aspects of the national experience. The historical value of the records and their expected usefulness to broad audiences must justify the costs of the project. Grants are awarded for collecting, describing, preserving, compiling, editing, and publishing documentary source materials.

Policy, Management, and Public Affairs [+]

Grant Title UnitedHealth HEROES ServiceLearning Grants
Sponsor Youth Service America (YSA)
Deadline Oct 17, 2012
Amount $2,000
URL YSA
Description:
The UnitedHealth HEROES program is a service-learning, health literacy initiative developed by UnitedHealthcare and YSA. The program awards grants to help youth, ages 5 to 25, create and implement local, hands-on programs to fight childhood obesity.
 
Grant Title Media Grantmaking- Documentary Film Grants

 Sponsor		 MacArthur Foundation, John D. and Catherine T.
Deadline June 1, 2012
Amount $200,000
URL MacArthur Foundation
Description: The program seeks to fund documentary film projects that address the significant social challenges of our time or explore important but under-reported topics. Domestic and international topics are welcome; preference will be given to projects that align with one of MacArthur's grantmaking areas. Support will be provided primarily for production and post-production activities (though some of the funds may be used for pre-production or outreach activities). Documentary stories that will be told both in film and a second medium are especially encouraged.
 
Grant Title Service Grants
Sponsor Taproot Foundation
Deadline June 1, 2012
Amount N/A
URL  Taproot Foundation 
Description:
The foundation's projects provide high potential nonprofits in the Chicago, Los Angeles, New York City, San Francisco, and Washington, D.C. metro areas with the tools and services to strengthen their organizations and serve their communities.

The applying organization must work within one of Tatproot Foundation issue areas:
1. Arts—providing leadership or education in the art community, while making the arts more accessible to everyone.
2. Education—strengthening the public education (pre-K and K-12) system or enhancing the educational success of students.
3. Environment—preserving and restoring the environment or caring for animal welfare. 
4. Health—improving people's physical or emotional health.
5. Social Services—providing social services to those who have been unable to participate fully in the social and economic life of the community. Services usually target children and families, employment and training, the elderly, immigrants, the disabled, housing and homelessness, or foster and adoption services.
 

Social and Behavioral Sciences [+]

Grant Title Cultural Anthropology
Sponsor National Science Foundation (NSF)
Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE)
Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
Cultural Anthropology
Deadline August 15, 2012
Amount $450,000
URL NSF
Description:
This program supports basic scientific research about the causes, consequences, and complexities of human social and cultural variability. Cultural anthropologists analyze human social and cultural behavior holistically. This integrated approach makes anthropology a valuable research tool for understanding the modern world. Because cultural patterns are emergent over time and space, there is no single natural scale for ethnographic and ethnological analysis. In some cases, cultural patterns may emerge from the collective behavior of large ensembles of smaller scale units; in others, they may be imposed by larger scale constraints. The origins of social and cultural variability may be remote from the scale at which they are observed. Therefore, research may target any appropriate scale or scales from local to regional to global. The program encourages innovative research that contributes to building spatially and temporally specific theory that extends understanding beyond individual case studies.
 
Grant Title Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film
Sponsor Foundation for Jewish Culture

Artistic Pursuit
Deadline July 22, 2012
Amount $50,000
URL Jewish Culture
Description: The Lynn and Jules Kroll Fund for Jewish Documentary Film provides grants for the completion of original documentary films that promote thoughtful consideration of Jewish history, life, culture, and identity. The priority of the fund is to support projects in the latter stages of post-production that address significant subjects; offer fresh, challenging perspectives; engage audiences across cultural lines; and expand the understanding of Jewish experience.
 
Grant Title Developmental and Learning Sciences (DLS)
Sponsor National Science Foundation (NSF)
Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE)
Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
Deadline July 15, 2012
Amount $100,000
URL NSF
Description: DLS supports fundamental research that increases our understanding of cognitive, linguistic, social, cultural, and biological processes related to children's and adolescents' development and learning. Research supported by this program will add to our basic knowledge of how people learn and the underlying developmental processes that support learning, with the objective of leading to better educated children and adolescents who grow up to take productive roles as workers and as citizens.

Collaborative Funding Opportunities

Click herefor a comprehensive list of research grant opportunities for large, collaborative, cross-disciplinary, and team-based work, compiled by the National Organization of Research Development Professionals.  NORDP  provides information and resources to facilitate interdisciplinary research and collaborative partnerships. (Note: most of these opportunities are focused on the sciences, though social sciences and other fields are included.)