Funding Opportunities

The USC Office of Research offers faculty, postdoctoral fellows, and research administrators a wide range of information on funding sources for research and other scholarly projects. Below are several funding tools to assist research endeavors.

INSTITUTIONALLY LIMITED EXTERNAL COMPETITIONS

These are competitions for awards by outside agencies for which USC can nominate a limited number of candidates. Applications for any of the awards listed here must be submitted to the Office of Research using the USC application portal (https://app.wizehive.com/webform/USCgrants). Applications will go through an internal review process and candidates must receive approval from the USC administration prior to submission to the sponsoring agency.

Investigators who independently identify limited submission funding opportunities cannot apply directly to the external sponsor and are requested to provide the Office of Research (vprsch@usc.edu) with the funding opportunity information as soon as it is identified.

List of Previous Nominees

Please note: Internal USC application deadlines are typically at least one month in advance of the sponsoring agency’s own deadlines due to the time required for the internal review process.

INTERNAL RESEARCH AWARDS

USC Research Awards

FELLOWSHIPS AND GRANTS IN HUMANITIES & SOCIAL SCIENCES

A list of foundations and other entities that provide funding opportunities in the humanities, arts and sciences can be found in the link below. Information is also provided on grant writing mentorship programs that support submission of proposals to these organizations.

List of Foundations

FUNDING DATABASES

Researchers seeking funding opportunities can use sponsored research opportunity databases to locate funding awards for which they are eligible. USC subscribes to a grant database called Grant Forward. In addition, several other databases that are useful to investigators are listed below as well.

Grant Forward is a grant database where users can search for funding opportunities (federal-, state-, foundation- and institution-sponsored research) across all fields, including the sciences, humanities, and arts. Grant Forward membership is free to all USC employees. Creating an account is a simple two-step process – just follow the instructions in the New User Quick Guide.Grant Forward also allows you to create a detailed user profile. Once created, funding opportunities that match the user’s research interests are automatically identified and displayed in the Recommendations section. For further information, click here.For additional questions, please contact the Grant Forward Support Desk at 217-864-8378 (9-6 CT Monday-Friday) or by email.
Dimensions is a linked research data platform that the USC Office of Research has licensed for the benefit of our research community. Dimensions helps you search and compare research grants, patents, clinical trials and publications by topic and keyword, drawing from many sources.
Foundation Center RFP Bulletin: Listing of upcoming requests for proposals (RFPs) from philanthropic sources, sorted by subject. Also, Foundation Center site maintains a comprehensive list of foundations and philanthropic organizations.