In support of COVID-19, North American government agencies are funding research grant opportunities. Find which grant will work for your research.
COVID-19 has demonstrated the importance of being proactive when it comes to curbing the impact of widespread illness and disease. To find solutions to human diseases and fully understand how a virus exerts its effects, hundreds of research techniques are needed. These techniques include computational predictions, biomolecular analysis, and clinical studies. However, accessing the appropriate instrumentation for these techniques has become increasingly difficult. There has been a decline in public funding allocated towards research over the last decade1 and only about 20% of grant applications are currently being funded. As a result of limited funding resources, strong grant writing skills are essential for catching a reviewer’s eye and getting your projects off the ground. In this article, we’ve compiled several grant opportunities and writing tips which will help you be successful in the current funding environment.
Academic Funding Opportunities for COVID-19 Research
Academic researchers worldwide need to collaborate to find solutions for this viral outbreak. In support, many government agencies are offering grant opportunities to address the health challenges caused by SARS-CoV-2.
Funding sources for researchers working on COVID-19 in the United States:
- COVID-19 Funding Opportunities is a list of grant announcements and the deadlines associated with each grant. This list is consistently updated with new grants related to COVID-19 research
Funding sources for researchers working on COVID-19 in Canada:
- NSERC Alliance grant is a federal initiative that funds partnerships between Canadian researchers and forward-thinking industry leaders to support pandemic related research. Nicoya is partnering with Canadian researchers to help them obtain high-quality binding kinetics data and accelerate their COVID-19 discoveries. If you’re doing research on COVID-19 and having access to Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) in your lab would be valuable to your research effort, we would be interested in partnering on this funding application with you. Please contact an Application Scientist to get help with your NSERC grant application.
- COVID-19 Resources Canada is an up-to-date list of the latest funding opportunities for Canadian scientists.
- Provincial COVID-19 resources break down each of the province’s individual funding opportunities and how to apply.
Funding sources for researchers working on COVID-19 outside of North America:
- Reach out to our international distributors to learn more about grant opportunities outside of the United States and Canada.
Academic Funding Opportunities Outside of COVID-19 Research
If your current projects are separate from SARS-CoV-2 research, government agency websites have other research grants available.
Funding sources for researchers not working on COVID-19 in the United States:
- Grants.gov lists all the current funding opportunities from 26 agencies of the United States government. This is free and doesn’t require a subscription.
- The National Institutes of Health (NIH) is the largest funder of biomedical research in the world. NIH also has an advanced search page which offers extensive search options.
- The National Science Foundation (NSF) is an independent federal agency that funds about 20 percent of all federally supported basic research at colleges and universities.
Funding sources for researchers not working on COVID-19 in Canada:
- Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) is the major federal agency responsible for funding health and medical research in Canada.
- Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) is the major funding source in Canada for both students and professors.
- GrantWatch adds updated grants daily and encompasses all major grant opportunities in Canada.
- Innovation.ca is a Canadian foundation with a mandate to increase the capacity of Canada’s research institutions to carry out high-quality research.
Industry Funding Opportunities for COVID-19 Research
If you are an industry researcher, it can feel difficult to find opportunities to advance your SARS-CoV-2 research. In the United States, private corporations fund a large amount of research and technology, particularly in the biomedical and pharmaceutical sectors. Currently, many countries are providing support towards research involving COVID-19. In the commercial healthcare industry, small business loans are being provided to create new diagnostic techniques, antiviral therapeutics, and vaccines. Conversely, the far-reaching economic effects of the virus are forcing the suspension of many biotech companies that are not working on COVID-19.
Many research projects in the biopharmaceutical industry are funded by both the private and public sectors. With commercial research being integrally tied to healthcare in the United States, NIH research grants are a great option for funding regardless of your affiliation.
List of funding resources for industry researchers in the United States:
- The Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program helps smaller companies kick start their projects.
- The Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) program pairs applicants with research institutions in addition to funding their projects.
List of funding resources for industry researchers in Canada:
- The Government of Canada provides support for businesses through grants and other incentives.
Grant Writing Tips
It can be stressful to think about writing grants right now, so here are some other helpful resources that will give you some direction on where to start and some tips to strengthen your grant writing skills.
- Science Magazine gives valuable insight and resources on the search for funding, including a special feature on grant writing in tight times.
Strengthen Your Grant Proposal with Binding Kinetics Data
With the combination of all these tips and tricks, we’re sure you have an award-winning grant proposal ready to submit. As a final note, including quantitative binding kinetics over simple yes/no binding data is becoming more prevalent within research publications and is crucial in developing a solution for COVID-19. SPR is a label-free technique that provides you with real-time data and is more accessible than ever with OpenSPR™ and Alto™. If you’re currently working with SPR or interested in learning more, Nicoya is offering complimentary technical support to help researchers with everything from experimental design to data analysis during COVID-19.