Find information about external funding opportunities for graduate student research, organized according to areas of study:
Funding Opportunities for Graduate Students in Any Program of Study
Program:
Agency: American Association of University WomenOne of the world's largest sources of funding exclusively for graduate women, the AAUW Educational Foundation supports aspiring scholars around the globe, teachers and activists in local communities, women at critical stages of their careers, and those pursuing professions where women are underrepresented.
Program:
Agency: US Department of Education
The program provides financial assistance to students who have demonstrated superior academic ability and achievement, exceptional promise, and financial need to undertake graduate study leading to a doctoral degree or a master's degree in which the master's degree is the terminal highest degree in the selected field of study.
Offers fellowships to qualified Native American and Alaskan Native students to pursue graduate degrees in all fields.
Arts, Humanities, International
Program:
Agency: Getty (J. Paul) Trust
Nonresidential grants allow scholars in art history, or directly allied fields the flexibility to pursue their research wherever necessary, not necessarily at the Research Library at the Getty Research Institute in Los Angeles.
Program:
Agency: Blakemore Foundation
Asian Art Grants support programs, exhibits, or publications to improve understanding of Asian fine arts in the US. Limited to China, Japan, Korea, Burma, Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, Tibet, Philippines, and Mongolia. Fellowships for Advanced Asian Language Study are for those pursuing academic, professional, or business careers that involve a modern East or SE Asia language.
Program:
Agency: CEC ArtsLink
Supports exchanges between artists and arts organizations in the U.S. and in Central/Eastern Europe, Russia, and Eurasia through three programs.
Program:
Agency: Folger Shakespeare Library
Provides long-term (six- to nine-month) residential fellowships for research in fields appropriate to the Folger's collection (British and European literary, cultural, political, religious, and social history of the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries).
Program:
Agency: Getty (J. Paul) Trust
Support established researchers of all nationalities who are working on projects related to a specific theme in the arts, humanities, or social sciences.
Program:
Agency: Social Science Research Council
Supports social scientists and humanists conducting dissertation field research in all areas and regions of the world. Applicants, regardless of citizenship, must be enrolled in a U.S. doctoral program and must have completed all coursework but the dissertation before the start of the fellowship.
Program:
Agency: U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum
Supports up to thirty visiting scholars for research on the Holocaust and genocide. Fields may include historiography and documentation, comparative genocide studies, and the impact of the Holocaust on contemporary society and culture. Disciplines may include history, political science, literature, philosophy, religion, sociology, psychology, and others.
Program:
Agency: Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Provides approximately twenty-eight fellowships of $18,000 each for one year of study on the ethical or religious values in all fields of the humanities and social sciences.
Program:
Agency: Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
Provides $3,000 for dissertation research in women's studies, including the evolution of women's role in society, women in history, psychology of women, and women as portrayed in literature.
Program:
Supports fellows for up to two years of graduate study in any subject anywhere within the United States. Candidates for these fellowships must be either holders of Green Cards, naturalized citizens, or children of two naturalized citizen parents. This fellowship provides $20,000 maintenance and half tuition.
Program:
Agency: TIAA-CREF Institute
This one-year fellowship will be award for graduate-level research related to the study of the African Diaspora by graduate students enrolled in an accredited U.S. college or university.
Program:
Agency: American Institute for Yemeni Studies
Awards pre- and post-doctoral fellowships (up to $10,000). No disciplinary restrictions exist, but funds must support research costs incurred in Yemen. Emphasis on feasibility studies and/or research projects for individual or collaborative group projects. Fellowships for U.S-based scholars restricted to U.S. citizens. Applications for ten weeks of Arabic language study in Yemen must be related to a research interest in Yemen.
Program:
Agency: The Newberry Library
Provides assistance to researchers who wish to use the library's collections, but who cannot finance a visit on their own. Most fellowships are restricted to doctoral candidates or post-doctoral researchers in the humanities.
Program:
Agency: The Library Company of Philadelphia
A fellowship designed to promote scholarship in early American economy and society, from its colonial beginnings to roughly the 1850s. Carries a stipend of $18,000 tenable for nine consecutive months of residency.
Program:
Agency: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation
Provides over two hundred fellowships averaging over $35,000 each to further the development of scholars and professionals in all fields (natural and social sciences, humanities, and creative arts), except the performing arts. Students are ineligible.
Program:
Agency: The Witter Bynner Foundation for Poetry
Organizations may apply for grant support from $1,000 to $10,000 for a maximum of three years for projects in the following areas: individual poets (selected by the poet laureate), developing the poetry audience, translation of poetry from languages not currently available to English readers, and the uses of poetry (dramatic, educational, therapeutic, etc.).
Offers substantial scholarships for the graduate education of young men and women of exceptional promise pursuing careers in the arts, humanities, and social sciences.
The John Carter Brown Library offers graduate fellowships for advanced research in history and the humanities.
Offers future American educators graduate fellowships for one year of research and study in Japan.
Offers fellowships to assist doctoral students and recent PhDs in their research on the cultural, social, communal, and intellectual history of German-speaking Jewry.
Offers several different short-term and long-term graduate and postdoctoral fellowships.
U. S.-
Offers George J. Michell Scholarships to graduate students who want to study or conduct research at an Ireland university of their choice.
Agency:
Offers both graduate students and scholars the opportunity to study Greek civilization first-hand in Greece.
Program:
This site presents funding for students concerned with African Studies.
Education, Community and Human Development, Business
Program:
Agency: Institute of Museum and Library Services
Encourages museums to use their collections, exhibits, and services to strengthen learning in the schools, in the home, and in partnership with community organizations.
Program:
Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Supports research that will identify and support new and ongoing interventions in mathematics and science education that improve math achievement for all students and close the achievement gaps in these academic areas.
Program:
Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Supports research that uses recent advances in cognitive science to address significant educational problems in order to establish a scientific foundation for educational practice by supporting research on key processes of attention, memory, and reasoning that are essential for academic achievement.
Program:
Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Program seeks to identify curriculum and instructional practices that are potentially effective for improving mathematics or science outcomes; develop new interventions and approaches to mathematics and science education; establish the efficacy of existing interventions and approaches; provide evidence on the effectiveness of mathematics and science interventions implemented at scale; and develop and validate assessments for mathematics and science learning.
Program:
Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Supports projects that provide training, courses, and/or programs leading to a degree or certificate in areas of personnel shortages in rehabilitation; or support for medical residents enrolled in residency training programs in the specialty of physical medicine and rehabilitation.
Program:
Agency: U.S. Department of Education
Supports projects to train interpreters who provide services for the deaf, hard of hearing, and deaf-blind. Absolute priorities for the national projects are for distance education as a medium for interpreter training (CFDA 84.160B).
Program:
Agency: American Educational Research Association
Supports the development of U.S. educational researchers using NCES and NSF data sets for basic, policy, and applied research. Programs include research grants, dissertation grants, and AERA Institute on Statistical Analysis for Education Policy. Awards vary, but include stipends, living/relocation expenses, and travel to meetings.
Program:
Offers a graduate summer fellowship program designed to place contemporary and future social justice struggles within a national and historical context.
Agency:
Offers financial assistance to minority students studying criminal justice. Applications are accepted from current college seniors and graduate students accepted into or enrolled in a program of doctoral studies in criminology.
Agency:
The American Political Science Association, founded in 1903, is the leading professional organization for the study of political science and serves more than 15,000 members in over eighty countries. With a range of programs and services for individuals, departments, and institutions, APSA brings together political scientists from all fields of inquiry, regions, and occupational endeavor.
Health and Mental Health
Program:
Agency: Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
Supports small grants (R03) for focused research projects, developmental studies & high risk projects in the areas of health care services & access to services. AHRQ is interested in research involving collaborative efforts between researchers & medical & public health or healthcare providers, purchasers or payer organizations.
Program:
Agency: American Psychological Foundation
Supports three awards: Wayne F. Placek Award provides up to $40,000 to two doctoral-level investigators & multiple Small Grant Awards of $5,000 for empirical research in all fields of behavioral & social science to increase the general public's understanding of homosexuality & to alleviate the stress that gay men & lesbians experience.
Program:
Agency: Association of Women's Health, Obstetric and Neonatal Nurses
Designed for novice researchers who are AWHONN members, program provides seed money, pilot funding, or total funding for small projects that offer promising contributions to nursing knowledge in clinical practice.
Program:
Agency: Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
Supports cooperative agreements (R13, U13) for non-federal conferences on the prevention of work-related illness, injury, disability, and death. Interests include disease (i.e., asthma, hearing loss, infectious diseases, injury) prevention & work environment & workforce issues.
Program:
Agency: Gerber Foundation
Supports specific nutrition-related interventions to improve infant health & development from 1st year before birth to age 3.
Program:
Agency: National Institutes of Health
All NIH Institutes, & the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, provide fellowships (F31) of up to 5 years for minority graduate students from all types of institutions to conduct biomedical, behavioral, or health services research leading to a PhD or MD/PhD.
Program:
Agency: National Institutes of Health
All NIH Institutes, along with the Agency for Healthcare Research & Quality, provide fellowships (F31) to students with disabilities for research training leading to the PhD or MD/PhD in the biomedical or behavioral sciences.
Program:
Agency: National Institutes of Health
NCCAM, NCI, & the Office of Dietary Supplements support research (R01, R15, R21) on CAM to provide a stronger foundation for ongoing & planned clinical studies.
Program:
Agency: Osteogenesis Imperfecta Foundation
Three programs support research on Osteogenesis Imperfecta (OI): Michael Geisman Research Fellowships provide up to $50,000/year for one or two years ($35,000 toward the investigator's salary & up to $15,000 per year for supplies); Seed Grants provide up to $60,000 for one year; and Clinical Seed Grants provide up to $120,000 for two years and support research at institutions as well as at OI Foundation's National Conference.
Agency:
Offers many funding prospects for graduate students in the field of psychology.
Science
Program:
Agency: American Museum of Natural History
Provides two hundred short-term awards that average $1,400 in support of advanced graduate students, recent PhDs, and established investigators in zoology, paleontology, anthropology, astrophysics, and earth and planetary sciences.
Program:
Agency: Joint Institute for Laboratory Astrophysics (JILA)
Provides opportunities to work with JILA university staff at the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Boulder for periods of four months to one year. Research at JILA involves collaboration between experimentalists and theorists and spans six areas: Atomic Physics, Chemical Physics, Materials Physics and Chemistry, Optical Physics, Precision Measurement, and Astrophysics.
Program:
Agency: National Science Foundation
Supports basic research in plant genomics, and to accelerate acquisition and utilization of new knowledge and innovative approaches to elucidate fundamental biological processes in plants. Focus on plants of economic importance and plant processes of economic value.
Agency: National Science Foundation
Program areas in the Division of Astronomical Sciences, supported primarily through individual investigator awards, include planetary astronomy, stellar astronomy and astrophysics, galactic astronomy, extragalactic astronomy, and cosmology.
Program:
Agency: National Science Foundation
Supports innovative experiments in materials-related education, such as inquiry-based learning, integration of research and education, and early workplace exposure.
Program:
Agency: National Science Foundation
Supports research to develop or improve statistical theory and methods (with applications to any area of science and engineering).
Program:
Agency: Smithsonian Institution
Supports programs in residence at the Tropical Research Institute in Panama in tropical biology, ecology, behavior and evolution of terrestrial and marine organisms, archeology, paleontology, and human ecology.
Program:
Agency: U.S. Department of Commerce
NOS supports two programs: Dr. Nancy Foster Scholarship ProgramFinancial Assistance for Grad Students; National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) Graduate Research Fellowship Program. The Foster program will offer approximately $160,000 for up to five awards.
Program:
Agency: National Science Foundation
Provides U.S. institutions with support for international research experiences and education for early career stages of scientists and engineers. Focus: support for International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) at the undergraduate and graduate levels and Doctoral Dissertation Enhancement Projects (DDEP).
Program:
Agency: American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS)
Provides a weekly stipend of $450 plus travel expenses for up to thirty Mass Media Fellows to work for ten weeks each summer as reporters, researchers, and production assistants in mass media organizations nationwide. Fellows attend a session at AAAS at the beginning and end of the program. Eligibility is limited to college students in their senior year or in any graduate or post-graduate program in the natural, physical, health, engineering, computer, social sciences, or mathematics fields.
Agency:
Offers three different dissertation and research grant programs to support doctoral dissertation research in geography.
Agency:
The purpose of the National Science Foundation's Graduate Research Fellowship Program is to ensure the vitality of the human resource base of science and engineering in the United States and to reinforce its diversity. The program recognizes and supports outstanding graduate students in the relevant science, technology, engineering, and mathematics disciplines who are pursuing research-based master's and doctoral degrees, including women in engineering and computer and information science.
Related Websites
This contains databases that provide the latest information on foundations and grants as well as workshops for orientations concerning the funding research process.
This is an organization of institutions of higher education in the United States, Canada, and across the globe engaged in graduate education, research scholarship, and the preparation of candidates for advanced degrees.
A web page that lists many books which are full of fellowships for graduate students.
IUP Financial Aid
Here, graduate students can find numerous sources of scholarships and fellowships from IUP, state and federal governments, foundations, clubs and organizations, religious groups, and other entities.
Offers the Ambassadorial Scholarships program to further international understanding and friendly relations among people of different countries. There are several types of scholarships for undergraduate and graduate students as well as for qualified professionals pursuing vocational studies.
This database is searchable by state and locates information on colleges (address, phone number, web address, and financial aid information).
Grants.gov provides grant opportunities offered by the U.S. government.