The Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR) works with Brown faculty and administrators to foster support for the University’s mission of research and service.
The Office of Corporate and Foundation Relations (CFR) works with Brown faculty and administrators to foster support for the University’s mission of research and service.
Our team manages key institutional relationships and collaborates with corporations and foundations to advance research and other initiatives that make a positive impact on campus and in the world.
Members of Brown’s faculty and administration are invited to contact CFR for help in identifying and developing an approach to foundation and corporate funding prospects, developing proposals, coordinating campus visits, navigating the submission process, and stewarding awards.
The foundation, in collaboration with the Hewlett, Spencer, and William T. Grant foundations, seeks to support innovative research on the aftermath of the 2023 Supreme Court decision striking down race-conscious college and university admissions policies. The initiative is focused on ways to promote educational attainment and economic mobility among racially, ethnically, and economically diverse groups following the court’s ruling that the declared that use of race-conscious admissions policies violates the Equal Protection Clause of the 14th Amendment and was, therefore, unconstitutional.
The foundation is especially interested in proposals that will advance social science research on the social, political, and economic effects of the Supreme Court decision and the future of race-conscious policies more generally. Analyses that make use of newly available data or demonstrate novel uses of existing data are of particular interest. Original data collection, such as surveys, field or survey experiments, in-depth qualitative interviews, and ethnographies will also be supported. This initiative encourages methodological variety and interdisciplinary collaboration. Proposals must have well-developed conceptual frameworks and research designs.
The Small Research Grants on Education Program supports education research projects that will contribute to the improvement of education, broadly conceived, with budgets up to $50,000 for projects ranging from one to five years. We accept applications three times per year.
This program is “field-initiated” in that proposal submissions are not in response to a specific request for a particular research topic, discipline, design, method, or location. Our goal for this program is to support rigorous, intellectually ambitious and technically sound research that is relevant to the most pressing questions and compelling opportunities in education.
Awards are structured as unrestricted gifts to the principal investigator's academic institution or organization and as such, Amazon retains no intellectual property rights to the resulting work. Recipients are encouraged to publish outcomes and commit related code to open-source repositories. Recipients are assigned an Amazon research contact who offers consultation and advice along with opportunities to participate in Amazon events and training sessions.
Priority Areas:
The Simons Foundation’s Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MPS) division invites applications for its Targeted Grants in MPS program. The program is intended to support high-risk theoretical mathematics, physics and computer science projects of exceptional promise and scientific importance on a case-by-case basis.