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.
We are primarily, but not exclusively, interested in activities that build connections between basic and early biomedical scientific approaches and ecological, environmental, geological, geographic, and planetary-scale thinking, as well as with population-focused fields, including epidemiology and public health, demography, economics, and urban planning. Also of interest is work piloting new approaches or interactions aimed at reducing the impact of health-centered activities, such as developing more sustainable systems for healthcare, care delivery, and biomedical research.
Another area of interest is preparation for the impacts of extreme weather and other crises that can lead to large-scale disruptions, immediately affecting human health and the delivery of healthcare. Public outreach, climate communication, and education efforts focused on the intersection of climate and health are also appropriate for this call. This program supports work conceived through many kinds of creative thinking. Successful applicants include academic scientists, physicians, and public health experts, community organizations, science outreach centers, non-biomedical academic departments, and more.
RSF will accept letters of inquiry (LOIs) under the core programs for Behavioral Science and Decision Making in Context and Race, Ethnicity, and Immigration. The foundation will also accept LOIs under its special initiatives on Immigration and Immigrant Integration and Implications of the 2023 Supreme Court Decision to Ban Race-Conscious Admissions at Colleges and Universities for Educational Attainment and Economic Mobility.
LOIs must include specific information about the proposed data and research design. After peer review, about 15% of those who submit an LOI will receive an invitation to submit a proposal. If you are unsure about the foundation's expectations, we strongly recommend that you review the grant writing guidelines on our website and also view an instructional webinar.
The Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Research Alliance (PSSCRA) is dedicated to accelerating cures for cancer by advancing the pursuit of innovative cancer research and by facilitating collaborations between the science and business communities. PSSCRA seeks to guide philanthropic funds to feed critical scientific discoveries, attracting like-minded investors to the cause of fighting cancer and creating a pipeline for early-stage biomedical investments.
Annually, it awards the Pershing Square Sohn Cancer Prize, which provides early-career scientists in the USA the freedom to take risks and pursue their boldest research at a stage when traditional funding is lacking. In the quest for cures, the Prize accelerates the collaboration between academia and industry. Prize winners each receive $250,000 a year for three years. A minimum of six prizes will be awarded annually, depending on the quality of the proposals.
In addition to receiving funding, Prize winners are given access to a unique network and are invited to participate in select programs, including:
Scientific software is a critical component of research, enabling scientists to analyze and reduce data, perform simulations, automate tasks, and produce and visualize results. As such, the development and maintenance of broadly-applicable scientific software has become an increasingly important intellectual endeavor. While scientific software experts are crucial members of research ventures, their career prospects beyond postdoctoral-level positions are limited.
The Simons Foundation invites applications for funding to support new research professor positions (e.g., “clinical professor,” “professor of practice” or “research professor,” the titles and roles depending on the university) in existing academic departments (the “host institutions”) to be filled by scientific software-focused researchers. The SSRF Award will support researchers who have a strong track record of leadership in scientific software development. The aim of this program is to stimulate the development and maintenance of core scientific software infrastructure in academic environments through creating a new, long-term, faculty-level career path.