Finding Funding

Funding Development

The first step in finding financial support for your research, scholarly, and creative endeavors is identifying sponsors and funding opportunities that strongly align with your ideas and priorities. This is one of ORCS’s key functions in how it supports faculty development and scholarship. In addition to regularly sending out announcements about proposal opportunities of interest to the greater faculty community, we also provide this service on an individualized basis. 

Contact us to set up a meeting to discuss your project and funding needs. We’ll help you develop a grantseeking strategy and timeline, identify potential sponsors, and dig into the particulars of different sponsors’ priorities, funding histories, and support potential.

ProQuest Pivot

Proquest Pivot is a subscription-based funding opportunity database with highly customizable search capabilities. It includes opportunities from federal agencies, private sponsors, foreign governments, industry, and non-profits. It is regularly maintained, curated, and edited by a highly-skilled editing team, so that your search results are more fully and consistently tied to your areas of interest.

Emerson employees may create an individual user account by registering from an on-campus computer. Unlike similar search engines, Pivot allows the user to be as hands-on or hands-off as she wishes. Some of its most notable features include the following.

  • The user can create a profile that is viewable to faculty and researchers at other institutions. Users can also identify research expertise from both within and outside your organization
  • Multiple funding searches — each tailored to your specific areas of study, sponsor and award types, deadline windows, and other criteria — can be saved and programmed to send you email alerts only when new funding opportunities arise that match your parameters
  • The ability to create groups for sharing funding opportunities on an ongoing basis

While most users find Pivot to be user-friendly and intuitive, ORCS welcomes the opportunity to sit down with faculty and staff who would like a hands-on tutorial of the program. We are also more than happy to create a customized funding search with email alerts for any faculty member who may prefer not to utilize the system directly. Such inquires should be directed to orcs@emerson.edu.

User Guides:

Grants.gov

Grants.gov is a government resource site that serves as a central clearinghouse for federal funding opportunities. It allows anyone to search for institutional programs from the National Science Foundation, National Institutes of Health, National Endowment for the Arts, and other federal funding agencies. A user account is not needed to search for funding opportunities, but all listed programs are for institutional (not direct-to-individual) funding. 

Funding Opportunities

Curated Funding Opportunity Lists in ProQuest Pivot

ORCS reviews and curates relevant funding opportuniites by discipline, academic department, grant type, and other categories. Click on a category below to view the list (requires an active Pivot user account)

ORCS NewFeed Blog: External Funding Opportunities

ORCS posts relevant funding opportunities throughout the year to its NewFeed Blog, including faculty fellowships, pre- and post-production for film projects, writers’ support, and research funding. Click here to go directly to our External Funding Opportunities posts. 

Popular Fellowships and Sabbatical Support

Externally-funded faculty fellowships are short-term monetary awards sponsored by a specific organization through a competition and awarded to a faculty member to support their academic pursuits. Fellowships are designed to support a range of activities, including advanced research/scholarship within a specific field or particular issue; developing a new community-based organization or initiative; training and reflection to support the fellow’s growth, or opportunities to further explore a specific field area of scholarship.

Listed below are some fellowships that have been frequently applied for and received by Emersonians. Before applying for a fellowship, please review the guidance found in Requesting a Structured Study Leave (for Fellowships and Off-Site Awards). For up-to-date announcements on fellowship opportunities, go to the Fellowship Opportunities category of the ORCS NewsFeed Blog. 

  • Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship (Applications open in February): Sponsored by The Fund for American Studies, this fellowship allows journalists early in their careers to pursue major reporting and research projects they would otherwise be unable to undertake.
  • Marion and Jasper Whiting Foundation Fellowships of Higher Education of Present and Prospective Teachers (Announced annually late October/early November by ORCS): The primary purpose of the fellowship is to enable teachers to study abroad or at some location other than that with which they are most closely associated, so as to improve and enhance the quality of their instruction. Grants are primarily for travel and related expenses.
  • Massachusetts Cultural Council Artist Fellowships (Program on pause for 2023. Check back in early 2024 for updates)
  • National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellowships (Applications open in December; due in March): Offers grants in prose and poetry that enable recipients to set aside time for writing, research, travel, and general career advancement. Program operates on a two-year cycle, with fellowships in prose and poetry available in alternating years.
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Summer Stipend (Applications open in May; due in September): Summer Stipends support continuous full-time work on a humanities project for a period of two consecutive months. Limit of two applicants per cycle, as selected by the Provost.
  • National Endowment for the Humanities Research Fellowships (Appilcations open in January; due in April): Fellowships support individuals pursuing advanced research that is of value to humanities scholars, general audiences, or both. Fellowships cover periods lasting from six to twelve months at a stipend of $5,000 per month.

National Endowment for the Humanities Public Scholars Program (Applications open in August;  due in November): Supports well-researched books in the humanities intended to reach a broad readership. Covers continuous work over a period of six to twelve months.

Limited Submission Opportunities

Externally-funded faculty fellowships are short-term monetary awards sponsored by a specific organization through a competition and awarded to a faculty member to support their academic pursuits. Fellowships are designed to support a range of activities, including advanced research/scholarship within a specific field or particular issue; developing a new community-based organization or initiative; training and reflection to support the fellow’s growth, or opportunities to further explore a specific field area of scholarship.

Listed below are some fellowships that have been frequently applied for and received by Emersonians. Before applying for a fellowship, please review the guidance found in Requesting a Structured Study Leave (for Fellowships and Off-Site Awards). For up-to-date announcements on fellowship opportunities, go to the Fellowship Opportunities category of the ORCS NewsFeed Blog. 

  • Robert Novak Journalism Fellowship (Applications open in February): Sponsored by The Fund for American Studies, this fellowship allows journalists early in their careers to pursue major reporting and research projects they would otherwise be unable to undertake.