Office of the Dean for Research Funding

Internal Funding Opportunities

The Office of the Dean for Research provides funding to support the University’s thriving research community in ways that complement and supplement traditional funding sources.

Collaborations between Artists and Scientists or Engineers

Brings faculty in seemingly unrelated fields together in ways that expand their respective domains and benefit both disciplines.

Eric and Wendy Schmidt Transformative Technology Fund

Supports the invention or implementation of entirely new technologies.

Exploratory Energy Research

Supports fundamental, open-ended research on energy solutions.

Intellectual Property Accelerator Fund

Advances the development of promising technologies for societal benefit.

New Ideas in the Humanities

Encourages innovative scholarship on original theories as well as enduring questions.

New Ideas in the Natural Sciences

Supports the exploration of early stage, high-potential ideas with the goal of eventually submitting a competitive external proposal.

New Ideas in the Social Sciences

Promotes scholarship and explorations of society and human advancement.

New Industrial Collaborations

Fosters research collaborations between industry and academia, helping identify challenges and aiding the transformation of discoveries.

Princeton Alliance for Collaborative Research and Innovation (PACRI)

Aims to grow a more inclusive research, innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem.

Provost and Dean for Research Transformative Equipment Initiative

Ensures timely replacement and/or purchase of transformative equipment in response to new opportunities.

Sustainability of Our Planet

Supports research focused on discovering, developing and adopting sustainable solutions.

Fostering discovery

Recognizing that unconventional or untested ideas can be difficult to fund through conventional sources, the University created the Dean for Research Innovation Funds to make such explorations possible.

These competitive innovation funds encourage faculty to explore bold new ideas in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and engineering, as well as foster collaborations between artists and scientists or engineers, and enable new industrial collaborations to tackle real-world challenges.

Learn about previously funded projects in our report, Dean for Research Innovation Funds 2014-2023 (PDF or online), issued June 22, 2023, surveying the impact of the first ten years of the program. 

Dean for Research Innovation Fund 2023 report cover

PDF or online