The Office of Foundation Relations is pleased to share this open call for funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation.
- UCSC Contacts: Sarah Carle | FR | sacarle@ucsc.edu
- Funder: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation
- Program Guidelines: Creating Equitable Pathways to STEM Graduate Education
- Award Amount: up to $500,000
Informational Webinars:
- April 2, 11:00am-12:00pm PT Register here
- April 15, 11:00am-12:00pm PT Register here
Overview
The Higher Education Program at the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation is seeking to invest in new and established partnerships between STEM undergraduate and graduate programs nationwide that seek to identify and remove longstanding, systemic barriers to STEM master’s and doctoral degrees with attention to programs that serve undergraduate students enrolled in nonprofit public and private four-year broad access institutions, two-year colleges, or baccalaureate and special focus institutions with strong access missions. Sloan is especially interested in undergraduate partner institutions whose enrollment consists of at least 40% Pell Grant recipients.
Sloan welcomes letters of inquiry (LOIs) from institutions that:
- Demonstrate an overarching commitment through meaningful action toward addressing all significant barriers to STEM graduate education within their own programs and contexts in the fields of astronomy, biology, computer science, chemistry, data science, Earth sciences, economics, engineering, marine science, mathematics, physics, and/or statistics, and
- Have created, or demonstrate a commitment and capacity to create, partnerships that meaningfully address the most significant barriers in their programs in the above fields (within the institution’s comprehensive commitment and action to meaningfully address all significant barriers).
Please read the guidelines carefully to obtain background information on sample project activities and partnership structures.
Award Amount & Terms
Three types of grants will be funded:
- Planning grants to support two or more institutions to conduct internal reviews of existing barriers to student success and for analysis and planning for a future partnership(s) (up to $75,000 for up to 1 year)
- Seed grants to two or more institutions that seek to formalize an existing partnership(s) and launch one or more pilot initiatives (up to $250,000 over 1-2 years)
- Implementation grants to two or more institutions that allow for the augmentation or scaling of existing partnerships/collaborations (up to $500,000 over 2-3 years)
Eligibility
- Lead investigators from submitting and partner institutions should be at the full, associate, or assistant professor level, a department chair, or in an administrative role with high connectivity to academic positions
- Sloan encourages LOIs with multiple co-PIs, with one PI’s institution designated to receive the grant award and then issue subcontracts to the partner institutions
- This is not a limited submission opportunity, however, because funds are finite, individuals may not serve as a lead PI on more than one project.
See here for previously funded Sloan grants.
Timeline
- June 1, 2026, 2pm PT LOI Submissions are due to sponsor
- August 10, 2026 Sponsor decisions announced
- October 5, 2026 If invited, Seed and Planning Grant proposal due
- November 1, 2026 If invited, Implementation grant proposal due
Special Instructions
Please notify the Office of Foundation Relations if you are interested in applying to this opportunity (fr@ucsc.edu). Please submit a proposal intake form prior to UCSC’s internal Institutional Deadlines. For support developing your proposal, please contact the Research Development Specialist or send a request to resdev@ucsc.edu. Within the Division of Social Sciences, please contact Ashlee Tews (ashleeac@ucsc.edu), and within the Arts, please contact Hannah Jasper (hannahjasper@ucsc.edu) to initiate notification and proposal support.
Call sent: March 2, 2026
The Office of Foundation Relations is a unit of University Advancement. The FR team creates and maintains mutually beneficial, long-term relationships with private organizations, matching grant initiatives with educational and research programs and centers. FR supports faculty and staff to identify and approach these and other private foundations for funding, to assist in strategic positioning of the grant application, and to facilitate funder campus visits. For a list of recent funding opportunities, please visit the FR website. FR Calls for Funding.