Research Funding and Grants Guide

​External research funding is available from a variety of sources, including government agencies, non-profit organizations, and corporations.Typically, external funding can best be broken down into a few sponsor types.

There exists a wide range of non-profit organizations that sponsor a broad array of research -- from high-profile foundations that tackle comprehensive, international challenges to small family foundations that focus their resources on a single important issue. Before submitting queries or proposals, find out as much as possible about these organizations' missions -- they fund research according to programmatic priorities.

Industry funding and partnerships offer the potential to accelerate innovations at the U-M, and move research to market where it can benefit the economy and society.

Every year, the federal government grants billions of dollars in research funding to academic institutions to drive knowledge and innovation in numerous fields, including biomedical science, engineering, social sciences, and the humanities. Though highly competitive, these grants are essential to the university research enterprise. The 26 federal agencies that award research funding -- NIH, NSF, NEH, and DOD, among them -- post open opportunities at the central Grants.gov site.

Crowdfunding is commonly known as a way to raise money through gathering small amounts of money from a large number of people. Many crowdfunding platforms exist to kickstart your funding search.