Use the resources in the Research Strategy and Development Office's Find Funding section of the UNH Research and Innovation web site
Find Funding contains a variety of resources, strategies, and search tools. Of special note:
- Use Search Strategies and Search Tools for identifying and evaluating funding opportunities.
Tools include Federal Agencies' Lists of Funding Opportunities. - Targeted Needs & Programs includes grant programs for Early Career Researchers and Scholars, postdoctoral fellows, graduate students, information about grant programs that are particularly well-suited to UNH, and links to resources re: international scholarship and other focused needs.
- Internal (UNH) Funding Opportunities includes campus-wide and college-specific programs available to researchers.
Use sponsors’ web pages and free electronic mailing lists
Explore potential sponsors’ web sites to learn about their organizational goals, priorities and long-term plans, funding opportunities, and previously-funded projects.
- For sponsor profiles and other tools to find the right sponsor for your project, explore Sponsor Types.
- To find other sponsors’ web sites, search with Google or other search engine.
Sign up for the sponsors’ email lists to be notified when the sponsor issues announcements of funding opportunities (e.g., NSF Update, NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices, NIFA Update, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Funding Alerts, Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research Newsletter, etc.).
- Look for a link to register on the sponsors’ web sites (often at the bottom of the homepage)
- This free option can also give you insights on the programs and funding trajectory over time.
Use Grants.gov
Searching funding opportunities is done through Simpler.Grants.gov.
After logging into Simpler.Grants.gov, try these tips to make searching for new opportunities easy and convenient:
1. To search for specific terms you want to come back to later, simply click ‘Save’ next to the search bar, name your search query, and your saved searches will show up in the drop down box next to your current search query.
Pro-tip: after performing a search, you can now copy and paste the URL to share that specific search with others.
2. When you save a search, Simpler.Grants.gov will email you whenever new funding opportunities are posted that match your search. You can also access these saved searches and opportunities by clicking on Workspace in the menu bar where you will see a drop down menu with Saved Opportunities and Saved Search Queries.
3. Save an empty search (with no keywords in the search bar) to get an email of all newly posted opportunities each day
4. Similar to saved searches, when you save a new funding opportunity, you'll get an email if anything changes with that posting such as new deadlines or updated supporting documentation
5. To work with the funding opportunity data and information in Microsoft Excel or CSV format, use the "Export Results" feature which will allow you to download the results of your current search in CSV format
GRANTS 101 provides an overview of the federal grants lifecycle as well as definitions of terms and policies.
Develop personal contacts
Faculty and other research personnel are great sources of information.
Find them in your own department, in your college, across the university, at professional meetings, and at other institutions.
Participate in professional meetings, consensus conferences, planning groups, and sponsor-hosted meetings.
Program officers and scientific staff from federal agencies and other sponsors often attend scientific meetings to keep up with the field and to meet researchers. If there’s an informal social gathering, attend it and mingle!
Other researchers’ web sites and c.v.'s also can yield interesting information.
Who has funded them in the past? Where do they have proposals pending now?
Check professional societies and look in professional journals
Many societies have grant programs, particularly for young investigators/early career scholars and to fund dissertation research for Ph.D. students.
Financial support for the research reported in journal articles usually is noted as a footnote to the title or in the “Acknowledgements” section just before the “References Cited” section.
Use on-line bulletin boards and other grants-related search engines
Some particularly good ones can be found on the Free Search Tools & Bulletin Boards.
Use general-purpose web search engines
This type of search casts a broad net, with lots of incidental information to sort through, but often can be useful when other searches aren’t fruitful or to confirm that you’ve found most, if not all, of the viable sponsors for a given topic area.
- To search for all sponsors, enter a topic keyword, then semicolon, then “grants.”
- To find local/regional foundation sponsors, try using the keywords “Philanthropy + State” where “State” is the location of the organization for which you are seeking funding.
Lynnette Hentges
Email: lynnette.hentges@unh.edu
Phone: (603) 862-2002
Caitlin Piette
Senior Associate
Email: caitlin,piette@unh.edu
Phone: (603) 862-2497
Michael Thompson
Email: michael.thompson@unh.edu
Phone: (603) 862-5255
Mark Milutinovich
Email: mark.milutinovich@unh.edu
Phone: (603) 862-5338
