- The Center for Social Science Scholarship Small Research Grant Fund: Awards of varying amounts support faculty, PhD students, masters students, and undergraduate students in the social sciences at UMBC who have already exhausted all other available departmental/university support.
- BreakingGround grants program to support course-related and project-related civic innovations at UMBC.
AY2025-2026 current opportunities
- March 27, 2026: Hrabowski Innovation Fund Grants program. Types of awards include Seed awards, Adaptation awards, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning awards, and Implementation and Research awards.
- April 1, 2026: The CENTRE funding program is an initiative of the Alex. Brown Center for Entrepreneurship at UMBC and provides awards of up to $15,000 for research that leads to potential commercialization of a product or service. Any UMBC faculty member (full-time or adjunct) conducting research either in technical fields (technical entrepreneurship) or in social/behavioral/policy/humanities fields (social entrepreneurship) is encouraged to apply.
AY2025-2026 past deadlines
- August 27, 2025: Deadline for SURE (Supplement for Undergraduate Research Experiences (SURE) program). Positions must be posted to Handshake by the start of the Fall semester (August 27, 2025). Support for faculty in hiring undergraduate research assistants.
- September 30, 2025: Deadline for the fall semester CAHSS Dean’s Student Research Assistance for Faculty Research and Creative Achievement. This fund supports the inclusion of UMBC graduate and undergraduate students in faculty-led research and creative achievement. Award Size: between $1,500 to $2,000.
- October 15, 2025: Deadline for the fall semester CAHSS Dean’s Research Fund (CDRF). Awards of up to $5,000 support the research endeavors of CAHSS tenured and tenure-track faculty and lecturers.
- October 15, 2025: Deadline for the CAHSS Research Fellows Program. Permits one semester of release time to support outstanding research and creative activity and to advance the careers of CAHSS faculty members. Only tenured associate professors and full professors are eligible to apply.
- October 31, 2025: Deadline for the fall semester Hrabowski Innovation Fund Grants program. Types of awards include Seed awards, Adaptation awards, Scholarship of Teaching and Learning awards, and Implementation and Research awards.
- October 30, 2025: Accelerated Translational Incubator Pilot (ATIP) with UMB-ICTR. Awards of up to $50,000 support projects specifically focused on innovative, translational research that involve faculty from the UMB Schools, UMBC, and collaborative partners.
- October 30, 2025: Community Engaged Research (CEnR) Pilot Grant Program with UMBC-ICTR. Awards of up to $50,000 support projects specifically focused on innovative Community-Engaged Research (CEnR).
- December 2025: The 2025 Center for Social Science Scholarship Summer Fellowship application opens. Applications are due on February 15, 2024.
- February 12, 2026: UMBC Summer Research Faculty Fellowship (SURFF). Awards of up to $8,000 support non-tenured, tenure-track UMBC faculty pursuing research and scholarly projects during the summer, including projects in all departments.
- February 12, 2026: UMBC Strategic Awards for Research Transitions (START). Awards of up to $25,000 support UMBC faculty to advance their scholarly and research endeavors, to compete more effectively for external support and to pursue new areas of inquiry.
- February 16, 2026: Center for Social Science Scholarship Summer Fellowship. Awards of up to $6000 to support significant social science research by tenure-track or tenured faculty in the UMBC College of Arts, Humanities & Social Sciences.
- March 1, 2026: CAHSS Dean’s Research Fund (CDRF). Awards of up to $5,000 support the research endeavors of CAHSS tenured and tenure-track faculty and lecturers.
- March 1, 2026: CAHSS Dean’s Student Research Assistance for Faculty Research and Creative Achievement. This fund supports the inclusion of UMBC graduate and undergraduate students in faculty-led research and creative achievement. Award Size: between $1,500 to $2,000.
- March 1, 2026: The Eileen and Jerry Carroll Faculty Research Fund Awards of up to $2,000 support faculty in cross-disciplinary research and creative achievement that encourages civic engagement and interdisciplinary collaboration.
The programs listed below currently do not have open calls for proposals, but some may be repeated again in the future.
- Community Engaged Research (CEnR) Voucher Award. Awards of up to $10,000 For developing successful and sustainable community partnerships in the Maryland and/or D.C. area which enable recipients to prepare for a future, competitive ICTR CEnR proposal or other extramural CEnR-type grant applications.
- Center and Institute Departmentally-Engaged Research (CIDER) Grant Program. This pilot funding program is primarily aimed to increase inter-unit collaboration, particularly between [1] researchers whose primary appointments are in units which do not grant degrees (e.g., Hilltop, CSST, JCET/GESTAR, GPHI/PHaSER, CADVC, IRC, CAS) and [2] researchers in degree-granting units (most departments, SSW, Erickson, etc.). Award size is up to $50,000. Contact Dr. Don Engel <donengel@umbc.edu> with any questions.
Visit the Division of Research and Creative Achievement’s website for a list of UMBC funding programs with open calls.
On-Campus Grants Assistance
The Creative Achievement and Research Administation Team (CARAT) assists faculty members and departments by providing pre-award and post-grant management assistance. Click here to request assistance.