W.M. Keck Foundation Bridge Funding Initiative for PI/PhD student partnerships

Concept papers due Monday, October 10, 2025

The W. M. Keck Foundation has announced a one-time bridge funding program for up to six Faculty/PhD student pairs conducting research that fits within their focus on basic research that enables pioneering discoveries creating new knowledge.  Funding is $200,000 over two years per partnership.  Keck funds BASIC RESEARCH in STEM fields.

The W. M. Keck Foundation’s description:

“Our goal is to support the career trajectories of early- to mid-career faculty and their graduate students who are especially vulnerable to sudden shifts in traditional funding mechanisms. Disruptions at this early stage in the scientist pipeline would impact future decades of research scholarship. For this reason, we seek to fund pairs of PI mentors (Keck Scholars) with their PhD student mentees (Keck Fellows). This one-time funding is designed to:

• Rapidly deploy bridge funds to retain early- to mid-career PIs (Assistant or Associate Professor as of January 2026) and PhD students.
• Support projects aligned with the W. M. Keck Foundation mission to boost high impact basic science research. While this one-time funding mechanism is separate from our regular grant program, nominated projects must be aligned with our funding guidelines.”

While this program is different than their usual programs, it could be helpful to keep in mind that they do not fund research that is the next logical step for an investigator’s program, or that would be considered incremental. Translational or clinical research, vector and drug development, alternative energy and biodiversity studies, and further development of existing technologies are not considered. They have indicated that engineering projects testing a specific product or output is of low priority, but engineering research in the basic natural sciences can be considered. Please reach out if you have questions.

Eligibility:

• PI is Assistant or Associate Professor as of January 2026
• Student will be enrolled in PhD program for next two years (i.e. through January 2028).

Interested applicants are asked to submit a preliminary concept paper to the Office of Research (OR) by Monday, October 10, 2025, via UCI Review, with the following information:

1. One-page concept paper (1/2” margins, 11 point font) Use these paragraph headers:
2. Project title
3. Personnel Summary
   • Faculty: name, title, department, year of appointment, summary of current funding with project titles, agency and direct costs, # of current PhD students, # of current postdocs.
   • PhD Fellow: name, program, year and candidacy status. Current and past funding.
4. Project Overview
   • Overarching goals and alignment with Keck Foundation’s mission**
   • Brief approach with models/methods and expected results
5. Summary Budget totaling: $200,000 over 2 years: personnel ($75K/yr minimum for PhD student including up to $25K towards tuition, fees and student travel), equipment, supplies and travel (1-2 sentences is sufficient).
6. Brief Biosketch or CV for both faculty and fellow (NIH biosketch acceptable for this internal call)

**Keck Mission:

In reviewing proposals, the W.M. Keck Foundation asks, “what’s the new science?”  Concept papers should provide a compelling argument that new knowledge discovery on a specific question will result from the proposed project.

They believe new technologies and methodologies are often required to be able to ask hard questions or revisit old paradigms, but the technology cannot be the goal – investigating a problem with the technology you develop should be the goal. For this reason, most grants involve collaborators from other labs and other fields.

Keck does not want projects that reflect the “next logical step” in your research, but rather encourages out-of-the-box thinking. If your project would be competitive at NIH or NSF, it is not going to be of interest to the Keck Foundation.

After the internal deadline an ad hoc committee will convene to review the preliminary proposals.

Roxanne Ford, Executive Director of Foundation Relations, is a former Program Director for the W. M. Keck Foundation.  Please contact her with any questions or to discuss your concept paper at  fordmr@uci.edu. Questions about our internal campus review process may be directed to Mike Gallo, Director of Research Development in the Office of Research, at magallo@uci.edu.