Eligibility
Purpose
This award will provide funding to early or mid-career investigators to spend 6-12 months in the laboratory of a private company, a national laboratory, or an academic laboratory in a different institution, with the goal of establishing robust collaborations across industry-academia or across disciplines and taking advantage of the mentorship of a faculty member distinct from their prior mentors.
Description
There is ample evidence that transformative innovations relevant to sustainability require cross-disciplinary collaboration and training, as well as connections between academia and industry. Yet, once a faculty establishes a research group, it becomes challenging to change course and identify opportunities for the application of one’s research when they require knowledge in tangential or sometimes orthogonal fields, such as chemistry and toxicology, synthetic chemistry and synthetic biology, catalysis, and computational chemistry, to name a few. Furthermore, it also becomes challenging to develop robust collaborations with colleagues in industry that allow a two-way exchange of innovation gaps and innovative research products. Such pivots are challenging for multiple reasons, including the fact that faculty would be required to relocate to another facility to acquire the desired training and establish collaborations. To this end, this grant is intended to stimulate and de-risk bold, cross-disciplinary training and collaborations that result in research that is readily applied to sustainability challenges.
How to Apply
Application submission opens on July 13, 2026 (12:01 a.m. ET).
Deadline
5:00 p.m. ET, September 18, 2026.
Eligibility and Applicant Criteria
Candidates may submit only one application per cycle, with a maximum of 2 total submissions for this grant.
To apply, applicants must:
- Hold a current faculty position at a U.S. Ph.D.-granting institution of higher education
- Have a sabbatical planned (not necessarily approved) that will start within 2027.
- Have identified opportunities for a sabbatical position in a company, national lab, or institution other than your own where you will be able to receive training and experience in a new research direction that will allow you to pursue interdisciplinary research and teaching directly related to green and sustainable chemistry.
To accept the award, applicants must commit to:
- Participating in a teacher-training workshop in green chemistry.
- Teaching either one undergraduate or graduate course in green chemistry and sustainability, or a chemistry course that explicitly incorporates green chemistry in their faculty post.
Funding Criteria
The Award Committee makes relative rankings of proposals and recommendations for funding on the basis of the following criteria (in order of importance):
- The relevance of the proposed research of the applicant to green and sustainable chemistry.
- Novelty, overall quality, significance, and scientific merit of the proposed research, including the extent to which it will increase basic knowledge and/or stimulate additional research.
- Research track record of the applicant in applications related to green and sustainable chemistry.
- Evidence of dedication and passion for teaching, with emphasis on green and sustainable chemistry.
Budget Considerations
The funds must be used in 2027 for travel, accommodation, and laboratory supplies/chemicals, and they must be clearly justified in the context of the project and the long-term career aspirations of the Principal Investigator. No overhead costs may be charged, which include secretarial and/or administrative salaries. Funds may not be used to support students, laboratory technicians, contractors, consultants, or visiting faculty. The funds are direct income to the Principal Investigator.
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