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Inter-Institutional Funding Programs

NC State partners with a number of universities and other public and private institutions to offer funding opportunities. The inter-institutional funding programs on this page offer unique opportunities to collaborate with researchers at other organizations.

Open Opportunities

NC TraCS — a grant-funded institute founded as a service to the research community in North Carolina — combines the research strengths, resources and opportunities of the UNC-Chapel Hill campus with those of partners: RTI International in the Research Triangle Park; North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, in Greensboro; and NC State University, in Raleigh.

  • Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) Pilot Program
    • The NC TraCS Clinical and Translational Science (CTS) Pilot Program supports investigation focused on understanding the scientific and operational principles underlying each step of the translational process, so that advances can be applied to research on any target or disease.
    • Projects must be feasible within the proposed one-year timeframe, have high methodological and scientific quality.
  • Translational Team Science Award (TTSA)
  • Read an article highlighting a few projects awarded through this program.

The UNC System recently announced the RFP for the FY2025 Research Opportunities Initiative (ROI). The ROI provides targeted funding for innovative and potentially game-changing research projects in certain areas. NC State is limited to submitting one proposal for this opportunity that will be selected through an internal review process.

This is a limited submission program. NC State’s internal pre-proposal deadline is November 2, 2023.

The NIIMBL mission is to accelerate biopharmaceutical manufacturing innovation, support the development of standards that enable more efficient and rapid manufacturing capabilities, and educate and train a world-leading biopharmaceutical manufacturing workforce, fundamentally advancing U.S. competitiveness in this industry. NIIMBL is the latest addition to the nation’s growing network of manufacturing institutes.

PowerAmerica is accelerating the adoption of advanced semiconductor components made with silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) into a wide range of products and systems.  Backed by $70 million from the U.S. Department of Energy over five years, we are working to make these wide bandgap semiconductor technologies cost-competitive with silicon-based power electronics and reduce the perceived risk in their adoption in numerous industries.

Expression of Interest Deadline: January 25, 2024 by 11:59 p.m.

Research Triangle Institute (RTI) International launched the RTI University Scholars Program in 2014 as a catalyst for promoting research collaborations between the institution and North Carolina’s top academic scholars. The program provides support for distinguished academic researchers to spend scholarly leave time at RTI, actively collaborating with RTI’s researchers. The goal of the program is to foster collaboration and catalyze opportunities for externally funded, joint projects in the future.

The RTI University Scholars Program is open to faculty from the University of North Carolina’s 16 university campuses and Duke University. Applicants are encouraged to partner with RTI staff to co-create a collaborative research project.

  • View the most recent 2024-2025 call for applications.
  • View a post highlighting previous NC State RTI Scholars.
  • NC State and RTI held a webinar about the University Scholars Program on November 19, 2021. The slides and event recording are available for viewing.

Upcoming Opportunities

Future deadlines will be posted here.

The UNC Lineberger Developmental Funding Program is intended to support the development of cancer research programs and stimulate new applications for extramural funding. NC State faculty may apply in collaboration with UNC-Chapel Hill faculty.

Future deadlines will be posted here.

The Duke Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) is partnering with the Office of Research and Innovation, as well as NC State’s Comparative Medicine Institute (CMI), to support inter-institutional collaborative research teams. Proposed projects must involve a lead investigator from Duke and a lead investigator from NC State. Read more here.

Each institution will support the research activities of its investigators. Duke CTSI and NC State will each fund up to $25,000 direct costs, for a total of $50,000 per project. Proposals must be submitted via Duke’s MyResearchProposal online submission system as well as through PINS (Select “Duke-NC State Translational Research Grant” as the Direct Sponsor of this funding opportunity).

Closed Competitions

The Game-Changing Research Incentive Program (GRIP) allocated more than $1.5 million over three years to fund exceptional research teams and projects that spanned several NC State colleges. GRIP was intended to incentivize and support visionary research ideas that would result in large-scale extramural funding, award-winning research impacts, and first-class interdisciplinary graduate education and training.

To build on a foundation of recent investments in successful university collaborations and help stimulate transformational change for the next 60 years, RTI recently welcomed Expressions of Interest (EOI) in Forethought: The RTI $5M+ Research Collaboration Challenge