Funding Opportunities

The resources here are geared toward faculty and staff researchers. If you are a graduate student looking for funding, please contact the Office of Graduate Studies. If you are an undergraduate looking for funding, you will need to work with your mentor or department—but you can also reach out to the Undergraduate Research Center and Global Affairs.

To watch a recording of a recent campus webinar on finding funding, click here.

Sign Up for a Weekly Funding Newsletter

These moderated listservs distribute information about important funding opportunities. You must subscribe using your UC Davis ([email protected] or [email protected]) email account. If you are not already signed into Kerberos, you will need to sign in for the subscription to take effect.

Search a Comprehensive Funding Database

Pivot is the most comprehensive database of funding opportunities available. Create your own saved searches and review dozens of subject-specific lists of opportunities hand-picked by Office of Research staff. Access is free and available to everyone with a Kerberos login.

Pivot Video Tutorials from UC Davis Administrators

Additional Databases & Funding Resources

Federal Funding

  • Grants.gov is the database where all federal grant-making agencies are required to publish their funding opportunities. Users can browse by funding categories for the 29 sponsoring federal agencies, and create saved searches.
  • National Science Foundation (NSF): To run a search and set up saved searches for NSF funding opportunities, click here.
  • National Institutes of Health (NIH): To run a search and set up saved searches for NIH funding opportunities, click here.

State Funding

  • The California Grants Portal is a one-stop destination to find all grants and contracts currently being offered by California state agencies.

Foundation and Corporate Funding

UC Davis Office of Research Funding Programs

  • Research Acceleration and Catalyst Programs: These awards are intended to enable, facilitate, and support faculty to pursue large scale interdisciplinary funding opportunities.
  • Principal Investigator (PI) Bridge Program: This program provides one-time funding to PIs who have lost or will lose their primary extramural funding. Funds ensure the continuation of a research project for an interim period until extramural support can be re-established. To apply, fill out the Internal Research Funding Form. School of Medicine PIs, please review this document: SOM PI Bridge Funding Process.
  • Publication Assistance Fund: The Publications Assistance Fund assists ladder faculty, particularly those early in their career, with the publication of books or monographs and exhibition or performance of works of art representative of University of California standards. The intent of the fund is to defray certain costs that would not normally be covered by the publisher, thus enhancing the possibility of the work to be published. This program is co-sponsored by the Office of Research and the participating colleges/schools. To apply, fill out the Internal Research Funding Form.

UC Davis Internal Funding Opportunities

This list is not exhaustive. Contact research institutes and centers related to your research to find out if they offer internal funding to researchers.

UC System-Wide Funding

  • UC Research Initiatives offer unique opportunities for collaboration and seed funding across the full breadth of academic disciplines and scholarship at the UC, from the arts and humanities to engineering, natural sciences, social sciences, education, and medicine. You can also look for opportunities on the Research Grants Program Office

Contact Us

If you have further questions related to finding research funding, contact Dr. Meg Sparling, Research Funding Manager in the Office of Research.