Johns Hopkins Catalyst Awards Grant

The Johns Hopkins Catalyst Awards, launched in 2015, offer early-career faculty up to $100,000 to support innovative research and creative projects. This initiative aims to foster collaboration and growth among faculty members, providing essential funding and mentoring opportunities. With a competitive selection process, the awards are designed for those who have recently embarked on their academic careers, ensuring that promising researchers have the resources needed to succeed in their endeavors.

The Johns Hopkins Catalyst Awards were announced in 2015 by the president, provost, and the deans of the University. The Catalyst and Discovery Awards make up a nine-year, $45 million initiative to support the creativity and collaborative spirit of the Johns Hopkins faculty.
These grant awards of up to $100,000 support the promising research and creative endeavors of our early career faculty with the goal of launching them on a path to a sustainable and rewarding academic career.
The program encompasses funding, mentoring opportunities, and the chance to join a cohort of peers at a similar stage in their career. The funds are allocated on a competitive basis in response to an annual university-wide request for applications.
Funding:
Faculty may request up to $100,000, with an award term of one to two years. Support may be used for PI salary, to hire graduate students, postdoctoral fellows or technicians, equipment, travel, and/or consumables. Applicants must describe a credible plan to make substantial progress toward their aims with one year of funding. Include fringe on all salary funding requests. We highly recommend that your departmental administrator review your budget for accuracy. 2025 awards will be announced in late spring and award funding will start on 7/1/2025.

Eligibility

Applications from early-career faculty in any academic or professional discipline at the university are encouraged to apply.
The term “early-career” is defined as any full-time tenure-track faculty member who was first appointed to a full-time, tenure-track faculty position at any institution within no less than three (3) years and no more than ten (10) years as of July 1 of the deadline year.
Eligible 2025 applicants were appointed to their first full-time, tenure-track faculty position between July 1, 2015, and June 30, 2022.
Non-tenure-track Research Associates and Research Scientists at the School of Medicine (SOM), Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH), the Whiting School of Engineering (WSE), and the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences (KSAS) are not eligible for the Catalyst Award but are encouraged to consider applying for the Discovery Award.Only one application per person, per year. Approximately 20 Catalyst Awards will be granted.

Ineligibility

Successful applicants will not be eligible for subsequent Catalyst Awards.