Johns Hopkins Discovery Awards Grant

The Johns Hopkins Discovery Awards, initiated in 2015, promote innovative, collaborative research across diverse academic disciplines. Designed for teams from at least two university affiliates, these grants of up to $150,000 aim to foster groundbreaking discoveries and creative projects. The initiative encourages synergistic interactions among faculty and staff, with a focus on new collaborative efforts rather than existing projects. This program is open to various faculty types, ensuring broad participation in impactful research.

In 2015, the president, provost, and the deans of the University announced a new funding program for innovative, collaborative research or creative projects.
More than ever, the answers to the most challenging questions cannot be accomplished entirely within one academic discipline, or even one division. The Johns Hopkins Discovery Awards provide grant awards to cross-divisional teams, comprised of faculty and/or non-faculty members from at least two schools or affiliates of the university, who are poised to arrive at important discoveries or creative works.
The expectation is that these awards will spark new, synergistic interactions between investigators across the institution and lead to work of the highest quality and impact. These awards are not intended to support already established projects or minimal extensions of ongoing research or professional programs.
Funding:
Teams may request up to $150,000, with an award term of one to two years, to explore a new area of collaborative work.  Support may be used for salary, graduate students, postdoctoral fellows or technicians, equipment, travel, and/or consumables. Include fringe on all salary funding requests. The aim of this program is to incite novel interactions within JHU; therefore, no more than 10% of the grant should be allocated as a sub-award.
Applicants must describe a credible plan that assures they will make substantial progress during their funding period.

Eligibility

Eligibility:

• Only one application per lead PI will be accepted.

There is no limit to the number of proposals you can participate in as a co-PI.Principal Investigators may submit new proposals as PI after a two-cycle waiting period following a funded grant.
Applications from all academic and professional disciplines at the university are welcome and may cover fundamental, applied, or clinical research in any field, as well as the development of applied creative projects in the arts and humanities.
Applications must include at least two faculty members and/or APL staff members representing at least two separate schools/divisions or affiliates of the university.For example, Peabody and SOM co-PIs qualify as an eligible partnership, but two faculty members from different SOM departments would not qualify without a third co-PI from a different school or affiliate.Schools/divisions and affiliates are as follows: Applied Physics Laboratory (APL); Berman Institute of Bioethics (BI); Bloomberg School of Public Health (BSPH); Carey Business School (CBS); Center for Talented Youth (CTY); Human Language Technology Center of Excellence (HLTCOE); Jhpiego; Krieger School of Arts & Sciences (KSAS); Peabody Institute; School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS); School of Education (SOE); School of Government & Policy (SOGP); School of Medicine (SOM); School of Nursing (SON); Sheridan Libraries; Whiting School of Engineering (WSE)This award is meant to spark collaboration between faculty/staff.
Applications are open to tenured, tenure-track, and non-tenured JHU faculty, including clinical, research, practice, and teaching faculty.
Adjunct faculty, emeriti professors, and lecturers may apply as co-PIs.

Ineligibility

If you were the lead PI of a funded 2023 Discovery Award or 2024 Discovery Award, you are not eligible to apply as the lead PI of a 2025 award. Students and postdoctoral fellows cannot serve as co-PI, however, they can be included in the budget. Visiting professors are ineligible.These awards are not intended to supplement or support past or current collaborations.