STEM Higher Education Grant Program

STEM Higher Education Grant Program

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: Alfred P Sloan Foundation
Last Updated: February 19, 2026

Summary

The STEM Higher Education Grant Program, funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, aims to enhance diversity, equity, and inclusion in STEM graduate education. The program focuses on transforming educational pathways, empowering universities, and supporting innovative initiatives that cultivate a diverse faculty body. By addressing systemic barriers and promoting inclusive environments, the Foundation seeks to ensure that all students have equitable opportunities to succeed in STEM fields, ultimately strengthening the scientific enterprise.

Overview

STEM Higher Education Program Ensuring that all students, no matter their background, have the access and opportunity to thrive in STEM disciplines is a core principle of the Higher Education Program. As articulated in the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation’s Commitment to Opportunity for All in Science, upholding this principle is a matter of fundamental justice and our path to ensuring that the best science is done. Educational settings that include and celebrate people from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives promote collaboration, learning, and innovation. We know from experience that everyone benefits when this diversity is combined with organizational practices, policies, and cultures that provide individuals with the tools, resources, and support needed to succeed. The Higher Education program supports individuals and institutions that pursue these and other essential ingredients for scientific advancement that benefit our communities, nation, and the world. Priorities Three equally important strategic priorities guide our grantmaking. In particular, we seek to: Invest in widening pathways to STEM graduate education. The pathway to STEM graduate education is broken for far too many students. Systemic barriers limit students’ opportunities because of who they are, where they’re from, or how much money they have. Among other investments, we seek to widen educational pathways from Minority Serving Institutions to master’s and doctoral STEM programs through the Exemplary Pathways to STEM Graduate Education initiative.Empower universities to transform graduate education. Increasing the number of students and faculty from different backgrounds is crucial but not enough. Institutions and their STEM departments must also pursue new and creative ways of ensuring that all students can thrive. This includes creating and enhancing programs designed to support diverse cohorts of students and attending to institutional policies, practices, standards, and norms such that all students have the opportunities and resources needed to be successful. Through the Foundation’s University Centers for Exemplary Mentoring, Sloan Centers for Systemic Change, and Sloan Indigenous Graduate Partnership, we seek to empower STEM departmental leadership, faculty, and staff in doing just that.Support innovative efforts to increase diversity in the STEM professoriate. By widening pathways to and through graduate education, we help to create a STEM ecosystem where students have the freedom to teach, study, and pursue knowledge and research in many forms. This requires institutions where faculty and students from different backgrounds and perspectives can explore ideas and learn from one another. We are interested in efforts by institutions and organizations to transform the culture and climate of STEM departments and disciplines such that more individuals are attracted to the professoriate and thrive once there. Grantmaking in this area also includes support for researchers who study the STEM professoriate.

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. In selecting projects for funding, the Foundation seeks proposals for original initiatives led by outstanding individuals or teams.We are interested in projects that have a high expected return to society, exhibit a high degree of methodological rigor, and for which funding from the private sector, government, or other foundations is not yet widely available.

Ineligibility

This program does not support projects aimed at K-12 student or the training of K-12 teachers.What We Do Not FundThe Foundation does not make grants to political campaigns, to support political activities, or to lobby for or against particular pieces of legislation.The Foundation does not make grants to individuals except through its Books program.The Foundation does not generally make grants to for-profit institutions.The Foundation does not make grants in religion, medical research, or research in the humanities.The Foundation does not make grants aimed at pre-college students except through its New York City initiative.The Foundation does not make grants to projects in the creative or performing arts except when those projects are related to educating the public about science, technology, or economics.The Foundation does not make grants for endowments, fundraising drives, or fundraising dinners.The Foundation does not make grants in support of the purchase, construction, or renovation of buildings or laboratories. On some occasions, the Foundation will support the purchase or construction of scientific equipment if such equipment is essential to the success of a Foundation-supported research project or educational initiative.