The Big Questions Request for Proposals - Level I Grants

The Big Questions Request for Proposals - Level I Grants

Status: ACTIVE
Funder: National Geographic Society
Amount: Up to US $20,000
Last Updated: August 25, 2025

Summary

The National Geographic Society's Level I Grants invite innovative storytelling projects that explore profound questions about human existence, curiosity, and the connection between humans and nature. Supported by the John Templeton Foundation, these grants encourage diverse and ambitious proposals including photography, writing, and data visualization. Applicants can request funding up to $100,000, with a recommendation for those with less than five years of experience to seek up to $20,000, all while emphasizing the importance of evaluating project impacts.

Overview

The Big Questions-Level I Grants Curiosity is at the heart of humanity. The drive to better understand the mysteries of our world has invited storytellers to illuminate groundbreaking knowledge and the world’s wonders, and brought us closer together. Through this call for proposals, the National Geographic Society will invite storytellers to delve into some of these big questions – questions we’ve wrestled with for millenia, and questions that are only just emerging. Every day, we are inundated with media – print, digital, broadcast and film – that influences our thoughts, conversations and public discourse. Too often, the media values sensationalism, treating knowledge as a commodity or a weapon to fuel fear, division and anxiety in the public discourse. In contrast, in its highest form, storytelling has the power to disseminate knowledge, prompt deep conversation and spark curiosity around the greatest questions of our time. The Big Questions on human flourishing, structures of reality and origins of life are key to understanding humankind’s purpose and place within the universe.Supported by the John Templeton Foundation, The National Geographic Society seeks innovative photography, short film, writing, data visualization and other storytelling proposals to help people consider some of the greatest questions of our time.These projects should in some way work to explore one of the following questions: What does it mean to be human?We seek novel approaches to this question, science-driven stories that help us understand our own strange, yet familiar species in a new way. Stories may investigate human origins, as well as look into the future of human/machine interaction and shifts in human consciousness.Narratives around experiences of spirituality, family, gender, culture, interaction with the natural world and more.Curiosity: What are the boundaries of Earth, or more precisely, what are the limits to what we can understand?Stories will take us to the edges of the physical, scientific, and philosophical world – and beyond. These will be the most ambitious and deeply geographic projects; journeys to the deepest parts of the ocean and the highest heights and – literally and figuratively – to more fully understand the natural world, ourselves and our place in the universe.Human/Nature: What is the relationship between the human and natural worlds? Among other topics, areas may include traditional ecological knowledge, wisdom of the natural world (including animal and plant intelligence) and how it shapes progress, evolution, and human flourishing, biomimicry and shared consciousness between the human and natural worlds.Stories that spark awe and wonder in the cultural and natural world- Humans’ connection to, and reliance on nature – from the science of green space as respite and comfort, to the ways some cultures have historically and still view land as an entity to care for, just as it cares for us. Level I Grants

Eligibility

You can learn more about this opportunity by visiting the funder's website. You must be 18 or older to apply for a National Geographic Society grant. Project start dates should be a minimum of six months after the submission deadline to ensure any awarded funds are received in time. If you are working on a project outside your home country or community, you must include at least one local collaborator on your team who is significantly involved in the project. You may submit a proposal as the project leader for only one project at a time. You must submit a final report and media from any previous National Geographic Society grants for which you were the leader before applying to lead a new project. The individual responsible for carrying out the project should write the application and be listed as the project leader.The National Geographic Society warmly welcomes and encourages applicants from historically and currently underrepresented and underserved populations to apply. National Geographic is committed to funding a diverse and globally representative cohort of Explorers. The National Geographic Society does not discriminate on the basis of race, religious creed, marital or parental status, sexual orientation, gender identity or expression, national origin, ancestry, age, or disability.