Funding Opportunities

A community-curated list of grants, fellowships, and sponsorship programs relevant to academic open source, research software, and OSPO operations. Entries can be sorted and filtered below.

The initial set of entries is imported from the Johns Hopkins OSPO Funding Opportunities page, with thanks to the JHU OSPO team for maintaining and sharing it.

To suggest a new opportunity, use the Suggest an opportunity button below the list — it opens a GitHub issue you can fill out. Maintainers will review and add accepted entries via pull request.

NIH Research Software Engineer (RSE) Award

Grant

National Institutes of Health (NIH)

$300,000 for up to three years; no more than $200,000 for one year

Deadline: Letter of intent: 2026-05-04 · Full proposal: 2026-06-04

Salary support via the NIH Research Specialist (R50) mechanism for Research Software Engineers contributing to NIH-funded biomedical, clinical, behavioral, or health-related research software, tools, and algorithms. Targets RSEs outside a traditional independent-investigator career path.

Geography: USA
Focus area: Biomedical, clinical, behavioral, and health research software
Website: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-24-011.html

Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) — Phase 1

Grant

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Up to $300,000 for projects with durations up to 1 year

Deadline: Full proposal: 2026-09-01 · Full proposal: 2027-03-02

Funds scoping activities to help existing open-source research products with small user communities transition into sustainable, robust open-source ecosystems. Phase I supports early formation of managing organizations and training for teams building such ecosystems.

Geography: USA
Focus area: Open-source research software ecosystems
Website: https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/pose-pathways-enable-open-source-ecosystems

Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) — Phase 2

Grant

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Up to $1,500,000 for projects with durations up to 2 years

Deadline: Full proposal: 2026-09-01 · Full proposal: 2027-03-02

Supports transition of promising open-source research products with small existing user and contributor communities into sustainable, robust open-source ecosystems. A POSE Phase I award is not required to apply to Phase II.

Geography: USA
Focus area: Open-source research software ecosystems
Website: https://www.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/pesose-pathways-enable-secure-open-source-ecosystems