Keck Foundation Internal Competition, December 2025 Cycle
Deadline: December 06, 2024
5 pm
Amount: typically been between $1M - $1.3M
Purpose
*LIMITED SUBMISSION*
Process: The W.M. Keck Foundation Research Program uses a three-step process for this opportunity: Concept Paper, Phase I, and Phase II. Per Keck's proposal submission process, Emory may select up to eight concept papers (4 in medical research, 4 in physical sciences and engineering) to share with the Keck program officers via a pre-application counseling call. Feedback from Keck will be shared with the internal applicants. After the pre-application counseling call, internal applicants will be contacted regarding next steps.
Brief Overview: Keck funds innovative, high-risk, and transformative projects that are top institutional priorities. Typically, Keck projects solve important science and engineering questions and also develop novel techniques and/or instruments that can be disseminated throughout the research community: "By funding the high-risk/high-impact work of leading researchers, we are laying the groundwork for new paradigms, technologies and discoveries that will save lives, provide innovative solutions, and add to our understanding of the world. Both Senior and Early Career investigators are encouraged to apply." Keck does not, however, fund translational biomedical research. Keck seeks to fund projects that do not fit within established federal agency funding schema. To help one determine the “fit” of a potential project for Keck, please see the abstracts of recent Keck award winners available through the Foundation website (link). For Research Program concept papers, the program priorities are:
- Focus on important and emerging areas of research
- Have the potential to develop breakthrough technologies, instrumentation or methodologies
- Are innovative, distinctive and interdisciplinary
- Demonstrate a high level of risk due to unconventional approaches, or by challenging the prevailing paradigm
- Have the potential for transformative impact, such as the founding of a new field of research, the enabling of observations not previously possible, or the altered perception of a previously intractable problem
- Does not focus on clinical or translational research, treatment trials or research for the sole purpose of drug development
- Fall outside the mission of public funding agencies
- Demonstrate that W. M. Keck Foundation in particular, is essential to the project’s success
Eligibility:
- Early to Senior career investigators performing basic (not clinical) research
- Projects must be distinctive, novel, pushing the edge of the field or questioning the prevailing paradigm
- Support is for pioneering biological, basic science, and engineering research and the development of breakthrough technologies, methodologies, and/or instrumentation that would be used to answer scientific/engineering questions
- Projects should fall outside the mission of public funding agencies, demonstrating that private philanthropy, generally, and the W.M. Keck Foundation, in particular, is essential to the project’s success
- Medical research projects conducted in hospitals are not eligible
Cost Share/Award Size: Recent Keck awards have typically been between $1M - $1.3M. Cost sharing is not required; however, Keck does look for the University to support the effort in some form. This support can be in the form of cash, equipment, facilities, etc. We recommended an institutional match of 0.75:1 to 1:1. For example, a $1M Keck award over three years would require an Emory match of $750,000 to $1M over three years. Thus, the total project budget over three years would be roughly $1.75-2M. As you calculate institutional support, please keep in mind that the Foundation does not fund general operation expenses (i.e., indirect costs) so any support provided by the University in these areas would also be deemed as cost sharing or institutional support.
More Info: https://emory.infoready4.com/#competitionDetail/1954131