Upcoming Grant Deadlines

4.1.03 - Calit² faculty have had notable success in a matching funds program run by UC called the UC Discovery Grant. This program awards up to $20 million in matching funds each year in science and engineering to UC faculty interested in partnerships with industrial sponsors.

For faculty, this program provides an opportunity to leverage committed industrial support to acquire additional funding for research activities. Industrial partners benefit too because they see their commitments to UC providing more of a return, which reinforces their relationships with UC campuses, particularly at a time when in-house, long-term industrial research and development activities are on the wane.

Research proposals may be submitted by any researcher with principal investigator status at the 10 UC campuses, the three national laboratories, and the Agriculture Experiment Station. In addition to proposing meritorious research, PIs need to include a binding letter of commitment from an industrial sponsor to jointly fund the project by agreeing to pay at least half the direct costs and applicable indirect costs.

Some grant deadlines are upcoming, so we wanted to be sure you were aware of this opportunity.

Awards are possible in five fields (with upcoming deadlines indicated):

  • Biotechnology
  • Communications, Networking, & Operating Systems (letters of intent: April 14; proposals: April 25)
  • Digital Media
  • Electronics Manufacturing & New Materials
  • Information Technology for Life Sciences (letters of intent: May 5; proposals: May 16)

These grants provide up to four years of funding for research projects and training opportunities for students and postdocs. The program is especially receptive to interdisciplinary and multi-investigator projects.


Online proposal submission makes it easy to apply, and applicants are notified approximately six weeks after a deadline on whether they can expect awards.

For more information, see http://ucdiscoverygrant.org.