Keck Foundation’s Interests for Its Research Grants 

For science/engineering projects and medical research projects, the Keck Foundation seeks to support projects likely to lead to new models or breakthroughs in fundamental science, engineering, and medical science. (The Keck Foundation is not interested in applied science.) 

A successful Keck Foundation proposal in either category could lead to the creation of a new field of research, development of new instrumentation that facilitates observations and the science of the previously unobservable, or discovery of knowledge that challenges prevailing perspectives and paradigms. Proposals should provide new and transformative answers or approaches to underlying questions in fundamental science and should address issues that seem unsolvable, unattainable, or intractable. 

The Keck Foundation funds proposals that are necessarily high-risk projects that push the edge of the field(s) and present unconventional approaches to intransient problems. The Keck Foundation does not fund projects that represent the “next logical step” in research or applied research. The Keck Foundation also prefers projects that do not qualify for funding from—or, better yet, have been previously rejected by—federal agencies, such as NSF and NIH, due to the proposed project’s high-risk nature. 

The ideal concept paper would attest to a previous federal agency’s declination due to the high-risk nature of the proposal in spite of high reviewer scores in federal agency proposal submissions. Successful proposals should hold promise of a significant breakthrough or new discovery in science, engineering, or medical research.

The bi-annual internal limited submission for Keck Foundation research grants is open in InfoReady and due on January 3, 2023 @ 11:59 pm.