Yale Planetary Solutions Invites Proposals for the 4th Annual Grant Program
Yale Planetary Solutions Invites Proposals for the 4th Annual Grant Program
**Note: The application deadline has passed for YPS’s 4th Annual Grant Program. Thank you for your interest!**
In 2025 YPS will award three distinct types of grants, reflecting a growing and diversifying demand across the university to support novel and impactful projects that are aimed at solving planetary challenges.
YPS is seeking proposals that align with our mission, and particularly with one or more of our primary lenses: climate change; biodiversity and ecosystems; and communities and society. The program is funded with longstanding generous support from the Three Cairns Climate Impact Innovation Fund, and this year we are pleased to welcome the Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture and AI at Yale as partners in funding select awards. Additional support for these grants comes from the Natural Carbon Solutions Fund, the Simon Bates Catalyst Fund, the Science Catalyst Fund for Planetary Solutions, the Gordon Data and Environmental Sciences Research Grants, and the Science Frontiers Endowment.
Initiation grants are intended to empower work on potential new, challenging, or high-risk research and scholarship. Activities in an Initiation grant may include but are not limited to workshops, conferences, book projects, art installations, and curricular improvements. YPS expects to fund up to six Initiation grants with budgets up to $25,000 and a 12-month timeline.
Acceleration grants are intended to support projects focused on research and scholarship that lay the groundwork for implementation. This may involve conducting proof-of-concept studies, gathering preliminary data, and practicing team science. This phase is crucial for bridging the gap between ideas and practical, scalable solutions. YPS will award up to twelve Acceleration grants with budgets up to $100,000 and an 18-month timeline.
Constellation grants are intended to enable transformation of academic knowledge into tangible, actionable outcomes in concert with stakeholders. This could include pre-commercialization efforts to support new spin-out companies or developing, testing and scaling decision-making tools in collaboration with stakeholders who would implement those tools in their activities. This phase is aimed at ensuring that the research achieves its full potential. YPS anticipates funding up to three Constellation grants with budgets up to $250,000 and a 24-month timeline.
Previous grant cycles have brought together a wide range of disciplines with promising projects for accelerating action and impact. Read about the winners from each year:
- Musical flocks, olive trees, and catalysts: with third annual round of grants, seeds are planted for 22 more planetary solutions (2024)
- From cooling strategies to methane reduction, second annual seed grant awardees continue to build planetary solutions (2023)
- From carbon capture to infectious disease: Planetary Solutions Project seed grants span disciplines to address global environmental challenges (2022)
Questions? A recording of the grant info session can be viewed via Zoom. Visit the links for more information, and reach out to planetarysolutions@yale.edu with any questions.