Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Grants

The deadline for Sloan Research Fellowships is September 15. Other grant requests can be made at any time for support of activities related to Foundation program areas and interests. The Foundation has no deadlines or standard forms. The Foundation accepts proposals sent by e-mail. A brief letter of inquiry, rather than a fully developed proposal, is an advisable first step for an applicant.

The Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, a philanthropic nonprofit institution, was established in 1934 by Alfred Pritchard Sloan, Jr., then President and Chief Executive Officer of the General Motors Corporation. The Foundation's programs and interests fall into the following areas: (1) Science and Technology: which includes Fellowships intended to enhance the careers of young faculty members in specified fields of science; direct support of research in selected fields, including the indoor environment, molecular evolution, theoretical neurobiology, computational molecular biology, astrophysics, limits to knowledge, and marine science; and work in the history of science and technology, to preserve the raw material of history by supporting archival projects. (2) Standard of Living and Economic Performance: The goal is to understand better the basic forces affecting American economic progress and the U.S. standard of living in the increasingly competitive world economy. This program is divided into the following areas: (a) Industry Studies to encourage research cooperation between academics and industry, and to support the integration of observation-based research with appropriate theory and analysis among industry studies scholars; (b) Business Organizations: academic research and scholarship concerning how corporations and other business organizations function, with special emphasis on how the people in them behave, are motivated, and are rewarded; (c) Higher Education as an Industry: understanding of how institutions of higher education work and how the set of institutions functions together as an industry; (d) Making Municipal Governments More Responsive to Their Citizens, which includes two components: Promoting Citizen-Informed and Citizen-Based Performance Measurement and Reporting; and Enabling Direct Service Requests; (e) Workplace, Work Force and Working Families: developing work-family scholarship and supporting effective workplaces that meet the needs of working parents and older workers. (3) Education and Careers in Science and Technology: programs to strengthen education in science and technology, to increase interest in these fields, and to understand and communicate to others the nature of careers in these fields. Increasingly important are opportunities presented by electronic technologies for learning outside the classroom. (4) Selected National Issues Program: The goal for the Selected National Issues Program is to contribute to major issues of our time. Under the Selected National Issues Program, the foundation contributes to (a) Projects to reduce the threat of Bioterrorism: focus is on two underdeveloped areas: citizen preparedness and issues of potentially dangerous research in the life sciences; (b) Incentives for businesses to prepare for terrorism, such as developing legal, insurance, rating agency, and regulatory incentives; (c) Pandemic Preparedness: projects addressing the lack of information on the effectiveness of non-pharmaceutical measures that will be necessary to protect the population before a vaccine can be produced; (d) Dangerous Research: Knowledge and technologies emanating from vitally important biological research could possibly be misused to threaten public health or national security. Grants in this area focus on biosecurity issues and prevention of deliberate or inadvertent use of biology for destructive purposes. (e) Unique Opportunities: practical projects with potential for wide impact to reduce the threat of bioterrorism; (f) Federal Statistics: sustainable mechanisms by which expertise might be applied to improving the validity of Federal statistical measures, in view of rapid changes in the U.S. economy and society that have brought existing measurement approaches into doubt.

History of Funds:

Grants totaling $798,908,898 were authorized in 2007. For complete annual and financial reports for 2007 and prior years, go to http://www.sloan.org/report/2007/index.shtml.

Average Award:

30,000

Name: Paul L. Joskow, President

Department: Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

Street: 630 5th Ave.

Ste. 2550

City: New York

Zip: 10111-0242

Fax: 212-757-5117