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Brown Investigator Award

General Information

Description

The Brown Science Foundation seeks to support bold ideas for curiosity-driven basic research. The Foundation believes that there is a reservoir of great scientists who have demonstrated their talent and capability by earning tenure at leading US universities, but who cannot pursue their most daring ideas because of the often conservative nature of government funding. Therefore, the Foundation intends to provide significant funds to a small number of such scientists in the fields of Physics and Chemistry with few funding restrictions and limited reporting requirements. Because the Foundation wants to support basic research, which may have an eventual technological impact, it has chosen to award grants to investigators working in atomic and condensed matter physics and fundamental areas of chemistry.

Limitation

Schools may submit one (1) application for Penn’s internal competition.

Eligibility

  • Mid-career researchers who have received tenure within the past 10 years (since July 2013) are eligible.
  • Researchers in the chemistry department must be working in fundamental areas of chemistry.
  • Researchers in the physics department must be working in atomic and condensed matter physics.
  • For any sponsored research projects, the applicant must be eligible to serve as Principal Investigator for the project, unless otherwise noted in the LSO. Please see Penn’s PI Eligibility requirements to ensure you are eligible. 

Award Information

  • A research award of $2,000,000 over five years.
  • For experimentalists ($1,250,000 for theorists).
  • The funds may be used for support of postdoctoral research staff, graduate students, non-faculty technical staff, supplies, equipment, user fees, and indirect administrative costs up to 10% of the non-equipment portion grant amount.

What Brown Science Foundation Will Fund

The Brown Foundation provides grants to universities to fund exceptional faculty members. Candidates must pursue new research avenues that are highly creative, and for which conventional sources of research funding may not be readily available. These investigations may include not only the exploration of new phenomena, but also the development of new approaches to the collection of new data for use by future researchers, the development of new and original techniques to detect or measure properties and processes, and new ideas for the analysis of newly observed phenomena.

What Brown Science Foundation Does Not Fund

The Foundation seeks to support curiosity-driven basic research that might have eventual technological implications. Areas not under consideration: 

  • Biomedical research
  • Applied or engineering research
  • Astronomy
  • Astrophysics
  • Particle physics
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Limited Submission Opportunities Protocol 

What is a Limited Submission Opportunity? When a funding agency or foundation limits the number of applications Penn can submit, the OVPR manages a two-part internal review process to select the proposal that advances to the funder. 

What is the Review Process for Limited Submissions? The selection process begins at the school level, where candidates are vetted to choose a finalist for the OVPR round. Applicants must follow their home school’s deadlines and submission instructions. A committee of reviewers then recommends candidates to the Senior Vice Provost, who selects the final nominee. 

Where do I find out about limited submission opportunities on the OVPR website? The newly designed website lists LSOs. Use the filters on the left to refine your search. Opportunities are listed in summary form. Click on the title of an opportunity to see the full details. 

How do I apply? When the full detail page for the opportunity is open, click the “APPLY HERE” button at the bottom right of the screen. This starts your application process using InfoReady. Log in with your PennKey credentials. After you submit your application, InfoReady processes it for the first round of review at your school. If selected as the Penn nominee, you will be notified directly and will begin the submission process to the funder with the Office of Research Services and PennERA.