W.M. Keck Foundation Program for Science and Engineering
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General Information
Program Description
The W.M. Keck Foundation Program for Science and Engineering supports pioneering research projects that are distinctive, novel, and have the potential to break new ground in their respective fields. The program focuses on high-risk, high-impact work that challenges prevailing paradigms and explores new territories in science and engineering.
Limitation
Schools may submit one (1) application in each of two categories to the W.M. Keck Foundation for Penn’s internal competition.
Eligibility
- Principal Investigator (PI): The PI must be a full-time Assistant or Associate Professor at an invited U.S. academic institution.
- Institution: Eligible institutions include research universities, medical colleges, and major private independent scientific and medical research institutes.
- Research Focus: The research must align with the foundation’s priorities, which include high-risk, high-impact projects that are innovative, distinctive, and interdisciplinary
- Focus on important and emerging areas of research.
- Are innovative, distinctive, and interdisciplinary.
- Demonstrate a high level of risk due to unconventional approaches or by challenging the prevailing paradigm.
- Have the potential for transformative impact, such as founding a new field of research, enabling new observations, or altering perceptions of previously intractable problems.
- Fall outside the mission of public funding agencies;
- Have been recently denied funding by a federal funding agency expressly because the project was judged too high risk or early stage. The foundation prefers to see the rejection in writing.
- 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
- Grants from the W.M. Keck Foundation typically range from $1 million to $5 million and are awarded to universities and research institutions across the United States.
- Award extensions are not allowed.
- The foundation prefers projects that are not too clinical or too applied, not related to therapeutics, not disease-specific, and not a “logical next step” in research.
- The foundation also prefers to fund projects for which federal funding is not readily available.
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.