Current Funding Opportunities Information

Mississippi Research Alliance

The Mississippi Research Alliance (MRA) is excited to share four new funding opportunities designed to enhance the capacity and capabilities of the State's research ecosystem. 

Opportunities for funding through the MRA include:

  • Seed Grants: Support for faculty-initiated research projects
  • Instrumentation Acquisition Awards: Acquisition of multi-user instrumentation
  • Instrumentation Use Vouchers: Increase access to MRA affiliated resources
  • Travel Awards: Travel to jurisdictional meetings and facilitate training

The MRA will help position Mississippi as a national front-runner in science and technology through making investments throughout the state’s research community. All academic institution granting four-year degrees are eligible to receive funding through the MRA through formal partnering with the program. Half of the funds are allocated to be awarded to emerging research institutions (ERIs), which are defined as an institution of higher education with an established undergraduate or graduate program that has less than $50,000,000 in federal research expenditures.

Budget

All budgets are to be submitted in NSF format. Budgets may include faculty salaries, postdoctoral salaries, graduate and undergraduate student salaries, fees, and tuition, supplies, contractual, equipment and travel. The budgets must include appropriate fringes on all personnel salary and must include F&A. No subcontracts are allowed.

Proposal Review

Proposals will be reviewed by external reviewers for scientific merit, appropriateness of budget, potential for future funding, utilization of MRA resources, and training opportunities for students. The reviewers will provide scientific review without funding recommendations and the Mississippi EPSCoR Jurisdictional Steering Committee will make the final funding decisions.

Please refer to the MRA NOFO Document (click here) for complete descriptions of each opportunity, eligibility and application requirements.

Proposals should be contained in a single PDF file and submitted using the following links:

Applications due: May 30, 2025, at 5pm CST

Applications due: May 30, 2025, at 5pm CST

Applications accepted anytime

Applications accepted anytime

Applicants are encouraged to contact MRA personnel to discuss their proposals to submission. 

MRA Contacts: 

Additional seed funding may be available for projects that align with other MS EPSCoR programs.

Please contact the leads for additional information:

  • MS Nano-Bio and ImmunotherapyEngineering Consortium (NIEC): Dr. Adam Smith, aes@olemiss.edu