Social Scientists with “Audacious” Ideas Encouraged to Seek Grant Funds
The Audacious Project (an initiative of TED)
Audacious Ideas Grants
Purpose: To support ambitious ideas with clear outcomes and the potential to catalyze social impact. Ideas should be inspiring, convincing, and achievable, with a unique approach and a clear path to implementation with a community-centered focus. There should be evidence that the idea will have impact based on a track record of past success, demand from those that would be affected, and confidence in the sustainability of results. Ideas often fall into the following categories:
- Solutions at scale: ideas that deploy proven interventions that will use Audacious funding to make significant progress toward solving problems.
- Pathway to proof: funding will be used to demonstrate further growth and significant results.
- Breakthrough science: ideas that accelerate visionary research with critical long-term applications for humanity and the planet.
This initiative is backed by major philanthropic funders. Collaborations with other institutions are welcome.
Eligibility: Teams generally already have the support of an organization other than Audacious.
Funding: Unrestricted. Grants have ranged from $20M to $100M. Median is $60M over 5 years.
Key Dates:
April 15, 2024 (preliminary proposal survey due)
The submission process consists of a short survey, from which 70 applicants are selected to move forward to the second stage’s longer application. During the third stage, for which 8-10 applicants are selected, finalists create investment proposals to present to potential donors. The process lasts up to 18 months. For this cycle, funding would start late 2025 or early 2026.
Details: https://www.audaciousproject.org/apply
Past Awards: https://www.audaciousproject.org/grantees
For questions and assistance applying: The staff of the Foundation Relations office at BU works with the faculty to identify funding opportunities that are available from private foundations, associations, and societies; we also assist in the preparation of funding requests. For questions and assistance applying this or other foundation grants, please contact Cecilia Lalama (clalama@bu.edu).