Award cycles for the ATS Research Program unrestricted, diversity, and partner grants have recently been updated to align with the calendar year. Please review the timeline below for further details.
Applicants to 2024-2025 grants will be notified of award decisions in March 2025.
2026 Research Program Grant Opportunities
| Unrestricted Grants |
Up to five unrestricted grants will be awarded in 2026. Projects must be related to pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. Applicants must first submit a letter of intent. All five grants will be awarded to the top-scoring projects regardless of specific research focus. |
| Diversity Grant |
One diversity grant will be awarded in 2026. This grant supports early-career investigators from underrepresented populations in the biomedical research enterprise, as defined by the NIH. Investigators may be working in pulmonary, critical care, and sleep medicine. Applicants must first submit a letter of intent via the unrestricted grant mechanism, where they may indicate that they meet the eligibility requirements and would like to be considered for the diversity grant. |
| Partner Grants |
These grants are offered in partnership with the Research Program's partners to support targeted and disease-specific research grants. |
Review Process
Administrative Review
Research Program staff will review your application. If there are any problems or if guidelines have not been followed, your proposal will be unsubmitted. We cannot accept changes to letters of intent or applications once they have been submitted.
ATS uses Foundant Technologies for its web-based LOI and application.
- Please add @grantinterface.com to your address book or contacts to ensure you receive communications regarding your LOI and application.
Scientific Grant Review
The ATS Scientific Grant Review Committee (SGRC) is composed of nationally renowned pulmonary, sleep, and critical care researchers. The SGRC leads a rigorous, NIH-style review process to identify the most impactful research proposals.
Reviewers determine the overall impact of each application by assessing the quality of the investigator’s scientific background and research environment and evaluating each proposal’s overall significance, innovation, feasibility, and importance to patients.
Grant Review Process
For its unrestricted and diversity grants, the Research Program employs a two-stage process. Partner grants do not require a letter of intent and are reviewed at the full application stage.
1. Letter of Intent Stage- Two members of the SGRC review each LOI and provide an overall score.
- Researchers submitting LOIs with the highest scores are invited to submit full applications.
- Invitations to submit full applications will be made in early May 2025.
- Full applications are reviewed by three SGRC members, who provide an overall impact score and comments.
- Applications are ranked by their average preliminary score. The lowest scoring applications are triaged and not discussed at the review.
- The remaining applications are discussed at the SGRC review meeting. The entire committee scores the applications.
- The applications are then ranked from lowest to highest average score. The SGRC recommends the top scoring application(s) in each grant category for funding.
Timeline
Award cycles for the ATS Research Program unrestricted, diversity, and partner grants have recently been updated to align with the calendar year. Please review the timeline below for further details.
| Grant Portfolio Opens | January 21, 2025 |
| Letters of Intent Due* | March 12, 2025, 11:59 PM ET |
| Invitations to Applicants* | May 2025 |
| Full Applications Due | July 1, 2025, 11:59 PM ET |
| Award Notification | September 2025 |
| Grant Start Date | January 1, 2026 |
*unrestricted/diversity grants only
Questions? Review the FAQs.
Contact the ATS Research Program.
