Cultural Anthropology Program Senior Research Awards
Posted by U.S. National Science Foundation
Opportunity snapshot. This Grants.gov announcement — Cultural Anthropology Program Senior Research Awards — is cataloged under number 25-502 and tied to CFDA assistance listing 47.075, posted by U.S. National Science Foundation. Grants.gov currently shows the opportunity as open, first posted on October 8, 2024 and last updated on March 17, 2026. The funding category is Discretionary, delivered as a grant.
Award economics. The award range on file is Varies by applicant. The agency has projected $4.0 million in total estimated funding for this announcement. It expects to issue 40 awards. If the agency funds the expected 40 awards from the $4.0 million estimated pool, the average award works out to roughly $100,000. Cost sharing is not required, so applicants do not need to commit matching funds to be competitive on this opportunity. Federal award ranges are often upper bounds; actual allocations reflect program appropriations, the strength of the applicant pool, and the evaluation committee's scoring.
Deadline and action path. Applications close on August 17, 2026 — roughly 73 days from today. Every Grants.gov submission requires an active SAM.gov registration and a Unique Entity ID. Review the Eligibility section below carefully — federal eligibility categories (nonprofit, state or local government, tribal, individual, educational institution, small business) have distinct registration and reporting requirements. Pre-application outreach to the listed agency contact is permitted and often welcomed — it helps clarify scope and scoring priorities.
Award Range
Varies by applicant
Close Date
August 17, 2026
Posted
October 8, 2024
Est. Total Funding
$4,000,000
Expected Awards
40
Instrument
Grant
Description
The primary objective of the Cultural Anthropology Program is to support fundamental, systematic anthropological research and training to increase understanding of the causes, consequences and complexities of human social and cultural variability. The Cultural Anthropology Program welcomes proposals from researchers in all sub-fields of cultural anthropology and research at any temporal or spatial scale. Methodologies and approaches employed may include ethnographic field research, surveys, remote sensing, the collection of bio-markers, experimental research inside or outside of laboratory settings, archival research, the analysis of materials collections and extant data bases, mathematical and computational modeling and other research tools as appropriate for the proposed research. The overarching research goals should be to produce empirically grounded findings that will be generalizable beyond particular case studies and contribute to building a more robust anthropological science of human society and culture. The U.S. National Science Foundation's mandate is to support basic scientific research. Basic research in cultural anthropology means theory-generating and theory-testing research that creates new knowledge about human culture and society. Therefore, the Cultural Anthropology Program cannot support research that takes as its primary objective improved clinical practice, applied policy or other immediate application. Research that seeks to advance scientific cultural anthropological theories in a way that advances use-inspired objectives may be supported, but the theory-advancing objectives must be clearly at the center of the proposal. A proposal to use anthropological methods and approaches only to find solutions to social, medical or other problems without specifically proposing to make a theory-testing or theory-expanding contribution to anthropological science will be returned without review.
Eligibility
25
Official Listing on Grants.gov
View full details, application forms, and submission instructions.
Parent Grant Program
Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
National Science Foundation
Agency Contact
NSF grants.gov support<br/>grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov
Key Dates
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Disclaimer: This information is sourced from Grants.gov and SAM.gov and is for informational purposes only. Opportunity details, deadlines, and eligibility requirements change frequently. Always verify current information directly on Grants.gov before applying. PlainGrants is not affiliated with any federal agency.
Read our methodology — how this data is sourced, computed, and verified.
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| Publisher | Kiznis Studio |
| Sources | Public official public datasets |