New cycle will provide $700,000 over four years to support innovative, high-risk research in pregnancy
RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C. — The Burroughs Wellcome Fund (BWF) has announced the next cycle of its Next Generation Pregnancy Initiative (NGP), significantly expanding its investment in researchers working to deepen understanding of pregnancy and address some of the field’s most persistent challenges.
The 2026–2027 cycle represents the full implementation of a strategic reassessment of BWF’s investments in pregnancy research, including a notable increase in both the size and number of awards in response to limited funding opportunities in the field. Each NGP award will now provide $700,000 over four years to support scientists committed to academic careers in pregnancy research.
“Pregnancy research continues to be an area where the scientific questions are enormous, but the resources available to pursue them have not always matched the scale of the challenge,” said Dr. Paige Cooper Byas, program officer at the Burroughs Wellcome Fund. “Increasing both the size and number of these awards reflects our commitment to giving researchers the resources and flexibility to pursue ambitious ideas. We want investigators to take scientific risks, bring new perspectives and approaches into the field, and generate discoveries that can fundamentally change how we understand healthy pregnancy and adverse pregnancy outcomes.”
The Next Generation Pregnancy Initiative supports innovative basic science research, with an emphasis on high-risk, high-reward projects. The new cycle will focus on four priority areas: mechanisms of healthy pregnancy, preterm birth, pregnancy loss after 12 weeks and recurrent pregnancy loss, and pre-eclampsia. BWF particularly welcomes projects focused on subtyping adverse pregnancy outcomes, investigating maternal-fetal interactions, and integrating animal models with clinical outcomes.
The expanded investment follows a strategic review of BWF’s longstanding commitment to reproductive science. The Fund established its Preterm Birth Initiative in 2009 as its first funding mechanism dedicated to reproductive sciences. In 2019, BWF convened a Pregnancy Think Tank and subsequently broadened the program to recognize the interrelated nature of pregnancy duration, fetal growth, and outcomes including preterm birth, preeclampsia, intrauterine growth restriction, stillbirth, and maternal medical complications. The expanded program became the Next Generation Pregnancy Initiative.
After five years under the expanded model, BWF paused the program to reassess its investments, the state of pregnancy research, researchers’ priorities and the broader funding landscape. The program relaunched with the 2025–2026 cycle with updated priority areas. The new cycle builds on that work with increased investment intended to address the continuing scarcity of research funding in the field.
BWF is also seeking to broaden the community of researchers contributing to pregnancy science. Eligible principal investigators include senior postdoctoral fellows, staff scientists, assistant professors and associate professors. Proposals may come from individual investigators or research teams, and projects that cross disciplinary or institutional boundaries are encouraged.
The Fund particularly welcomes contributions from researchers outside reproductive science and encourages transdisciplinary teams that bring together knowledge and approaches from multiple fields.
Projects should address prevention of adverse pregnancy outcomes. Applications will be evaluated for innovation, the strength of the project plan and team, and relevance and potential impact. BWF is particularly interested in creative, original approaches that take scientific risks and have the potential to transform understanding of pregnancy.
The application portal will open in ProposalCentral on September 1, 2026. Applicants are encouraged to complete the required eligibility check by November 3, 2026, and full proposals are due November 17, 2026, at 3 p.m. Eastern Time. Finalists will be interviewed in April 2027, with award notifications expected in June and awards beginning October 1, 2027.
For additional information about the Next Generation Pregnancy Initiative, eligibility requirements and application instructions, visit bwfund.org or contact ngp@bwfund.org.
About the Burroughs Wellcome Fund
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund is a private foundation dedicated to advancing the biomedical sciences by supporting research and other scientific and educational activities. Through its grantmaking, BWF supports scientists at critical stages of their careers and invests in areas of science where its resources can catalyze discovery and strengthen the research enterprise.
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