Student STEM Enrichment Program

The Student STEM Enrichment Program (SSEP) supports diverse programs with a common goal: to enable primary and secondary students to participate in creative, hands-on STEM activities for K-12 students and pursue inquiry-based exploration in BWF's home state of North Carolina. These awards provide up to $60,000 per year for three years. Since the program's inception in 1996, BWF has awarded 201 grants totaling $33.7 million to 103 organizations that reach more than 43,000 North Carolina students.

SSEP awards support career-oriented and practical programs intended to provide creative science enrichment activities for students in K-12 education who have shown exceptional skills and interest in STEM, as well as those perceived to have high potential. After school programs are demonstrating value in helping to close opportunity gaps for underserved and underrepresented students. These programs must enable students to participate in hands-on STEM activities and pursue inquiry-based avenues of exploration—an educational approach that BWF believes to be an effective way to increase students’ understanding and appreciation of the scientific process. To increase academic achievement, programs must provide a well-defined structure that aligns with the school-day curriculum, well-trained staff, and student follow up.

Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program

The Graduate Diversity Enrichment Program provides $5,000 over two years to provide underrepresented minority PhD students (enrolled in NC Institutions of Higher Education) with opportunities for greater science and research enrichment experiences. Up to ten awards will be granted for the 2021-2023 period.

Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease

The Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (PATH) program provides opportunities for assistant professors to bring multidisciplinary approaches to the study of human infectious diseases. The goal of the program is to provide opportunities for accomplished investigators at the assistant professor level to study what happens at the points where the systems of humans and potentially infectious agents connect. The program supports research that sheds light on the fundamentals that affect the outcomes of these encounters: how colonization, infection, commensalism, and other relationships play out at levels ranging from molecular interactions to systemic ones.

PATH is a highly competitive award program that provides $505,000 over a period of five years to study pathogenesis with the intent to give recipients the freedom and flexibility to pursue new avenues of inquiry, stimulating higher-risk research projects that hold potential for significantly advancing understanding of how infectious diseases work and how health is maintained.

Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grants

Small grants to promote the growth of new connections between scholars, practitioners, educators, and/or communicators working to understand, spread the word about, and mitigate the impacts of climate change on human health.

Review will be conducted quarterly. After each quarterly review, we will support, decline, or send proposals back to applicants for revision, but may hold some proposals over for a future review. Recommended revisions may include suggestions that separate groups of applicants submitting similar proposals work together to develop a single proposal or that applicants consider becoming involved in efforts aligned with work funded in earlier quarters.

Climate + Health Excellence (CHEX) Centers

New institutional awards of up to $10,000,000 to stimulate development of strong research, education, and public communications connections between fields that aim to understand and mitigate the impact of climate change on human health. In general, this award will support institutions or consortia that are already moving toward establishing themselves as centers of excellence for understanding climate change’s impact on human health and for leadership in climate education OR public communication around climate and health. Applications from institutions just starting to integrate Climate + Health into their planning are expected to be uncompetitive. Up to three awards will be made over two rounds of competition.

Providing support for U.S. and Canadian research and educational Institutions or consortia of research and educational institutions.

Promoting Innovation in Science and Mathematics

Burroughs Wellcome Fund supports teaching professionals in their efforts to provide quality hands-on, inquiry-based activities for their students. PRISM promotes excitement for science and mathematics in the classroom by providing funds for materials, equipment, and supplies related to the implementation of high quality curriculum and activities in the classroom.

This award provides up to $3,000 for one year to cover the cost of equipment, materials, and supplies. An additional $1,500 may be requested for professional development related to the implementation of new equipment or use of materials in the classroom. Awards are made to teaching professionals that hold a professional educator's license to teach in a North Carolina K-12 public school.

Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease

The Investigators in the Pathogenesis of Infectious Disease (PATH) program provides opportunities for assistant professors to bring multidisciplinary approaches to the study of human infectious diseases. The goal of the program is to provide opportunities for accomplished investigators at the assistant professor level to study what happens at the points where the systems of humans and potentially infectious agents connect. The program supports research that sheds light on the fundamentals that affect the outcomes of these encounters: how colonization, infection, commensalism, and other relationships play out at levels ranging from molecular interactions to systemic ones.

PATH is a highly competitive award program that provides $505,000 over a period of five years to study pathogenesis with the intent to give recipients the freedom and flexibility to pursue new avenues of inquiry, stimulating higher-risk research projects that hold potential for significantly advancing understanding of how infectious diseases work and how health is maintained.