The Burroughs Wellcome Fund’s Climate Change and Human Health Seed Grants program is designed to spark interdisciplinary partnerships and early-stage innovation at the intersection of climate change and human health. With a total allocation of $1 million between Fall 2023 and Summer 2026, the initiative seeks to fund small grants ranging from $2,500 to $50,000. Proposals must be led by nonprofit organizations or degree-granting institutions in the United States or Canada. The program explicitly aims to connect fields traditionally siloed from one another, such as biomedical sciences with environmental science, geography, demography, and urban planning, to address the health impacts of climate change.
The initiative prioritizes proposals that catalyze new collaborations and integrate population health disciplines with systems-level and ecological thinking. The Fund is particularly interested in projects addressing the sustainability of healthcare delivery, preparation for climate-driven crises such as extreme weather events, and public communication and education that bridges the science-policy-public divide. Work that focuses narrowly on environmental factors like heat or flooding without robust climate change integration is considered non-competitive.
Grants must be completed within one year, with a single no-cost extension possible. Quarterly reviews will continue through July 2026, and proposals are accepted on a rolling basis with deadlines every three months. The next deadlines are January 22, April 23, and July 23, 2026. Each submission is reviewed internally with input from a standing committee and expert advisors from a panel affiliated with the National Academy of Medicine. Funded work should demonstrate a transformative potential to realign how human health and climate systems are understood and acted upon.
The grant program supports direct costs such as personnel, materials, and reasonable consultant fees. Indirect costs are not permitted. Applicants must submit a full narrative proposal, cover sheet, project budget, CVs of key personnel, and proof of nonprofit status. Awards cannot be used as simple extensions of existing projects or as pass-through funding. Fiscal agents are not allowed, and applicants must be significant collaborators in the proposed work.
The Burroughs Wellcome Fund encourages a wide spectrum of applicants, including academic institutions, advocacy groups, science communication centers, and community-based organizations. Current and past awardees of other Fund programs are eligible. All applications must be submitted via the online ProposalCentral portal. Questions are addressed only via scheduled Zoom sessions; phone and email support for this grant has been discontinued since April 30, 2025.
Proposals must catalyze new partnerships; existing collaborations not favored; work must extend beyond current institutional capacities.
