The M.J. Murdock Charitable Trust supports several initiatives for science research at four-year undergraduate institutions across the Pacific Northwest. Learn more about each program below or, for more information, please email Dr. Moses Lee or grants@murdocktrust.org.

Research Start-Up Grants for New Science Faculty

This program offers support to supplement start-up costs for the establishment of new faculty positions in the natural sciences at private educational institutions. Grants are primarily targeted at undergraduate colleges and universities in the Murdock Trust’s five-state region. The size of the grants is increased in 2020, as well as the eligibility is expanded to include new tenure track faculty teaching and doing lab/bench natural science research in non-natural science departments, such as neuroscience in psychology, human/animal physiology in exercise science, geology/ecology in environmental science/studies, and microbiology in nursing.

Deadline: August 1
Awards Announced: Late November

Instructions & Checklist

Proposal Narrative Template

Please carefully read the guidelines and instructions linked above before applying. Invitations to submit proposals will be emailed to all eligible institutions in early summer. Use the link in the invitation email to apply.

Murdock College Research Program for Natural Sciences

This program is designed to support research in the natural sciences at private, predominantly undergraduate colleges and universities in the Murdock Trust’s funding region. Eligible institutions must offer a bachelor’s degree, but not a doctoral degree, in the sciences. Principal investigators must hold a faculty appointment in a natural science department. The program was introduced in 1997 for supporting the life sciences and expanded in 2014 to include the natural sciences. The size of natural sciences grants are increased in 2020, and a new option — BRIDGE — is opened to a limited number (one per institution per year) of faculty with established and federally funded research programs, but who have lost that support within the past (three-four) years (four years for those who had served as a department chair or other senior administration position during the last federal grant).

Deadline: October 1
Awards Announced: Early March

Murdock College Science Research Program

The goal of this program—designed exclusively for private, four-year liberal arts colleges in the Murdock Trust’s funding region—is to strengthen these institutions’ faculty and undergraduate student research efforts in the natural sciences. Grants are awarded to colleges and universities with the capacity for developing division-wide faculty-student research programs that can be sustained with institutional resources and external funding. 

This program is by invitation only.

In addition to the grants the Trust hosts an annual Murdock College Science Research Conference. The conference focuses on sharing and advancing new knowledge in the natural sciences created or discovered through collaborative faculty-student research. The conference is invitation only and showcases speakers and presents awards to research programs from around the region.

The following institutions are members of MCSRP: Gonzaga University; Lewis & Clark College; Linfield College; Northwest Nazarene University; Pacific University; Pacific Lutheran University; Seattle University; University of Portland; University of Puget Sound; Whitman College; and Willamette University.

RAISE (Research Across Institutions for Scientific Empowerment)–a program of the Collaborative Research Alliance

The Collaborative Research Alliance initiative is aimed at boosting the productivity of research being pursued at private undergraduate colleges and universities in the Trust’s funding region.

RAISE will enable research-active natural science faculty from mainly private predominantly undergraduate institutions and small group of research-active public undergraduate universities, to collaborate and pursue synergistic, cutting-edge projects at a higher level of sophistication and scope than each group would pursue on their own.

Along with strong support by the institutions in each alliance, RAISE will support high quality and competitive research projects that can be sustained through the involvement of undergraduate students, the production of impactful peer-reviewed publications, and garnering on-going research funding from federal agencies, such as the NSF and NIH.

Deadline for this round: by 04/01/2022 for SR-LOI submission (Note: SR-LOIs and SR proposals will be processed as received on a rolling basis.)
Deadline for this round: by 08/01/2022 for SR application request submission

Awards announced for this round: 6-9 months after SR application request submission.

Addendum Instructions for RAISE

PIs Interested in Participating in the RAISE program

Lynwood W. Swanson Scientific Research Award and Lynwood W. Swanson Promise for Scientific Research Award

The Murdock Trust is pleased to announce the creation of two annual awards: the Lynwood W. Swanson Scientific Research Award and the Lynwood W. Swanson Promise for Scientific Research Award as part of the Murdock College Science Research Program (MCSRP) and the Trust’s vision to support the future of undergraduate research at predominantly undergraduate institutions in the Pacific Northwest. 

The Lynwood W. Swanson Scientific Research Award recognizes a senior faculty exemplar with an established, productive and nationally recognized research program, while the Lynwood W. Swanson Promise for Scientific Research Award recognizes a junior faculty who has demonstrated exceptional potential in establishing an exemplary, productive and sustainable research program. The latter award is intended to honor a junior professor with less than ten years of experience as a faculty member.

Invitations to submit nomination(s) will be emailed to all eligible institutions in early spring.

Deadline: June 1
Awards Announced: November at the MCSR Conference