Enterprise Innovation brings internal and external collaboration opportunities to our faculty and trainees. These programs provide extra funding and opportunities to work with industry to advance faculty/trainees' translational research projects.
Please contact Dr. James Bellush at james.bellush@cornell.edu if you have any questions or need guidance on your application.
1. Alzheimer’s Research UK: Dementia Frontiers Fund
- Eligibility: Dementia Frontiers Fund is a bold, ambitious initiative empowering researchers to tackle the most urgent and complex questions in dementia. Proposals which address the following core questions will be accepted in a staged application process:
- Can we better predict and stage disease progression in dementia?
- What are the relative contributions of different brain changes to the development of dementia?
- Why are some high-risk populations resilient to dementia?
- Submission Details: Funding call will follow a staged process:
- Stage 1 – Expression of Interest (EOI), approximately $50,000 will be awarded to ~10 research teams to support further proposal development
- Stage 2 – Full application, shortlisted teams will be invited to submit a full application and be reviewed by expert panel, 4 teams will be selected to receive a two-year award from a $6,000,000 funding pool
- Stage 3 – At least one team demonstrating the most promising progress and clear path to answering research question will be eligible for major follow on award for an additional 3-years
- Award Details: Stage 1 - $50,000, Stage 2 – up to $1,200,000, Stage 3 – Follow on award (TBD). Additional details on funding and eligibility can be found here.
- Submission Deadline: Expression of intent (EOI) deadline January 7, 2026
2. Breakthrough T1D: Common Mechanisms in Autoimmunity Insight Awards
- Eligibility: Award will support novel one-year pilot studies to investigate a mechanisms underlying autoimmune disease (sp. T1D, MS, and SLE), identify novel targets or mechanisms of autoimmune pathogenesis, validate therapeutic targets, or provide POC for an innovative therapeutic strategy. Proposals should focus on:
- Establishing POC for hypothesized mechanisms underlying multiple autoimmune diseases or specific pathway common to multiple autoimmune diseases
- Validation of human biomarkers (prodromic or subclinical autoimmune disease)
- Development of therapeutic strategies for autoimmune initiation
- Utilize primary human samples to interrogate heterogeneity of autoimmune processes
- Submission Details: Access application materials here
- Award Details: $150,000 for 1 year (10% IDC maximum)
- Submission Deadline: January 8, 2026, 5PM EST
3. Arthritis National Research Foundation: Arthritis and Related Autoimmune Disease Grant
- Eligibility: RFP intended for early-career investigators submitting all types of applications relating to arthritis and related autoimmune disease research, including (but not limited to) osteoarthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, juvenile arthritis, lupus, gout, spondyloarthritis, pediatric rheumatology, scleroderma, Sjogren’s disease, and uveitis.
- Submission Details: Access application materials here
- Award Details: $250,000 for 2 years
- Submission Deadline: January 9, 2026, 5PM EST
4. Bladder Cancer Advocacy Network: Innovation Award
- Eligibility: Full-time, independent investigators pursuing exceptionally novel, high-risk, high-reward projects (either basic, translational, clinical, or epidemiological) with potential to produce breakthroughs in our understanding of bladder cancer and / or upper tract urothelial carcinoma. Applications within scope include:
- Novel theoretical concepts
- Methodolgies
- Instrumentation
- Interventions
- Submission Details: Access application materials here
- Award Details: $300,000 over two years (10% IDC maximum)
- Submission Deadline: January 13, 2026, 5PM EST
5. National Multiple Sclerosis Society: Commercial Research Funding Opportunity
- Eligibility: Program designed to establish research partnership between applicants and Fast Forward, the MS Society’s commercial development program. Award will accelerate and support development of therapeutic strategies relevant to the priority of addressing MS progression and progressive forms of MS. Studies in scope include:
- POC studies with characterized small molecules or biologics
- Target engagement, pharmacodynamic studies (clinically relevant endpoints)
- Med chem or biologic product development
- PK / ADMET studies
- IND enabling studies (GLP tox, manufacturing scale up, process validation)
- Submission Details: Access application materials here
- Award Details: $800,000 in direct costs for 1-2 years
- Submission Deadline: January 14, 2026, 5PM EST