The Brown Institute for Basic Sciences
Brown Investigator Award

Brown Investigator Award Portal

New Requirement: All applications for this internal competition must be submitted via InfoReady. You can sign in using your Net-ID and your @stonybrook.edu email address. Please allow sufficient time to familiarize yourself with the portal prior to submitting your pre-application. Pre-application requirements are listed in the announcement below.

The Office for Research and Innovation invites applications for the 2026 Brown Investigator Award which seeks to support bold ideas for curiosity-driven basic research in the areas of physics and chemistry. Stony Brook University can nominate ONE candidate for this program.

Please see below for details. If you are interested in applying, you must submit a pre-application via the Brown Investigator Award Portal in InfoReady by Monday, August 25, 2025 at 9 am. Pre-applications for internal review and selection must be uploaded to the portal as a single PDF document. 

WHAT DOES IT FUND: The Institute believes that there is a reservoir of great scientists who have demonstrated their talent and capability by earning tenure at leading US universities, but who cannot pursue their most daring ideas because of the often-conservative nature of government funding. Therefore, the Institute intends to provide significant funds with few funding restrictions and limited reporting requirements to a small number of such scientists in physics and chemistry departments. Because the Institute wants to support basic research, which may have eventual technological impact, it has chosen to award grants to investigators working in atomic and condensed matter physics and fundamental areas of chemistry.

APPLICANT REQUIREMENTS: Faculty members who (a) are within ten years after being granted tenure as of July 1, 2025; (b) work in either the chemistry or physics department; (c) have interests in fundamental chemistry, atomic physics, or condensed matter physics; and (d) possess the inquiring mind and talents that are focused on basic curiosity-driven research. To see the types of projects that the Brown Institute for Basic Sciences supports, please visit the Brown Institute Awardees webpage. 

AWARD: Up to $2,000,000 for experimentalists and up to $1,250,000 for theorists spread over a span of up to five years

SPONSOR DEADLINE: Nomination due September 15, 2025. Full proposal due November 10, 2025. Reference letters due November 17, 2025.

A complete pre-application should comprise of the following:

• Research statement (limited to a maximum of two pages of text including figures and references, prepared in 12- point font with 1-inch margins): The research statement should describe why the research is important, the state of the field, and should outline the general research goals for the next five years. The statement should also describe, in general terms, how funds will be used. The research statement should also explain why funding from government agencies for the proposed research is especially difficult to obtain.
• Current and pending support
• CV (Biosketch style preferred)
• Budget and Budget justification (no more than one page)
• Letter of Support: A letter from the nominee's department head, which should describe the nominee's talents and experience that prepares them to undertake high-risk, high-payoff basic research.