Check out these 4 National Geographic RFPs (recently added)!
The National Geographic Society awards grants for conservation, education, research, storytelling, and technology through its Committee for Research and Exploration. It has divided their giving into three main themes: Human Journey, Wildlife and Wild Places, and Our Changing Planet.
The Human Journey theme focuses on learning more about who we are and what our future is on this planet.
The Wildlife and Wild Places theme focuses on projects about all living organisms, where they live, and the local evolutionary and ecological processes that sustain them.
The Our Changing Planet theme seeks to reduce negative impacts on ecosystems, Earth processes, and human societies by increasing knowledge and inspiring action to develop effective solutions.
Each of the four grants featured below pertain to one of these themes. Each grant has an award amount ranging from US $10,000 — US $150,000, and their next deadlines are all on October 1, 2017.
1. Sustainable Cities
About the Grant
The National Geographic Society aims to fund projects that discover approaches to solving issues about the production or consumption of energy, food, infrastructure, and freshwater in and around cities.
Priority will be given to projects that focus on one or more of the following key areas:
- Develop or scale household/community-based solution to well-defined problems in urban environments;
- Identify and assess new/unrecognized urban sustainability problems; or
- Use public/private partnership models to make cities more sustainable.
Importance
Urban areas have been experiencing unprecedented growth in recent decades, especially as the global population heads toward 9 billion by 2020. Cities have become the solution to the increased pressure to provide services to meet growing demands, and research has found that cities are able to provide these services, such as transportation, energy, access to food and water, and sanitation, at a cheaper and less environmentally damaging cost.
As of 2014, 54% of the world’s population lived in urban areas, a proportion that is expected to increase to 66% by 2050. Most of this urban growth is expected to occur in the densely populated countries of China and India, and growing nation of Nigeria. These three countries are predicted to account for 37% of the projected growth of the world’s urban population between 2014 and 2050.
As the world continues to urbanize, sustainable development challenges will need to be more heavily concentrated in and around cities, particularly in the lower-middle-income countries where the pace of urbanization is fastest. New funding to this space can help keep pace with the growth experienced in cities as there is tremendous need to create sustainable cities for successful development and a prosperous future.
Learn more and apply now!
2. Long-distance Animal Migration
About the Grant
The National Geographic Society aims to fund projects that discover new approaches to improve the status, trends, and vital rates of migratory species.
Priority will be given to projects that focus on one or more of the following key areas:
- Reverse negative population trends;
- Improving population viability;
- Educate on effective conservation of migratory populations and species;
- Help overwintering, breeding, or stopover sites;
- Use public/private partnership models to protect migratory species and pathways.
Importance
New funding to this space is important because conserving migratory animals poses two unique challenges in addition to its array of threats from habitat destruction, overexploitation, disease, and climate change.
First, influential audiences must be convinced there needs to be conservative actions taken to protect migratory species while they are still in abundance. Typically, action tends to take place only when species are considered critically threaten or endangered, and many migratory species don’t fall under these categories even though their numbers are dwindling.
Second, migratory animals do not succumb to borders and boundaries established by humans. This makes the coordination and planning difficult to perform as influential audiences (governmental, private, and public bodies) across these borders will need to work together to find and carry out a solution.
Animal migration can provide aesthetic, ecological, and even economical benefits to the world, but it is increasingly an endangered phenomenon. New funding to this space can help shine light onto these unique challenges and protect migratory animals before it becomes too late.
Learn more and apply now!
3. Big Cats Conservation
About the Grant
The National Geographic Society aims to fund projects that halt the decline of big cats globally.
Priority will be given to projects that focus on one or more of the following key areas:
- Direct, quantifiable methods to saving big cats in native landscape;
- Anti-poaching programs;
- Perform interventions to reduce big cat mortalities;
- Test new technology;
- Establish economic incentives for local people to ensure long-term survival of big cats; or
- For cheetahs — seek to fulfill the recommendations from formal regional strategies and national action plans.
Importance
New funding to this space is important because the future of big cats are still in peril. In the last century, the lion population has been down by 90%. Leopards occupy less than 25% of its historic range. There are only about 4,000 tigers, 6,500 snow leopards, and 7,100 cheetahs left in the world. All seven species are listed as either Threatened, Near Threatened, and Endangered on the IUCN Red List.
Big cats are keystone species that play a critical role in the landscape they occupy and losing them will have a drastic ecological impact. Not only does conservation effort benefit big cat species, whole ecosystems can be protected along side them since big cats tend to have large territories. For instance, a tiger’s habitat extends through 11 countries from India to Russia making for broad brush conservation. The existence of big cats have become a great indicator to a ecosystem’s health, and one that is intact enough to support all life, including people around the world.
Learn more and apply now!
4. Changing Polar Systems
About the Grant
The National Geographic Society aims to fund projects that contribute to the science and development of new communication methods to convey the impact of changing polar systems in the Artic and Antartic regions that goes beyond public’s preception that “ice is melting,” specifically to better engage influential audiences.
Priority will be given to projects that focus on one or more of the following key areas:
- Fill critical knowledge gaps in geology, glaciology, or the polar coastal zones, where changes are having immediate effects on the ecosystem;
- Convey how changes in polar systems are affecting global issues such as sea level, species distribution, and atmospheric and oceanic circulation patterns;
- Develop new education methods for reaching learners of any age; or
- Accelerate designation of marine protected areas in the Arctic.
Importance
There is a need to produce learning material that in a captivating manner to engage influential audiences to take action towards conservative efforts to protect the changing polar systems. The changes experienced in the Arctic region do not only effect the local environment but can be felt globally as a result.
In recent years, increase in interest surrounding the Arctic region has been generating due to the rapid transitions that the region has undergone from air temperature increases, sea ice and land ice diminishment, terrestrial snow cover declines, and permafrost warming. These physical changes have tremendous implication for marine and terrestrial ecosystems, human health, transportation, and economic development. New funding in this space will help protect these quickly diminishing regions and in a greater context, the planet.
Learn more and apply now.
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