• Starting a Search
  • Different Types of Searches
  • Brief Overview for a Quick Start
  • General Rules
    
    
• Field Descriptions
  • All Fields
  • Sponsor
  • Title
  • Abstract
  • Deadline
  • Limited Submissions
  • Amount
  • Exploded Keywords
  • Requirements
  • Citizenship
  • Activity Location
  • Funding Type
  • Sponsor Type
    
    
• Syntax for Searching the Funding Opportunities Database
  • Field Searching With Boolean Operators (AND, OR, and NOT)
  • Text Strings in Fields With Boolean Operators (AND, OR, and NOT)
  • Truncation/Wild Cards (*)
  • Phrase Searching
  • Proximity Operators (w/#, pre/#)
  • Precedence
  
  
• Information Download
• Some Suggestions
• Link to Community of Science database

Begin your search when you reach the "Funding Opportunities" page by selecting one of the following types of searches:

Main Search:(Recommended by the GDO) Search any of the different fields.
Simple Search: Search using All Fields, Sponsor, or Deadline.
Search/Browse Sponsors: Search for sponsors alphabetically or by name.
Search by Keyword: Opens Keyword Browser to search specific keywords.
Search by Country: Choose country to search using either a map or alphabetically.

Brief Overview for a Quick Start

First, you will need a basic "search question". This will be your blueprint as to what information will be entered into the search. (Example: "I want grants for graduate level research in the history of North American education and minority rights.") From there, decide which are the "key words" from this question that should be included in the search. (From example: "Graduate student; research; history of education; minorities"). You may also want to think of other related terms that you feel should be included/excluded from the search, and note these as well. (Example: "include: north america, civil rights"). The next step would be using the keyword browser to select these keywords (or related items) for the search, along with the different fields necessary, being as general as possible. Then perform the search!

General Rules:

1. To select more than one term from any picklist, hold the Ctrl key down while clicking on the terms you'd like selected.
2. Searches are case insensitive; therefore it makes no difference whether or not you use capital letters.
3. Do not use punctuation marks other than the hyphen.
4. Do not use a, an, or the.

All Fields: This field permits full text searching across all available fields (i.e. Title, Sponsor, Deadline, etc.). If there is a term or concept for which you are searching but are uncertain exactly how it would be used, or in which field(s) it would appear, try searching for it via "All Fields" (to create the most broad search). After seeing how your term is used in the retrieved records, you may wish to try entering it in some of the other fields. In general, using more fields will increase the specificity and precision of your search. (Ex. If "Physics" is entered in All Fields, it will search anything with the word physics.)

Sponsor: This searchable field identifies the organization that provides or administers program funding. Federal sponsors may be listed under their governmental agency or under a more descriptive division that is more easily identified as a program sponsor. Terms entered in the Sponsor field will be searched across the Agency and Program fields as well as the Sponsor field. Thus, a Sponsor search may return records with sponsor names different from the term entered in the Sponsor field.

NOTE: Most U.S. Federal Gov't Sponsors are listed under "U". (U.S. Dept. of...)

Title: This searchable field indicates the name assigned to the specific Funding Opportunity. A title will appear for every individual Funding Opportunity record. In the absence of an official, sponsor-supplied title, a descriptive title may be added by the COS technical editors. (Example: "agriculture or soil" will search for either ag. or soil.)

Abstract: This searchable field provides a general description of the Funding Opportunity. The Abstract field may include information that also appears in other fields. All terms in this field are searchable.

Deadline: This searchable field contains deadline information (subject to change) as it is made available to COS. When a series of deadline dates for the processing of an application is provided, all mandatory deadlines are included in this field. If you would like continuous or undefined deadline dates to be excluded, check the box. Otherwise, they will be included in the search. To designate the desired deadline timeframe, use one or both of the "after-before" menus, the Month menu, and the Day and Year menu. The Year menu must have a number in it, otherwise it will be ignored. The default month and day are January and the 1st.

Limited Submissions: Some sponsors accept only a limited number of proposals or applications from an institution. This checkbox allows you to limit your search to just those sponsors. The deadline reflected is the sponsor's final deadline. In order to coordinate submission, the appropriate individuals at your institution must have an earlier deadline.

Amount: This numeric field can be searched to identify opportunities for an exact amount of funding or for more (or less) than a designated amount. Choose either "More than", "Less than", or "equals" from the drop down menu, and enter the desired amount.

NOTE: Numbers must be entered without dollar signs and without commas. For example, to search on the amount $15,000, enter m15000. COS will not correctly search on $12,000, $12000, or 12,000.

Exploded Keywords: If you explode the keywords, all of the subheadings below it in the hierarchy are also added to your search. This is a way to broaden your search.

NOTE: When keywords are added to the search query, the explode function is activated by default. Turn this option off by clicking in the checkbox.

Requirements: This field describes who the applicant must be in order to be eligible for a particular opportunity. Note that this field identifies those applicants who qualify for a Funding Opportunity rather than Funding Opportunities about a certain type of individual. In the Requirements picklist, as well as other picklists, no terms, one term, or more than one term can be selected. Making no selection will retrieve funding opportunities that list any of the available picklist categories.

The Requirements picklist is as follows:

• Ph.D./M.D./Other Professional
• Graduate Student
• Undergraduate Student
• Academic Institution or Govt. or Nonprofit
• Small Business
• Minority
• Women
• Disabled

NOTE: If only "Minority", "Women", or "Disabled" is selected from the Requirements picklist, some Funding Opportunities for which the searcher qualifies would not be retrieved. Ex: If a female graduate student selected only Women, she would not find records available for all graduate students even though as a graduate student, she would qualify for those Funding Opportunities.

Citizenship: This field identifies the nationality or residency requirements for the applicant. The Citizenship picklist is as follows:

• United States
• Canada
• Afghanistan-Zimbabwe (includes all of the independent nations)

NOTE: While awards designated as being for U.S. institutions only are classified under "U.S. Citizen", foreign researchers at U.S. institutions may be able to apply for such awards through their institution.

Activity Location:This identifies any requirements about where the grants may be used. Click on the 'Browse' button to open a second window and browse or search listings of valid location terms. The Activity Location Browser includes continents and political or geographic groups (e.g., UN, NATO, Commonwealth), as well as individual nations. There are also options for:

• unrestricted: the sponsor has stated that the field does not have restrictions attached to it
• unspecified: there is no information provided by the sponsor for the field
• Sub-Entities: any locations that may be a part of a larger entity than the one(s) selected (i.e. narrower terms)
• Super-Entities: broader locations or groups on the hierarchy

Funding Type: This field describes the type of activity or activities a Sponsor is willing to support for a particular Funding Opportunity.
The Funding Type picklist is as follows:

• Research
• Course or Curriculum Development or Provision
• Training/Scholarship/Fellowship
• Prize/Award
• Postdoctoral award
• Collaboration
• Conference/Seminar/Visiting Personnel
• Travel
• Artistic Performance
• Dissertation
• Contract (as opposed to a general effort or program development)
• Equipment/Materials Acquisition or Facility Use
• Facility Construction or Operation
• Publishing or Editorial

Choose as many Funding Types as necessary to adequately describe your interests. If your results set is too large, go back to the search interface and narrow your search strategy as necessary.

Sponsor Type: This field classifies the sponsor of a funding opportunity.
The Sponsor Type picklist follows:

• Federal, U.S. (United States government entities only)
• Federal, Non-U.S. (any non-U.S. government agency)
• Private Foundation (any not-for-profit organization established by endowment)
• Academic Institution (any college or university)
• Other Nonprofit (any organization which is prohibited by law from distributing any of its income to organizational members, directors, or officers)
• Commercial (any business or corporation)
• State or Province (any agency or unit of government)

Field Searching with Boolean Operators: The menu choices AND, OR, and NOT are contained in the drop-down menus associated with each field. Selecting from these menus allows you to combine terms from several fields into one search strategy.

• AND: The default operator is AND -- if an operator is not selected by the user, AND will automatically be used by the system. Items retrieved will contain the terms specified in all of the selected fields.
  
• OR: Items retrieved will contain the terms specified in at least one of the selected fields.
  
• NOT: Terms in fields for which the NOT operator has been selected will not be associated with terms in the other selected fields.

NOTE: The "or - and - not" menu to the left of each search field does not affect the text within a field, only linkage among fields. Also, for fields with picklists, OR is the fixed default for each item selected within the picklist.

Text Strings in Fields with Boolean Operators: For fields that allow text searching the following rules apply:

• OR: The default operator is OR. Records returned may contain both search terms but are not required to contain both.
  
• AND: Searches for both terms in each record.
  
• NOT: Searches for records which contain one term, but not the other.

Truncation/Wild Cards (*): If you type an asterisk after the root of the word you want to search, the search engine will find all records containing words beginning with that root. Use this if you are unsure of an exact spelling or when you want to include plural forms in your search. hea*-- searches for "heat", "healing", "healthcare", etc.
NOTE: Internal truncation can't be used; the system ignores all letters to the right of the (*).

Phrase Searching: The simplest way to search for an exact phrase is to enclose the phrase in double quotation marks. Ex. "biological agents" searches for the exact phrase "biological agents".
NOTE: Phrase Searching is the same as using the proximity operator pre/#. (See following--)

Proximity Operators (w/#, pre/#): If you want to search for words used together but not necessarily limit the search to an exact phrase, you should use a proximity search. Proximity operators define how close to one another you want the terms to be used in the records returned. The operator w/# defines proximity of words in any order. The operator pre/# defines a particular word order. The number (#) you fill in determines how far apart the terms can be. For example, w/1 and pre/1 require that the words be adjacent. Using w/3 and pre/3 allow up to two words to come between the terms you are searching for.
When using more than one proximity operator, you must use parentheses.

Precedence: Parentheses ( ) establish precedence in a search string. Nested parenthesis can be used as long as all parentheses occur in matched pairs.

At the end of all initial search results lists is an information download feature (Citation Manager). Use the checkbox to the left of each item in the search results list to select the records that you wish to download. You will need to use the checkboxes in the Citation Manager under the following categories to state what information you would like to download:

• Download: You may choose either "Items checked above" or "All Items".
• Format: The format options are "HTML", "ASCII Text", and "Tagged Text". If HTML is selected, the download can be displayed in your WWW browser and printed as a document or mailed electronically to another party (doing so also requires familiarity with the e-mail features of your specific WWW browser). If ASCII Text or Tagged Text is selected, you will be asked to select the directory and file name with which to save the file. Sa$ to a directory where the information can be printed or imported into other software packages such as MS Word, and needed.
• Include Search Strategy (optional): If you download using HTML or ASCII, you may choose to check this box. This will show what your inputs into the search were for future reference.
• Content: In selecting the content of the download, choose one of three selections:
  • Full Funding Opportunities Record: Provides all information of the record
  • Standard Fields: Sponsor, Title, and Deadline
  • Select fields to include: Choose (from the picklist) specific fields to include in the report

Some Suggestions: