Funding opportunities
The Food and Agriculture Research Mission (FARM), part of the Office of Networks and Innovation at WashU Bursky School of Public Health, is proud to announce two unique funding opportunities, seeking new, practical innovations in the field of food security and public health outcomes.
FARM Growing Health Competition
FARM’s Growing Health competition seeks to identify promising innovations (e.g., technologies, products, processes, services) that can be transformed into commercially sustainable solutions that will strengthen food and nutrition security, including in the Greater St. Louis region.
Successful applications will advance FARM’s goal of translating research into real-world impact by supporting multidisciplinary collaborations between WashU researchers and public and private partners to develop and commercialize innovations that improve nutrition and public health outcomes. By fostering partnerships between researchers, entrepreneurs, industry, and investors, the Growing Health competition will accelerate the development and scaling of solutions to strengthen food security, nutrition, and sustainability.
With an annual award of up to $1 million, Growing Health will support multidisciplinary, multisectoral teams composed of researchers and other food system actors to develop and promote commercially sustainable solutions that will improve nutrition, food security, and public health outcomes. Each team must include at least one WashU faculty member.
Growing Health aims to help promising innovations overcome common barriers to adoption and scale, including gaps in market validation, financing, evidence generation, and access to commercialization expertise and strategic partnerships. FARM is particularly interested in innovations with strong potential for follow-on investment and scalable impact in the Greater St. Louis region and beyond.
The Call for Proposals describes a two-stage application process beginning with pre-proposals which are due August 15, 2026.
Informational sessions
Prospective applicants are encouraged to attend one of two FARM Growing Health Competition informational sessions which are scheduled as follows:
- May 27, 2026 from 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. (Zoom Link)
- June 3, 2026 from 11 a.m. to noon (Zoom Link)
Questions regarding this call for proposals may be submitted to [email protected] between May 15 and June 15, 2026. To ensure fairness, responses to questions will be compiled into an FAQ document and posted on the InfoReady page. Please check for updates as questions are received.
FARM Cultivate Grant Fund
In support of its mission to promote research at the intersection of food, agriculture, and public health, the Food and Agriculture Research Mission (FARM), part of the Office of Networks and Innovation at WashU Public Health, established the FARM Cultivate Grants Fund. The fund supports interdisciplinary research into practical, scalable innovations that contribute to sustainable and healthy food systems.
There are two Cultivate grant tracks. Up to two awards will be granted for each track in 2026.