Illinois Researcher Information Service (IRIS)

Identifying Sponsors for Your Specific Activity

Search for funding opportunities that match your research, scholarship, instructional, or many other types of activities by using the IRIS database. Much like conducting a literature search, this simple method of searching allows you to define your activity through a selection of discipline or subject keywords. You can further refine the search process by defining other aspects of your activity, such as your background and the type of activity you are conducting (i.e. research or instruction). Your search parameters are matched against over 8,000 funding opportunities in the sciences, social sciences, arts, and humanities. A simple tutorial is available to help understand the search process. IRIS can only be accessed by internet addresses within the OSU domain.

Results provide an abstract describing the interests of the sponsor and basic contact and deadline information. Most results contain web links to the sponsor information. Although your results may show many deadlines have passed, these deadlines should occur at about the same time in the next year and they can therefore be used as a guide for when to check on new sponsor guidelines and deadlines.

Establishing Your Personal Profile for E-Delivery of Updates

You can easily establish a profile of your particular discipline interests and the database will automatically send you notification of updates that match your profile. This is an excellent method for receiving new or changed sponsor information in your general fields of interest.

Reviewing Upcoming Deadlines in Your Specific Discipline

Posted to the OSU web site is a listing of upcoming deadlines in over 35 major discipline areas. Deadlines are linked to descriptive sponsor information and most contain web links directly to the sponsor. You can sign-up for notification when new listings are published.