The University of California (UC) Office of the President has announced the 2025-26 Request for Proposals (RFP) for the UC Historically Black Colleges and Universities (UC-HBCU) Initiative. This systemwide initiative is designed to support UC faculty interested in collaborating with faculty and students at HBCUs. UC faculty grants are available to support HBCU students conducting summer research with faculty at UC San Diego.
Since 2012, UC has hosted more than 1,000 HBCU scholars across its ten campuses. As a result of this initiative, 75 HBCU scholars are currently enrolled in UC Ph.D. programs and 54 have already earned their doctoral degrees. Of these graduates, 11 have secured tenure-track positions in the professoriate, including six at California institutions — three of whom are at a UC. Other alumni are engaging in impactful work in industry as well as in foundations and nonprofits. UC San Diego currently has five active UC-HBCU grants in Bioengineering, Chemical and Nano Engineering, Computer Science and Engineering, Data Science, and Political Science. Several other successful grants were awarded in the past.
We encourage you to consider submitting a proposal for this initiative. The Division of Graduate Education and Postdoctoral Affairs (GEPA) welcomes collaborative planning discussions with proposal writers whose plans may involve the possible leveraging of the Summer Training Academy for Research Success (STARS) program. A UC HBCU information session will highlight examples of previous successful proposals January 22, 2026. Register here if you would like to attend.
Proposals are due Monday, March 16, 2026, at Noon, Pacific time, and awards will be announced in July 2026. Details of the call for proposals and a helpful tutorial for faculty who may be interested in applying can be found on the UC-HBCU website: http://www.ucop.edu/uc-hbcu-initiative/faculty-grants/index.html.
If you have further questions, please contact GEPA OAR2 Director Angeline Yang avyang@ucsd.edu.
