Healthy Aging Pilot Grant Funding Opportunity

Supported by: Danone Institute North America

Application Deadline: December 3, 2026

Overview. The Healthy Aging Initiative at Harvard Chan is pleased to announce that it is now accepting proposals from Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health faculty for our healthy aging pilot grant program, supported by Danone Institute North America (DINA).

Over the past century, public health and medicine have dramatically increased life expectancy. The next frontier is making those added years healthy by extending healthspan (years lived disease-free and functional). Recent advances in wearable technology, aging biomarkers, multi-omics, computational biology, and artificial intelligence are accelerating research poised to transform our understanding of what constitutes healthy aging and how we can achieve it. This is an unusually promising moment for research on healthy aging.

Harvard Chan is uniquely positioned to lead public health efforts to promote healthy aging and extend healthspan by leveraging its strengths in aging biology, nutrition, metabolism, microbiome science, environmental science, infectious diseases and immunity, epidemiology/demography, behavioral science, statistics, and health policy—within a public-health framework focused on translation and impact.

To spearhead critical new research in healthy aging, DINA and the Harvard Chan Healthy Aging Initiative are partnering together to launch a pilot grant program to provide seed funding to catalyze new, formative research related to healthy aging.

Award Amount: $10,000-50,000. Funding can be used to cover research-related expenses, such as investigator and research staff salary support, obtaining access to existing data, collecting or generating data, supplies, publication fees, and travel. Budget requests should be limited to only what is needed to perform the proposed project.

Award Duration: 1-2 years, depending on the complexity of the research

Number of Awards: 3-6 anticipated

Deadline: 5 pm Eastern time on Thursday,December 3, 2026

Anticipated Notification of Award: First week of January 2026

Anticipated Award Start Date: February 1, 2027

Eligibility: Faculty of all ranks are eligible to apply. The contact PI must be a faculty member at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH). Co-PIs and collaborators do not have to be affiliated with HSPH. If you are unsure about your eligibility, please contact the Initiative’s Program Manager, Kelsey Hunt, at khunt@hsph.harvard.edu.

Funding Priorities: All innovative research proposals related to healthy aging are encouraged. Priority will be given to projects that are interdisciplinary, involve collaboration across departments, generate preliminary data for future external funding, and/or incorporate food, nutrition, or dietary approaches as a key component of the research. Please note that funding is limited to non-animal research. Eligible research may include in vitro models, including human and animal-derived cell lines, organoids, computational approaches, and ethical human clinical research. Research involving live animals is not eligible for funding.

Selection Process and Criteria: Proposals must have the potential to generate data likely to lead to future external funding. Submitted grants will be peer-reviewed by a panel using a pre-defined rubric. The panel will consist of faculty affiliated with the Harvard Chan Healthy Aging Initiative and representatives from Danone Institute North America.  Proposals will be evaluated based on the potential to catalyze new areas of inquiry related to healthy aging; the quality of the proposed research; the potential to generate external funding; and the potential to positively impact public health.

Proposal Guidelines: Please submit a proposal of no more than 3 pages, single-spaced, that covers the following:    

1. Title of the Project
2. Name and department/school of the PI(s)
3. Detailed project proposal, addressing the following:
   1. Project aims
   2. Any pre-specified hypotheses
   3. Importance of the project
   4. What has already been done in this area
   5. How the project will advance the aims of this pilot grant program
   6. Methodology, including any statistical or quantitative methods
   7. Timeline for completing the work. Note that the project must be completed by December 31, 2028.
   8. The end-product and deliverables, which may include: (1) development of novel methods; (2) development of new interventions to extend healthspan; (3) identification of novel pathways or factors that affect aging; (4) presentation of findings at national meetings; (5) publication of manuscripts in peer reviewed journals; and/or (6) preparation of larger grant proposals for external funding.
4. A statement on Human Subjects/IRB. All research involving human subjects must have approval from the applicable institutional IRB. If you are awarded funding, we will need either the IRB protocol number or exemption number before an account can be set-up. IRB approval must be obtained within six months of the award.

Please include the following appendices (outside of the 3-page limit) in order:

• Literature cited (no limit)
• List of names, department(s)/school(s), position titles, degrees, email addresses, and roles of investigator(s) (0.5 page maximum).
• NIH biosketches for all key personnel
• Line-item budget with a short budget justification (1 page maximum). If salary support is requested, please specify the percent effort.

Submit To:                 

Kelsey Hunt
Program Manager
The Healthy Aging Initiative at Harvard Chan
khunt@hsph.harvard.edu

Progress Reports: Each funded team must prepare a mid-term report and a final report for the project.

Funding Acknowledgment. All publications arising must acknowledge funding from the Danone Institute North America.