EREF

EREF Grants Program

The sustainability movement has reached the business models of nearly every industry in the United States, and many companies, municipalities and states have set aggressive sustainability goals that include how waste streams are being managed. The EREF Board of Directors has set an initiative to ensure the research we fund reflects EREF’s long-term strategic plan to address all areas of integrated solid waste management, with a strong focus towards research that increased sustainable solid waste management practices.

Eligible Recipients:

  • Non-U.S. Institutions: There are no restrictions in regards to geographic location. Any U.S. or non-U.S. institutions are eligible to apply.
  • Non-Academic Institutions: Proposals will be accepted from non-academic institutions provided the principal investigators are qualified to conduct the research.

Eligible Projects:

Pre-proposal topics must relate to sustainable solid waste management practices and pertain to the following topic areas:

  • Waste minimization
  • Recycling
  • Waste conversion to energy, biofuels, chemicals or other useful products. This includes, but is not limited to, the following technologies:
    • Waste-to-energy
    • Anaerobic digestion
    • Composting
    • Other thermal or biological conversion technologies
  • Strategies to promote diversion to higher and better uses (e.g. organics diversion, market analysis, optimized material management, logistics, etc.)
  • Landfilling

Desirable aspects of the above topics, in addition to or as part of hypothesis driven applied research, also include: economic or cost/benefit analyses, feasibility studies for untested technologies or management strategies, life cycle analysis or inventory, and analyses of policies that relate to the above.

Funding Source:
Environmental Research & Education Foundation (EREF)

Funding Amount:
Projects and research previously funded by the Foundation can be viewed on its website at erefdn.org. Previously awarded grants have ranged from $15,000 to over $500,000 with the average grant amount in recent years being $160,000. Typical project durations are about 2 years. It should be noted that proposed research in excess of $300,000 or longer than 3 years should contain sufficient details that justify the need for the higher than average amount requested and longer project duration.

Deadlines:

  • EREF has two deadlines per year for pre-proposals: December 1 and May 1
  • NOTE: Due to recent updates in the RFP the deadline for May 2023 has been updated to May 8.

Contact:
To allow sufficient time for response, all questions must be received 48 hours before pre-proposal submissions begin. Please submit questions to proposals@erefdn.org.

More Information:
https://erefdn.org/research-grants-projects/how-to-apply-for-grant/