ISC Grant Program

The R Consortium funds projects that strengthen the R ecosystem’s technical and social infrastructure. Our grants support open-source development, tools, and community initiatives that benefit the entire R community.

Is your project a fit?

✅ We fund projects that:

  • Have broad impact on the R community
  • Have focused scope with clear deliverables (e.g., Simple Features for R)
  • Present low-medium risk with demonstrable value

❌ We generally don’t fund:

  • Projects affecting only small user groups
  • Conference/workshop sponsorship (see RUGS program)
  • Highly exploratory research (consider working groups)
  • Hardware or cloud software purchases

Funded projects

ISC projects focus on technical infrastructure or involve software development to support social infrastructure. View our complete list of funded projects.

Technical Infrastructure projects we’ve funded include:

  • R-hub, a centralized tool for checking R packages
  • Testing DBI and improving key open source database backends.
  • Improvements in packages such as mapview and sf
  • Improving Translations in R
  • Ongoing infrastructural development for R on Windows and macOS

Social Infrastructure projects include:

To apply for an ISC grant please continue with the instructions below. To seek funding for a conference, training session or user group please apply through the RUGS program page.

Submitting a Proposal

Please provide a 2 to 5 page proposal that describes the problem you want to solve.

Use Our Template

We encourage you to use our proposal template. The template includes detailed guidance and examples for each section.

The ISC has a limited grant budget, and we want to ensure that funded projects deliver the maximum benefit to the community. Successful proposals show well-defined milestones, with initial work completed to minimize delivery risk, e.g., upfront research and well-defined action plans.

We encourage you to seek feedback from the community before formally submitting your proposal. You are welcome to email individual committee members who might be particularly interested in your proposal to get their informal opinion, and you may want to publicize it more widely to get feedback from the broader R community.

How to Apply

  1. Prepare your proposal using our template
  2. Create a self-contained PDF of your completed proposal
  3. Submit through our form at forms.gle/o1nhNrdzebQc2DNU6 (requires Google Account)
  4. Confirm submission - you’ll see “Thank you for your proposal!” and receive a confirmation email

If you don’t receive the confirmation email, check your spam folder and contact us immediately.

Note

The R Consortium utilizes a standard agreement for all funded projects selected in an effort to streamline the award process and to fund the greatest amount of projects as possible. The standard agreement is available for review in advance: Individual Consultant Agreement for R Consortium ISC Projects—20170622.

If you have any questions please email proposal@r-consortium.org.

Important Deadlines

First Grant cycle

  • March 1, 2025—Grant Application period opens
  • April 1, 2025—Grant Application period closes, 11:59pm US ET
  • May 1, 2025—The ISC contacts all accepted grantees
  • June 1, 2025—Deadline for acceptance of grant and contract. Public notification of grantees occurs shortly thereafter.

Second Grant cycle

  • September 1, 2025—Grant Application period opens
  • October 1, 2025—Grant Application period closes, 11:59pm US ET
  • November 1, 2025—The ISC contacts all accepted grantees
  • December 1, 2025—Deadline for acceptance of grant and contract. Public notification of grantees occurs shortly thereafter.

The Process

The ISC Chair reads and reviews all proposals, then assigns each to a committee member for detailed review. We review proposals as a group and notify you of decisions by the dates listed above.

We pay out 50% of the grant when you sign the contract and 50% upon completion.

We publish all accepted projects on the R Consortium blog.

We review this process yearly to ensure that the process is as smooth as possible, and to incorporate the knowledge gained from putting it into practice. R Consortium makes all decisions to accept or reject proposals in its sole discretion, and these decisions are final.

If you have any questions about the proposals or submission process write to proposal@r-consortium.org.