DOJ FY 2026 Assisting Neighborhoods and Governments with Enforcement of Laws (ANGEL) Grant Program

Summary: The fiscal year 2026 (FY26) Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Research Program (DMDRP) Idea Development Award (IDA) promotes new ideas that are still in the early stages of development and have the potential to yield impactful data and new avenues of investigation. This award supports impactful, high-risk/high-reward research that could lead to critical discoveries or major advancements that will accelerate progress in improving outcomes for individuals with Duchenne muscular dystrophy (DMD) in the near term. Applications should include a well-formulated, testable hypothesis based on strong scientific rationale. The DMDRP strongly encourages research projects investigating therapies designed to demonstrate efficacy cross the life span, including infants, toddlers and nonambulatory individuals.Distinctive Features: The FY26 DMDRP IDA mechanism offers three eligibility career categories:• The Established Investigator category is for independent investigators at all academic levels, or equivalent• The New Investigator – Early-Stage category is for independent investigators early in their careers (i.e., within 10 years of their first faculty appointment or equivalent). Applicants in this category will be reviewed separately from Established Investigators.• The New Investigator – Transitioning category is for independent investigators at all academic levels, or equivalent, in an area other than muscular dystrophy who are seeking to transition to a career in DMD, thereby bringing their expertise to the field. Applicants in this category will be reviewed separately from Established Investigators.Preliminary data relevant to DMD that supports the feasibility of the research hypotheses and research approaches are required for all applications. Clinical trials or clinical trial aims are not allowed. Funding Opportunity Number: HT942526DMDRPIDA. Assistance Listing: 12.420. Funding Instrument: G. Category: ST. Award Amount: $2.5M total program funding.

The Sony Research Award Program is Sony's principal channel for funding external academic research, and the Focused Research Award is its collaborative track: up to 150,000 dollars for focused joint research between a university or research institute and Sony. The 2026 research areas are unusually broad for a corporate program and cover most of the modern AI stack alongside Sony's hardware interests - AI and large language models, computer vision, machine learning, robotics, human-computer interaction, affective computing, speech and language technologies, audio technologies, RF sensing, wireless communications, cybersecurity, sports technology, digital humans, generative AI, content creation and neural rendering, plus device-level areas including MicroLED and optical metasurfaces. For AI and robotics groups this makes it one of the wider corporate calls available, though the breadth is deceptive: Sony funds work that connects to its own research agenda, and proposals are strongest when there is an identifiable Sony research counterpart for the collaboration. Eligibility is tightly drawn around the principal investigator rather than the institution. The PI must be a full-time faculty member or researcher at a recognized institution - Assistant Professor, Associate Professor, Professor or equivalent researcher - and must be able to supervise PhD students. Co-PIs are permitted but must be from the same institution and meet the same requirements, which rules out the cross-institutional consortia common in public funding. The 2026 deadline is 15 September 2026 at 11:59pm Pacific, with a separate India-specific time given as 16 September 2026. Submission guidelines are on the Sony Research Award Program site.