“ACS grants” is an ambiguous search term because two large, unrelated US organizations share the initials ACS: the American Chemical Society, a scientific membership society for chemists, and the American Cancer Society, a health charity that funds cancer research. This page covers the American Chemical Society’s grant programs, since “ACS grants” most commonly refers to its flagship extramural research-funding mechanism, the ACS Petroleum Research Fund (PRF). If you’re looking for cancer-research funding specifically, see CASRAI’s cancer research funding landscape overview, which covers the American Cancer Society’s research grant programs directly, and the broader private and nonprofit medical research funders guide.
What the American Chemical Society funds
The American Chemical Society (ACS) is a scientific membership organization and publisher (ACS Publications, Chemical & Engineering News) rather than a general-purpose research funder like NIH or NSF. Its research-grant activity is concentrated almost entirely in one program it administers on behalf of an endowed trust: the ACS Petroleum Research Fund. ACS also runs education- and workforce-focused funding, such as scholarship and bridge programs for students entering chemistry, but these are structured as scholarships and fellowships for individuals rather than PI-held sponsored research awards, and a sponsored-programs office would not process them the way it processes a PRF award.
The ACS Petroleum Research Fund (PRF)
The Petroleum Research Fund was established in 1944 as a trust, funded when several owners of Universal Oil Products (UOP) donated their UOP securities to a trust following a court settlement related to patent litigation in the petroleum industry. The trust’s assets were later diversified into a broader investment portfolio, and in 2000 the fund’s assets were transferred to the American Chemical Society, which has administered it since. ACS’s Committee on the Petroleum Research Fund governs the program on the Society’s behalf.
PRF’s charter charges it with supporting “advanced scientific education and fundamental research in the petroleum field.” ACS defines that scope broadly: exploration, production, transportation, and refining of petroleum, petroleum products, and natural gas, plus production of substitutes for petroleum from natural gas, coal, shale, tar sands, and similar materials. In practice, PRF funds fundamental (not applied) research in chemistry, the earth sciences, chemical and petroleum engineering, and related fields such as polymer and materials science — the underlying science that could plausibly bear on petroleum and fossil-carbon-based energy, not proprietary or industry-directed applied work.
This makes PRF functionally similar, from a research-administration standpoint, to other endowed disciplinary-society or foundation funds: it is privately funded (not a federal appropriation), reviewed by a discipline-specific committee, and scoped to a defined subject area rather than to an open competition across all of science.
PRF grant categories
ACS PRF runs four standing grant types, split by the applicant’s institution type:
| Category | Eligible institutions | Typical award |
|---|---|---|
| Doctoral New Investigator (DNI) | Faculty at PhD-granting institutions, early in an independent research career | ~$125,000 over 2 years |
| New Directions (ND) | Established faculty at PhD-granting institutions moving into a new research direction | ~$125,000 over 2 years |
| Undergraduate New Investigator (UNI) | Faculty at non-doctoral (undergraduate-focused) departments, early career | ~$55,000–$70,000 over 2 years |
| Undergraduate Research (UR) | Faculty at non-doctoral departments, supporting undergraduate-involved research | ~$55,000–$70,000 over 2 years |
Award figures above are typical ranges reported across recent PRF cycles; ACS publishes the current amounts, eligibility detail, and submission windows on its own PRF programs page, and sponsored-programs offices should confirm the live figures there before advising a PI, since these are revisited by the PRF Committee periodically. PRF typically runs two submission windows per year (roughly fall and spring), with proposals considered at the following Committee meeting.
What research administrators should know about PRF specifically
- It is not a federal award. PRF funds do not carry 2 CFR 200 (Uniform Guidance) obligations the way an NIH or NSF grant would — there’s no federal flow-down, no requirement to report through federal systems, and PRF’s own terms and conditions govern the award rather than a federal award notice.
- Indirect-cost treatment varies by sponsor policy and changes over time. Like many disciplinary-society and foundation funders, PRF has historically applied its own facilities-and-administrative cost terms rather than accepting an institution’s full federally negotiated rate. Confirm the current PRF indirect-cost policy directly with ACS or your institution’s sponsored-programs office for the live submission cycle rather than assuming last year’s rate still applies — see CASRAI’s indirect costs (overheads) entry for the general concept and how it differs from a federal negotiated rate.
- Eligibility is scoped to the “petroleum field” as PRF defines it (above), not to chemistry generally — a proposal has to connect, even at a fundamental-research remove, to petroleum, natural gas, or fossil-carbon-based energy sources. Programs outside that scope should look to NSF’s Chemistry or Materials Research divisions, DOE Office of Science, or other mechanisms in CASRAI’s funder-landscape content instead.
- Multi-year awards are typically two years, structured as a fixed total rather than an annually renewed award, which affects how a sponsored-programs office should budget and report progress against it.
Other American Chemical Society funding
Beyond PRF, ACS supports the chemistry education and workforce pipeline through programs such as the ACS Scholars Program and the ACS Bridge Program, both aimed at increasing participation of underrepresented students in the chemical sciences. These are scholarship/fellowship mechanisms for individual students rather than PI-held research grants, and they are typically administered by an institution’s financial aid or academic affairs office rather than its sponsored-programs office. ACS local sections and technical divisions also periodically offer smaller travel or project awards, but these are modest, discipline-specific, and not comparable in scale or administrative weight to PRF.
ACS grants vs. American Cancer Society grants
Because “ACS” is shared, it’s worth stating the distinction plainly for anyone landing on this page by mistake:
| American Chemical Society (this page) | American Cancer Society | |
|---|---|---|
| Funds | Fundamental chemistry, earth science, and engineering research connected to petroleum/fossil-carbon-based energy (via PRF) | Cancer research across the full research continuum (biology, prevention, treatment, survivorship) |
| Flagship mechanism | Petroleum Research Fund (PRF) | Research Scholar Grants and related grant types |
| Typical award size | Roughly $55,000–$125,000 over 2 years | Larger multi-year awards (commonly cited up to $200,000/year for several years for Research Scholar Grants) |
| Website | acs.org | cancer.org |
If your search intent was cancer research funding, CASRAI’s cancer research funding overview covers the American Cancer Society’s grant programs alongside NCI and disease-specific foundations.
Frequently asked questions
Is the ACS Petroleum Research Fund a federal grant program?
No. PRF is a privately endowed trust administered by the American Chemical Society, not a federal appropriation. Awards are governed by ACS/PRF terms rather than 2 CFR 200 (Uniform Guidance), though many institutions still route proposals and awards through the same sponsored-programs process they use for federal funding.
Who is eligible to apply for an ACS PRF grant?
Eligibility depends on the grant category: Doctoral New Investigator and New Directions grants are open to faculty at PhD-granting institutions, while Undergraduate New Investigator and Undergraduate Research grants are open to faculty at non-doctoral, undergraduate-focused departments. All four require the proposed research to fall within PRF’s defined “petroleum field” scope.
How much does an ACS PRF grant typically pay?
Typical awards run roughly $55,000 to $125,000 total across a two-year period, depending on the grant category — see the table above. Confirm current figures on ACS’s own PRF programs page, since amounts are periodically revised by the PRF Committee.
Does “ACS grants” ever mean the American Cancer Society?
Yes — the American Cancer Society also uses the initials ACS and runs its own, unrelated research grant programs focused on cancer research. If that’s what you were looking for, see CASRAI’s cancer research funding overview.
How do I apply for an ACS Petroleum Research Fund grant?
Applications are submitted directly through ACS’s proposal system during one of PRF’s periodic submission windows (typically a fall and a spring cycle each year). Institutions should still route the proposal through their normal sponsored-programs pre-award process for institutional endorsement, budget review, and any required compliance sign-offs, exactly as they would for any external sponsor.
