Faculty Water Research Grant Program

About this program

The New Mexico Water Resources Research Institute (NM WRRI) offers the Faculty Water Research Grant Program, funded by the Institute’s federal base grant (Section 104B) and state appropriations, to provide seed funding—typically about $30,000 per project—for water-related research that also trains students and helps investigators develop proposals to attract larger external funding. Awards support investigations addressing critical water-resources questions in New Mexico and the Southwest; the FY2026 RFP is available from NM WRRI. Eligible applicants are tenure‑track faculty in any department at one of New Mexico’s six research universities (UNM, NM Tech, NMSU, NMHU, WNMU, and ENMU), and proposals must demonstrate research merit and student training components.