Biota Awards for Biodiversity Science

The Biota Awards, a program of Walder Foundation, provides funding to outstanding early-career researchers based in Chicago who seek to protect, understand, and restore biodiversity locally and around the world using research outcomes to inform conservation action and deliver on-the-ground results.​

This program is intended to:

• Attract and retain exceptional postdoctoral scientists in Illinois

• Help those funded to develop independent research projects

• Encourage award recipients to think creatively about how their research can be applied to deliver on-the-ground results

• Develop a more inclusive and equitable biodiversity research community by supporting fellows from a wide range of backgrounds

Walder Foundation Biota Postdoctoral Fellowships (“Grants”) are two-year awards. Funding will be granted to Illinois institutions (“Grantee Organizations”) rather than individual researchers. The Grants will include:

• Annual salary of $70,000 for the postdoctoral fellow salary expenses in Year 1 and $73,500 in Year 2

• Fringe benefits at the Grantee Organization’s rate for postdocs

• Annual research and travel allowance of $20,000

• Up to $3,000 in relocation costs if moving from outside of Illinois

• Indirect costs of up to 15%

The Biota Awards Postdoctoral Fellowships Program is intended to support postdocs at institutions in Illinois. This means that researchers may already be located in, or will move to, Illinois to take up the position funded by this Grant, if awarded, at a Grantee Organization. Researchers that are currently based outside Illinois (either completing a Ph.D., or working as a postdoc) are encouraged to apply by developing a proposal with an Illinois-based adviser. If successful, the researcher would need to move to Illinois to take up employment at their local Grantee Organization.

For researchers at Chicago-region* institutions, the geographic focus of the research is not restricted, and projects may focus on biodiversity and conservation topics relevant to the Chicago region or elsewhere, for example biodiversity hotspots and/or the Global South.

For researchers at Illinois institutions outside of the Chicago region* (e.g. University of Illinois Urbana Champaign or Illinois State University), the geographic focus of the research and intended outcomes must be the Chicago region.

*The Chicago region is broadly defined as the Metropolitan Statistical Area according to the United States Census Bureau.