The most comprehensive website for information regarding Federal grant opportunities from nearly all agencies is Grants.gov. Grants.gov was established as a governmental resource named the E-Grants Initiative, part of the President's 2002 Fiscal Year Management Agenda to improve government services to the public. The concept has its origins in the Federal Financial Assistance Management Improvement Act of 1999, also known as Public Law 106-107. Today, Grants.gov is a central storehouse for information on over 1,000 grant programs and provides access to approximately $400 billion in annual awards.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is the University's cognizant agency. Federal cognizance means that HHS has primary responsibility for overseeing research activity at Harvard. Cognizance is determined by funding support levels.

Harvard receives most of its funding from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), which is a unit of HHS. Below are links to the websites for HHS, NIH and other major federal sponsors:

• Department of Health and Human Services
• National Institutes of Health
• National Science Foundation
• Department of Commerce
• Department of Defense
• Department of Education
• Department of Energy
• Environmental Protection Agency
• National Aeronautics and Space Administration
• National Endowment for the Humanities
• Office of Naval Research
• State Department