Who funds alcohol research?

We count 61 funded alcohol projects, active between 2021 and 2032, from 6 funders. The most came from Wellcome (14 projects), EU · MSCA (10 projects) and NIH · NIAAA (9 projects). The median award is $2.6M, across the 56 of 61 projects that list an amount.

Funded projects

61

Funders

6

Median award

$2.6M

Open calls now

11

Top funders of alcohol research

Projects whose title or summary mentions alcohol. Median award: of the projects that list an amount, in US dollars; “—” when fewer than 3 do.

Open alcohol funding calls

11 open calls mention alcohol today.

• Prevention and Intervention Approaches for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (R61/R33 Clinical Trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: November 17, 2026 ·
• Population Approaches to Reducing Alcohol-related Cancer Risk (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: January 7, 2027 ·
  Real odds: About 1 in 8 funded (13% · NIH R01-equivalent grants, all NIH institutes, FY2025)
• Prevention and Intervention Approaches for Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (R34 Clinical Trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: January 7, 2027 ·
• Specialized Alcohol Research Centers (P50 Clinical trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthUp to $1,150,000Deadline: January 27, 2027 ·
• Screening, Brief Intervention and Referral to Treatment or Prevention (SBIRT/P) for alcohol, tobacco, and other drugs (ATOD) use and misuse in adult populations that experience health disparities (R01, Clinical Trial Required)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: May 7, 2027 ·
  Real odds: About 1 in 8 funded (13% · NIH R01-equivalent grants, all NIH institutes, FY2025)
• Pilot Health Services and Economic Research on the Treatment of Drug, Alcohol, and Tobacco Use Disorders (R34 Clinical Trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: October 27, 2027 ·
• BJA FY 2026 Veterans Treatment Court Program
  Bureau of Justice AssistanceUp to $2,500,000Deadline: October 29, 2026 ·
• National Cooperative Drug/Device Discovery/Development Groups (NCDDG) for the Treatment of Mental Disorders (U01 Clinical Trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: October 25, 2027 ·
• National Cooperative Drug/Device Discovery/Development Groups (NCDDG) for the Treatment of Mental Disorders (U19 Clinical Trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: October 25, 2027 ·
• Accelerating the Pace of Substance Use Research Using Existing Data (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: December 3, 2027 ·
  Real odds: About 1 in 8 funded (13% · NIH R01-equivalent grants, all NIH institutes, FY2025)
• Accelerating the Pace of Substance Use Research Using Existing Data (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedDeadline: December 3, 2027 ·
  Real odds: About 1 in 9 funded (11% · NIH R21 (exploratory/developmental), all NIH institutes, FY2025)

Real odds

• About 1 in 8 funded · 13% · NIH R01-equivalent grants, all NIH institutes, FY2025 · NIH Data Book, report 29
• About 1 in 9 funded · 11% · NIH R21 (exploratory/developmental), all NIH institutes, FY2025 · NIH Data Book, report 202

Published success rates for the programs behind the open calls above: the share of applications the funder funded, program-wide, not for this topic.

Forecast: announced, not open yet

4 forecast calls on alcohol. Funders publish forecasts before a call opens; you can't apply to these yet, and dates can change.

• ForecastPromoting Population Health through Increased Capacity in Alcohol Epidemiology & the Prevention of Excessive Alcohol Use
  Centers for Disease Control - NCCDPHPNot specifiedExpected to open March 1, 2027
• ForecastHIV Prevention and Alcohol (R61/R33 Clinical Trials Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedExpected to open July 7, 2027
• ForecastCollaborative Initiative on Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (CIFASD), Research Program (U19 Clinical Trial Optional)
  National Institutes of HealthNot specifiedExpected to open July 25, 2027
• ForecastUrban Indian Health 4-in-1 Program
  Indian Health ServiceNot specifiedExpected to open December 1, 2026

Funded alcohol projects

A sample, latest start first, at most three per program.

• Alcohol-related dementia
  Wellcome · £2,393,354 · ends 2032
• Assessing the health effects of alcohol consumption, mechanisms of action, and associated disease burden
  Wellcome · £1,449,032 · ends 2031
• Advancing social media data science to examine the causal relationship between social media content and adolescent health-risk behaviours
  Wellcome · £753,083 · ends 2031
• Histone Acetylation and Synaptic Mechanisms in D1-MSNs Underlying Resilience to Compulsive-like Alcohol Drinking
  NIH · NIAAA · $3,112,314 · ends 2030
• Collaborative Research: Mechanisms of Microbial Ethanol Inhibition in Clostridium thermocellum
  NSF · BIO · $748,252 · ends 2029
• Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA).
  NIH · NIAAA · $5,905,584 · ends 2029
• Understanding Social Support Network Characteristics, Alcohol Misuse, and Posttraumatic Stress among Survivors of Sexual Assault in the First-year Post-assault
  NIH · NIAAA · $3,291,402 · ends 2029
• Agricultural enterprises are looking for ways to engage in a circular economy that sustainably converts waste materials into value-added…
  USDA · $650,000 · ends 2028
• SABER: Sustainable Alcohol By-product Enhancement for Regenerative soils – A global approach to waste valorisation in agriculture
  UKRI · NERC · £85,859 · ends 2027
• Next-Generation dynamic genome-scale model of Saccharomyces cerevisiae that leverages multi-omics time-series data to optimize Wine fermentation
  EU · MSCA · €207,183 · 2027–2029 · UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO

How we count

Funded projects come from public award records (NIH RePORTER, NSF, EU CORDIS, UKRI Gateway to Research, Wellcome, the Gates Foundation, DOE, NASA and USDA NIFA) whose title or summary matches “alcohol”. NIH lists each budget year separately; one project counts once. Amounts are as the funder lists them; medians use only projects that list one, in US dollars. Open calls and forecasts are from our listings of October 28, 2026. A project can mention a topic without being mainly about it, so treat the counts as a guide to who funds the area.