SCRA Academic Matching Grant

SCRA Academic Matching Grant

Funds South Carolina higher-education institutions through SCRA matching grants for translational research.

Eligibility · United States · US-SC

The South Carolina Research Authority (SCRA) is a public non-profit corporation chartered in 1983 by the State of South Carolina to advance the state's innovation economy by connecting academic research, industry, and startup commercialization. The Academic Matching Grant — formerly called the Maturation Grant — is one of SCRA's direct research-funding instruments, providing up to $15,000 to South Carolina institutions of higher education to advance translational research toward commercial application. The program is listed as actively accepting applications on the SCRA research-funding page.

Eligibility is restricted to SC institutions of higher education; for-profit companies, nonprofits, and individual researchers are not eligible to apply directly. The research project must be sponsored by the academic institution, and the translational focus must target near-term commercial or industrial application. Award size is capped at $15,000 per project. No per-cycle enrollment limits, application windows, or competitive scoring rubrics are published on the program landing page; detailed criteria are available via a criteria PDF linked from the SCRA site.

Applicants should contact SCRA directly through the research-funding portal at scra.org to initiate an application. The program sits alongside SCRA's SACT (SCRA-Academic Collaboration Team) grant, which targets larger multi-institutional research teams and separate industry-partner requirements. For institutions with technology in early translational stages, the Academic Matching Grant provides a low-barrier entry point to SCRA's broader commercialization support network, including access to six regional Innovation Hubs and SC Launch Inc.'s follow-on equity funding for spinout companies.