Interested in submitting a Small Grants proposal?

Eligibility

PIs may not apply to this call if they have an active research project funded by Alianza MX (e.g., strategic research, Latino studies, joint research, etc.) at the time of their proposal submission. PIs may receive a maximum of two (2) funding awards through this call during 2026. If PIs apply in multiple periods, they must submit a unique proposal in each period.

Funding

Each proposal submission can request up to $5,000 USD in funding for activities scheduled to take place during a specific period (see below). Funds can support a range of travel and event hosting costs but may not be used at Casa de California in Mexico City.

Application

Alianza MX accepts proposals for activities during three periods each year: Fall, Spring, and Summer.

Applications can be received year-round, but proposals for each period will be reviewed immediately after the deadline for that period.

Funding awards are announced approximately 2–3 weeks before the start of each period.

Timeline
Spring 2026
Summer 2026
Fall 2026
Application deadline
December 1, 2025
March 31, 2026
July 31, 2026
Announcement of results
December 2025
April 2026
August 2026
Activity periods
January 1–April 30, 2026
May 1–August 31, 2026
September 1–December 31, 2026

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Small Grants: Fall 2025 & Winter 2026

Alianza MX launched a call for proposals in May 2025 to support activities scheduled to take place between September 2025 and February 2026. Nine (9) proposals from seven UC campuses were selected for funding. Please see below for details and check back here soon for updates on these activities.

Activities
Title
Location
Name
Department
Campus
Mexico-US Border Advocacy: Environmental Justice, Immigrant Rights, Disability Justice and Indigenous Rights
UC Riverside
Dana Simmons
Society, Environment & Health Equity
Riverside
Simposium Nacional Agrovoltaico
IPN-CICATA (Querétaro)
Federico Castillo
Environmental Science, Policy & Management
Berkeley
Sports-Based Intervention Program for STEM, Cognitive, and Socioemotional Learning
UC Irvine
Gustavo Carlo
Education
Irvine
Cross-Linguistic Influence in Bilingual Speech & The Acoustics of Bilingual Speech
UAQ (Querétaro)
Mark Amengual
Languages & Applied Linguistics
Santa Cruz
Using the Capability, Opportunity, and Motivation (COM-B) Model for Behavior Change
UABC (Mexicali)
Melody Schiaffino
Public Health
San Diego
Human Computer Interaction and Natural Language Processing
UNAM & ITAM (Mexico City)
Peter Biehl
Graduate Division
Santa Cruz
Empowering the Next Generation of Infectious Disease Scholars at Rapid Reviews Infectious Disease (RR\ID)
UC Berkeley
Stefano Bertozzi
Public Health
Berkeley
Diagrams in Anthropology: An international collaborative art exhibition
Biblioteca Vasconcelos (Mexico City)
Tristan Partridge
Global Studies
Santa Barbara
National Congress on Physicochemical, Structure and Design of Proteins
Sociedad Mexicana de Bioquímica (Zacatecas)
Victor Muñoz van den Eynde
Bioengineering
Merced

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Small Grants: Spring & Summer 2025

Alianza MX launched a call for proposals in October 2024 to support activities scheduled to take place between March and August 2025. Eight (8) proposals from seven UC campuses were selected for funding. Please see below for details and check back here soon for updates on these activities.

Activities
Title
Location
Name
Department
Campus
Mexican Spanish and the UC Systema
UC Riverside
Covadonga Lamar Prieto
Hispanic Studies
Riverside
Water, environment, agriculture, and migration in the Mexicali Valley, Baja California
UABC (Mexicali)
Hugo Loaiciga
Geography
Santa Barbara
Juan Bruce Novoa Mexican Studies Conference
UC Irvine
Jacobo Sefamí
Spanish & Portuguese
Irvine
Literature and Society: On the Crónica as a Discursive Form and a Social Practice of Writing and Reading
UNAM (Mexico City)
Juan Poblete
Literature
Santa Cruz
WELLSPRING Bioregional Regeneration Conference
Tijuana
Keith Pezzoli
Urban Studies
San Diego
Trinational Exchange for the Defense of Native Maizes in the Maya Lowlands
UNAM (Mexico City)
Liza Grandia
Native American Studies
Davis
Aguilas, an award-winning short documentary film
Feria Internacional de la Lectura Yucatán (Mérida)
Maite Zubiaurre
Spanish & Portuguese
Los Angeles
Migrant World-Making in the Central/North American Migration Corridor
UC Davis
Robert McKee Irwin
Spanish & Portuguese
Davis

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Small Grants: Fall 2024 & Winter 2025

Alianza MX launched a call for proposals in May 2024 to support activities scheduled to take place between October 2024 and March 2025. Four (4) proposals from three UC campuses were selected for funding. Please see below for details.

Activities
Title
Location
Name
Department
Campus
Narratives of Loss and Repair: Mexican Literature and Species Extinction
UC Davis
Emily Vázquez
Spanish & Portuguese
Davis
Research on Heritage Spanish Speakers in California
UDG (Guadalajara)
Mark Amengual
Languages & Applied Linguistics
Santa Cruz
UADY-UCSC Research Collaboration Workshop
UADY (Mérida)
Matt Sparke
Global & Community Health
Santa Cruz
Mini Symposium on the Biomedical Potential of the Newly Discovered Marine Plantactinospora
UC San Diego
William Fenical
Scripps Institution of Oceanography
San Diego

RECENT ACTIVITIES

Small Grants: Spring & Summer 2024

Alianza MX launched a call for proposals in December 2023 to support activities scheduled to take place between April and September 2024. Twelve (12) proposals from eight UC campuses were selected for funding. Please see below for details.

Activities
Title
Location
Name
Department
Campus
The Social Relations of Mexican Commodities in the Twenty-First Century
CIESAS Pacífic Sur (Oaxaca)
Casey Walsh
Anthropology
Santa Barbara
One Health: Challenges and Perspectives in Yucatán
UNAM (Mérida)
Charles Chiu
Laboratory Medicine
San Francisco
Isolating the Causal Effects of Extreme Heat and Covid-19 on the Labor Supply of Migrant Workers in California
UC Santa Barbara
David Lopez-Carr
Geography
Santa Barbara
UC INAH Digital Heritage Summit
UC San Diego
Dominique Rissolo
Qualcomm Institute
San Diego
4D Printing: Explorations of Time, Space, and Performance in Contemporary Digital Labor
UDG (Guadalajara)
Jesse Colin Jackson
Art
Irvine
Conference to Promote Research Collaboration between UCSC and UABC
UABC (Ensenada)
John MacMillan
Office of Research
Santa Cruz
Transborder Approaches to Neglected Tropical Disease
UC Santa Cruz
Lily Balloffet
Latin American & Latino Studies
Santa Cruz
Shared Challenges in Physics
UAM (Mexico City)
Linda Hirst
Physics
Merced
Mujeres Activas en Letras y Cambio Social: Summer Institute
UNAM (Oaxaca)
Mayra Puente
Education
Santa Barbara
International Conference on Advances in Education and Social Sciences
Mexico City
Ozcan Gulacar
Chemistry
Davis
Enhancing Global Research Cooperation through Student Mentorship Program at Rapid Reviews Infectious Disease (RR\ID)
UC Berkeley
Stefano Bertozzi
Public Health
Berkeley
las preciosas insignificancias
UC San Diego
Susan Narucki
Music
San Diego

For questions regarding small grants proposals, or for more information on projects in a previous cycle, please contact Alianza MX.

Climate Ambassadors Open Recruitment

 Climate Ambassadors is a UC Alianza MX initiative to build a network of students of the University of California and Mexican institutions and connect them with career opportunities within the new climate economy and society.

Climate Ambassadors work together on crossborder climate, sustainability and social justice challenges, building a network for impact.

Requirements

Applications accepted until October 31

For more information climateambassadors@ucr.edu