Two recent news stories about science funding highlight current gaps in funding for early career researchers and what is being done to alleviate the problem.

The Office of Science of the Department of Energy announced the names of 61 recipients of funding under the 2013 Early Career Research Program, whose proposals were selected out of a pool of 770 by a peer review process. The program is designed to support the individual research programs of outstanding young scientists working in disciplines supported by the DOE Office of Science, such as Biological and Environmental Science and Nuclear Physics (among others). Although this year’s award recipients have already been named, this is the fourth year of the program, so be on the lookout for the FOA for a shot at the 2014 awards (2013’s FOA was issued in July 2012).

In other news for early career researchers, the chiefs of seven major philanthropic organizations, including the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, have signed a “Call to Action” to support basic scientific research in areas where young scientists are often shut out of other types of funding. They announced plans to drive the effort to double foundation donations to $4 billion a year, matched by doubling private donor funding to $4 billion as well. The group cites as their motivation some alarming trends, like the fact that the age of scientists receiving their first lab chief grants has risen to the mid-40s today, up from the mid-30s in the 1970s. They also note that young scientists, with Ph.D.s but no labs or staff, are most at risk of losing access to funding for experimental or risky research in the current funding climate, which favors more practical research. Hopefully, the coalition’s efforts in the coming years will help to offset the hardship expected from the sequester and give young researchers the opportunity to make important discoveries in their fields of study.