The application period will run from Aug. 17 – Nov. 6, 2026 at 1 p.m. EST.
The Accelerating Research through Collaboration (ARC) Awards support partnerships between Massachusetts not-for-profit research institutions and life sciences companies to advance promising discoveries toward commercialization.
The ARC Awards build upon the success of three previous Massachusetts Life Sciences Center (MLSC) programs: Bits to Bytes, Novel Therapeutics Delivery, and Women’s Health Collaboration. By bringing these initiatives together under a single funding opportunity, ARC supports innovative research projects across all areas of the life sciences that address important scientific, technical, and product development challenges.
To support workforce development and ensure dedicated personnel are available to execute the project, the company partner must fund a newly hired postdoctoral researcher who will gain experience working across both academic and industry environments. By combining academic expertise with industry experience, ARC helps strengthen the Commonwealth’s innovation ecosystem while supporting the development of life sciences technologies and addressing unmet patient needs.
The MLSC created the ARC Awards to accelerate the commercialization of promising life sciences innovations while strengthening Massachusetts’ research and economic development ecosystem. The program is designed to:
By combining capital investments with industry-supported scientific talent, ARC helps ensure that funded resources are actively utilized to advance high-impact projects and generate long-term value for the Commonwealth.
Both applicant and company partners play an active role in ARC projects and are expected to contribute scientific, technical, and strategic expertise throughout the collaboration.
This track supports collaborative projects that aim to improve the discovery, technical innovation, and/or analysis of datasets to answer pressing life science questions around women’s health. It incentivizes translational projects that develop novel solutions to treat conditions that solely or disproportionately affect women or have a different presentation between genders.
The ARC Awards invests capital funding in equipment, datasets, software, research resources, and other capital assets at Massachusetts not-for-profit institutions that enable a collaborative translational research project. These resources allow project teams to generate critical data, validate technologies, advance product development, and accelerate the translation of discoveries into products, therapies, diagnostics, devices, and other life sciences innovations. Visit our Eligibility Requirements for more details on what qualifies as a capital expense.
The MLSC is particularly interested in projects that demonstrate a clear pathway toward commercialization and economic impact in Massachusetts.
Competitive projects may:
Successful applications will include measurable milestones, meaningful industry engagement, and a well-defined plan for translating project outcomes into real-world impact.
The following are some examples that the MLSC would consider as a pathway to commercialization:
Projects must be conducted through collaborations between a Massachusetts not-for-profit research institution (Applicant) and at least one Massachusetts life sciences company (Company).
Each award is anticipated to provide approximately $750,000 in capital funding over a project duration of 2-3 years.
View our full list of Eligibility Requirements.
A central goal of the ARC Awards is to support both innovation and workforce development in Massachusetts. Because MLSC funding for this program is restricted to capital expenses (which does not include salary), industry partners are required to support a newly hired postdoctoral researcher who is jointly mentored by the project partners and can utilize the funded resources to help execute the project. This requirement creates high-quality life sciences jobs, provides valuable cross-sector training, and helps ensure that the capital assets funded through the award are actively leveraged to advance project goals.
Over the past seven years, the MLSC has awarded $52.4 million in capital funding through the historic tracks of the ARC Awards (Bits to Bytes, Novel Therapeutics Delivery, and Women’s Health Collaboration). Approximately $750,000 in funding per project has gone to 72 cross-sector projects focused on imaging, cancer, neuroscience, medical devices, drug discovery/delivery, Women’s Health, and many other healthcare sectors that develop capital assets, data resources, and novel algorithms to address a myriad of health issues. The success of these projects has led to over $200 million in follow-on funds, over 300 publications, and 47 patents filed. Additionally, these projects train the next generation of postdoctoral scientists. The non-profit and company partners on these projects have contributed more than $82 million in matching funds.
Learn more about our prior awardees from 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, 2025, and 2026 including the principal investigator, industry partners, and their innovative projects.
