We seek to fund up to 10 rigorous, empirical, statistically valid, and sound neuroscientific research projects related to a concept called Perception Box.
REQUEST FOR PROPOSALS
2026 Request for Proposals Opens on: September 1st 2026
The deadline for the next round: October 5th 2026
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Overview
Tiny Blue Dot Foundation (TBD) seeks to fund rigorous, empirical, statistically valid, and sound research on the neural, experiential, and psychological factors related to a concept called the Perception Box. By Perception Box, we mean the mental models humans walk around inside that filter and distort everything we see. These mental models are constructed from the material of our beliefs, biases, education, values, genes, physiology, and unconscious patterns; our life experiences and encounters (whether we remember them or not); our traumas and, critically, the meaning we made out of those traumas. Our box colors and shapes everything we perceive—what we notice, what we ignore, how we act and overreact, how we feel about ourselves and others, and how we interpret everything that happens. They’re like tinted glasses we didn’t know we were wearing. It’s why two people can experience the exact same event and walk away with two completely different takes on what happened.
We want to understand the underlying mechanism of the Perception Box - how it gets constructed, and how it evolves. What are the neural, psychological, physiological, and social mechanisms through which a Perception Box is formed and maintained? How do prior experiences and beliefs become embedded in the way we perceive and respond to the present? What is the relationship between the mental models we maintain about ourselves and the ones we project onto other people? What makes certain patterns of perception persistent or rigid, and what allows them to become more flexible and adaptable? We are interested not only in what happens in the brain, but in how these underlying mechanisms give rise to subjective, conscious experience.
Ultimately, we want to understand the Perception Box well enough to help people gain greater self-awareness, self-understanding, and agency in their lives. We welcome foundational and applied research, including research that uses interventions, technologies, practices, or transformative experiences to investigate these questions. We are especially interested in work that can reveal why and how a perceptual shift occurs, not simply whether an intervention produces a desired outcome. Our aim is to build a rigorous scientific understanding of the Perception Box that will ultimately improve individual, communal, and societal well-being.
Our grant funds will support research to develop relevant techniques and interventions related to the Perception Box and to measure the effectiveness of such techniques and interventions for clinical or non-clinical populations. Each technique and intervention should be based on a testable neural or psychological model relevant to the Perception Box. For more background information for this RFP, see this programmatic statement.
Demographics/ Population
Because the Perception Box is a universal feature of human experience, we are inclined toward research with the potential for broad relevance. Studies can focus on particular populations, but research that is so narrowly defined as to only apply to sub-categories or narrow clinical populations is less interesting to us.
Within this broader context, we have a particular interest in children ages 5–8 because this period offers an opportunity to study the Perception Box as it is being formed. We are eager to understand the degree to which self-beliefs, expectations, attunement - or lack thereof - with caregivers, and various environmental factors shape our sense of self, our ability to relate to others, and how we move through the world.
That said, our focus is not limited to children. We also welcome research on adolescents and adults that can help us understand how the Perception Box evolves across the lifespan. Regardless of age or demographic, we are looking for research that reveals something broader about how human beings behave, construct meaning, and experience their lived reality.
Scientific Areas of Interest
This RFP invites applications in the following four areas of interest:
i. Agency and independence: Interventions that investigate and build the experience of autonomy and independence in children, adolescents, and young adults, and that shift caregivers toward autonomy-supportive practices, with measured effects on anxiety, avoidance, confidence, and resilience.
ii. Interoception and emotional regulation: Interventions and research on a person's ability to perceive and interpret internal bodily signals and how interoceptive awareness supports emotion regulation, social-emotional competence, agency over one’s reactivity, and healthier decision-making.
iii. Identity and self-narrative: Research into how self-narratives are constructed, how they ossify, and how they can be changed.
iv. Values, meaning, and belonging: Interventions and research on belongingness, purpose, and meaning in life, examining belongingness as distinct from transient social connectedness, including how people can thrive in digital-first communities, and under what conditions.
Interventions & Experimental Approaches
We are interested in experimental approaches that can help us understand how the Perception Box is formed, maintained, and changed. For interventions, we are not solely concerned with whether an intervention makes a population feel better. We seek to understand how and why that intervention created a meaningful shift. What shifted? Why did it shift? How was that shift experienced? How long was the shift sustained? Ultimately, interventions should seek to address the underlying mechanisms driving the issue, rather than simply managing symptoms.
Examples include:
Contemplative and self-inquiry practices: Meditation, mindfulness, self-inquiry, self-investigation, and other practices that alter attention, awareness, self-perception, or one's relationship to thoughts and beliefs.
Transformative and altered-state experiences: Psychedelics, dark or grey retreats, sensory isolation or deprivation, and other experiences that may temporarily disrupt ordinary patterns of perception, selfhood, or conscious experience.
Body-based and interoceptive approaches: Breathwork, interoceptive practices, movement, somatic approaches, and other methods that investigate the relationship between bodily signals, emotion, perception, and the sense of self.
Neural and physiological interventions: Neuromodulation, neurofeedback, sensory feedback, and other approaches that allow researchers to investigate or influence the neural and physiological processes associated with perception and conscious experience.
Technology and immersive experiences: AI, VR, digital environments, and other emerging technologies that can be used to investigate how expectations, social interaction, self-narratives, meaning-making, cognitive biases, and other factors shape perceived reality.
Developmental and social interventions: Experiences or practices involving autonomy, play, imagination, creativity, relationships, belonging, meaning-making, and other factors that may shape the development or flexibility of a person's Perception Box.
Other approaches: We are deliberately not limiting this RFP to the categories above. We welcome novel approaches that offer a rigorous and compelling way to investigate the mechanisms underlying the Perception Box.
Key Features
The Request for Proposal (RFP) will involve a two-stage process to help minimize work for both principal investigators (PIs) and TBD.
Stage One: Applicants must submit an annonymized letter of intent (LOI) by Oct 5th, 2026. All LOIs will be reviewed by TBD staff and a select panel of existing grantees. Proposals will be evaluated for scientific rigor and relevance toward meeting the overall goals of the RFP.
Stage Two: Approximately 30 applicants will be invited to submit a Full Proposal, which will undergo a rigorous external review.
Applicants can seek funding for up to three consecutive years with funding of up to a total of US$900,000. This sum includes a maximum amount of 15% overhead. TBD reserves the right to reduce the request amount based on budgetary constraints or insufficient budget justification.
To help applicants throughout the process, we will host webinars at key stages. Webinars will be recorded to accommodate applicants from different time zones.
Timeline (dates subject to change):
Sep 1, 2026: LOI opens.
Sep 14, 2026 (0900 PDT): LOI Guidence Webinar, open to all.
Oct 5, 2026 (2359 PDT): LOI closes.
Dec 17, 2026: Selected LOIs are chosen.
Jan 13, 2027 (0900 PST): Save the date for Full Application Guidance Webinar. (Invite only)
Feb 25, 2027 (2359 PST): Deadline for submitting Full Proposals. (Invite only)
Jul 2027: Funding decision announced.
Proposal Process
This RFP will involve a two-stage process. The first stage is an anonymized LOI form, open to anyone with the required credentials and institutional affiliation. We will review the LOI forms using our internal team and an expert panel. We will then shortlist the applicants who submitted the strongest LOIs to complete a full proposal.
During the second stage, invited applicants will complete a full proposal, which will be reviewed internally and externally. Based on the reviews from the second stage, we will rank proposals and select the awardees through a panel-assisted process.
Detailed RFP Criteria
Eligibility
Grants can only be awarded to a recognized Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) medical schools, colleges, universities, or not-for-profit research organizations and, to the extent permissible pursuant to the Internal Revenue Code, to similar organizations located within or outside the United States even if such organization are not recognized as Internal Revenue Code section 501(c)(3) organizations (collectively referred to as “Applicant Institution”). Applications will be considered from any country except for those on the US’s Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctions list.
The Principal Investigator should be a clinical, applied, or basic science researcher at the Applicant Institution with an MD, PhD, or an equivalent degree. We allow postdoctoral researchers to submit an LOI providing, if a grant is awarded, that their institution is prepared to offer them a position as a Research Scientist, Staff Scientist, or Research Professor.
Research Scope and Priorities
The research should be focused on the discovery or development of tools and interventions to help people understand and gain greater agency over their Perception Box; to measure the effectiveness of these tools and interventions; and to track the effects of these on the minds, behaviors, or brains of subjects.
For this RFP, we ask applicants to describe a testable model for the neural, psychological, or somatic innovation they plan to test. We are particularly interested in models and tests that help us understand the underlying mechanisms of Perception Box.
Projects focused solely on symptom alleviation, without addressing the underlying causes of suffering, are outside the scope of this funding opportunity. Likewise, interventions that do not challenge existing beliefs or help participants recognize that their Perception Box is malleable and can be expanded are not responsive to this RFP.
This RFP is intended for scientific research related to humans. Projects that include philosophical enquiry, mathematical models, laboratory animals, or in vitro experiments must provide suitable justification for a grant award.
We encourage interdisciplinary research methods, especially between researchers with expertise in neuroscience, psychology, and social science. Multi-institutional collaborations that leverage complementary expertise and enable cross-disciplinary innovation are strongly encouraged.
Each proposal should specify who this innovation will help, and predict what its practical implementation might look like in the real world.
Each proposal should explain what steps will be taken to co-design the innovation with the target group or justify why co-design is not applicable.
Commitments and Approvals
All finalist Applicants will be expected to pre-register their proposals and to provide a plan to disseminate their methods, data, and code, according to the FAIR principles.
The Full Proposal should briefly address whether the PI has already, or is planning to, obtain permission from the relevant regulatory organizations (e.g., IRB, IACUC, DEA) regarding work with human subjects, laboratory animals, and/or controlled substances. Such approvals can be granted after the proposal submission deadline, but no grant funding will be released until such permissions have been obtained.
Submission and Review Process
All Proposals must be submitted in English.
Applicants need to complete a blinded, i.e., anonymous LOI on our online portal by the deadline.
Applicants can make more than one submission with the proviso that TBD may decide to only proceed with one. In that case, we may consult with the Applicant, or we may decide internally which one to prioritize. Researchers may also collaborate with teams on more than one proposal providing that does not lead to a conflict of interest.
Applicants from last year who were not selected may submit their applications again providing they can satisfy the criteria of this round.
All proposals will be screened against our financial compliance criteria. We may require applicants to submit more information if needed. If an extended screening is required, then the review and processing timeline for that proposal may be extended. TBD reserves the right to reduce the request amount based on budgetary constraints or insufficient budget justification.
Completeness Check Criteria
Profile Completed
Letter of intent instructions have been followed, and all sections completed
Project Description is cleared of all personally identifiable information
The entire application contains all related entries and supporting materials
Proposal has been submitted and confirmation email received.
Review Criteria
LOIs will undergo several review steps that include a panel of advisors. Full proposals will generally be reviewed by three external, paid reviewers not associated with TBD. Our review process involves multiple stages with separate criteria. We recommend applicants pay attention to the following three key dimensions are as follows:
Relevance: To what extent is this proposal relevant to the goals of the RFP? Consider the following scoring guidelines:
Relevance is unclear.
Relevance is clear but modest.
Substantial relevance (should include developing or testing interventions that expand Perception Box with quantifiable success metrics).
Highly relevant (should include the above and contribute to a long-term vision of promoting mental well-being).
Approach: How realistic is the approach to achieving the project goals toward real-world implementation? Consider the following scoring guidelines:
The approach is not well reasoned or unrealistic to reach the project goals.
The approach seems reasonable, but it is not clear how the project would come together to reach the project goals.
The approach is strong with a realistic plan to reach the project goals.
Everything in Point 3 and the proposal includes reasonable contingencies in case plans fail.
Impact: If the project is successful, what impact could it have on mental wellbeing? The impact could be direct (e.g. developing or testing an intervention) or indirect (e.g. new knowledge that can be used to develop or test an intervention). Consider the following scoring guidelines:
The impact could be unclear or vague.
The impact could be significant but likely to be overshadowed by other efforts in the field.
The impact could be both significant and unique (i.e. making a distinctive contribution to the field).
The impact could be transformative (i.e. setting new standards or influencing a large audience over a long period of time.)
Common Reasons for LOI Rejections
To guide applicants, we provide a list of the most common reasons for LOI rejections. Please review this list carefully to help strengthen your proposal.
Lack of relevance to Perception Box: We provide a detailed explanation of Perception Box on the TBD website. All proposals need to align with the approach and aims of Perception Box.
Lack of novelty or clear advancement of existing research: Some proposals fail to demonstrate a clear understanding of the state of the field or fail to specify how their approach offers a significant advance over existing research.
Unclear or weak hypotheses: Some hypotheses are not clearly defined, testable, or supported by strong rationale. A strong hypothesis should be specific and offer a tangible contribution to the aims of the project.
Insufficient justification of research methods: This includes failure to justify expensive methodologies or proposing methods that are not optimally suited to testing the hypotheses in question.
Lack of scalability or real-world impact: Some proposals rely on costly interventions without justifying how they could scale. Others collect data on patients with rare conditions without explaining how the data can be informative in a more general context.
Failure to follow instructions related to key requirements such as anonymization or budget limitations.
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