How Nurse Educators Can Win AACN Faculty Scholars Funding

Grant money in nursing education is chasing artificial intelligence faster than faculty can rewrite a syllabus. On November 6, 2026, the Foundation for Academic Nursing named two 2026-2027 Faculty Scholars, $25,000 each, from more than 100 applications to a call themed "Integrating Emerging Technologies into Nursing Curriculum."

Eligibility rules, budget mechanics, and a working-backward timeline decide who wins this. So does the design both winners chose: grafting AI onto simulation labs students already run, not building new courses. The announcement is here: https://www.newswise.com/articles/aacn-s-foundation-for-academic-nursing-announces-2026-2027-faculty-scholars-grant-recipients.

Seed awards at this size sit in a different tier than federal funding, and MSN, DNP, PhD, EdD, and certificate faculty reach it the same way, through an AACN member school.

What the AACN Faculty Scholars Grant Funds, and What It Won't Cover

The $25,000 is seed money for one bounded curricular pilot, not a research career's worth of funding.

Two awards, one moving theme

Each cycle the Foundation for Academic Nursing, AACN's philanthropic arm, backs two projects at $25,000 each, $50,000 in total. Wolters Kluwer returned as a program sponsor this year, contributing $25,000 to support one of the Faculty Scholars awards. The call is themed and the theme rotates: the 2026-2027 cycle asked for work on "Integrating Emerging Technologies into Nursing Curriculum," which is why both winning proposals center on AI. Read the theme before you draft a single aim, because a strong project outside the year's stated priority is still a weak fit.

What the money is for

Think pilot funding. The Foundation wants a scholarly, curriculum-based intervention tied to student outcomes at the undergraduate or graduate level, with an evaluation component built in, not a bench or basic-science study. A budget is required, and spending runs "at the discretion of the school," so allocation follows institutional policy plus the budget you submitted. Indirect costs are permitted but should not exceed 10%. Funds are disbursed to the Primary Project Manager's school, not to the faculty member personally.

What it won't cover

Awards run into 2027, with progress reports at 6 and 12 months; exact start and end dates are not published, so plan a defined pilot window rather than a multi-year build. The $25,000 will not stretch to a large-scale trial, a full program-wide redesign, or overhead well beyond the 10% guidance. Nor is it a stipend or tuition award: the deliverable is a finished project with findings, plus an AACN webinar, shared content, and a manuscript for the Journal of Professional Nursing.

Inside the Two 2026 Winning Projects: AI Templates for Your Own Proposal

One route is to build an entire new course around artificial intelligence. The other is to slip AI into a simulation students already sit through. The second approach is what the Foundation for Academic Nursing funded in 2026.

What the Two Winners Proposed

At the University of North Texas Health Science Center in Fort Worth, Dr. Tonychris Nnaka won support for "Integrating AI-Powered Holographic Standardized Patient Simulations into the Undergraduate Nursing Curriculum." At Columbia University, Dr. Natalya Pasklinsky won for "Enhancing Communication and Documentation Competencies Through AI-Enabled Simulation Preparation." Each received $25,000.

Read past the titles and a shared architecture appears: a named curricular gap, an AI tool aimed at that gap, and an outcome someone can measure. Neither project asks students to take an extra AI course. Both retrofit the simulation work already in the curriculum.

The Benchmark, Not the Gate

Nnaka holds PhD, MPH, RN, CPH, and FAAN credentials and serves as associate professor, associate vice president for health research and innovation, and executive director of the Health Research and Innovation Center at UNT Health. Pasklinsky teaches at Columbia. The pattern worth copying is leadership in simulation or digital health layered on top of a teaching appointment, not a particular title.

The Award Expects Scholarship

Funded scholars file a six-month interim report and a final report, give an AACN webinar, and submit a manuscript to the Journal of Professional Nursing. AACN also shares findings through its website, Syllabus newsletter, and social media.

Copy this frame: "In [course], students currently struggle with [X]; we will embed [AI tool] into [existing simulation] and measure [outcome] across [N] students in [timeframe]."

Eligibility: Individual Faculty, Teams, and the Member-School Requirement

Applications for the AACN Faculty Scholars Grant go in through an online portal, and the applicant is a faculty member (or a small team of faculty) whose project is anchored at an AACN member school. The faculty member drives the application; the institution is the eligibility anchor, not the applicant.

Individual or team, always through a member school

You may apply solo or assemble a project team. The hard structural rule is that the Primary Project Manager, the person who owns the project and its reporting, must represent an AACN member school. If your program sits at an institution outside AACN membership, plan for a member-school partner to serve as Primary Project Manager, and confirm that arrangement with the Foundation before you write a word.

Rank, appointment type, and sign-off

The 2026 materials describe four application components: general information, project team information, project information, and a commitment statement. They do not publish a minimum academic rank or a full-time, tenure-track requirement, and they do not exclude clinical-track or non-tenure-track faculty. Treat the commitment statement, plus a role that can carry a pilot through to completion, as the practical test. Doctoral students and postdocs are safest applying as part of a faculty-led team rather than as lead.

Three things to check before you draft

• Member status: confirm your school's AACN membership is current and that your Primary Project Manager can document it.
• Internal deadline: many colleges vet or cap external grant submissions, so a campus research-office date will land weeks ahead of the national deadline of August 7, 2026, 11:59 pm ET.
• Sign-off path: identify now who can authorize your commitment statement, so approvals do not stall in July.

How the Faculty Scholars Grant Compares With Other Nursing Faculty Funding

The Faculty Scholars Grant is seed money: $25,000, a single themed call each year, and a decision that lands within one academic year. Federal awards run larger and slower, and many of them go to institutions rather than to an individual faculty member's teaching project. The table below sorts the options by size, eligibility, and deadline so you can tell which one fits the stage your project is actually at.

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What Competitive Proposals Have in Common, and How Reviewers Score Them

A competitive proposal is one a reviewer can summarize in a single sentence: a scholarly question with a measurable answer. Proposals that read as an appealing course redesign, with no testable outcome, usually fall short.

The pattern behind the winning two

Both 2026 recipients named the emerging-technology theme in the project title, embedded the technology inside existing simulation pedagogy, and pointed at competencies that can be assessed within the grant year. One funded holographic standardized patients in prelicensure courses; the other, AI-assisted preparation before communication and documentation simulation. Neither proposed a standalone course.

How reviewers actually score

An expert committee appointed by the AACN Board reads every proposal against an eight-criterion rubric graded 1 to 5: Exemplary (5), Accomplished (4), Satisfactory (3), Emerging (2), No Evidence (1). Reviewers verify team bios and the dean letter of support, disclose conflicts, and record an acceptance recommendation. Scored areas include outcomes described, relevance to the year's theme, alignment with AACN's strategic plan, scholarly contribution (QI, evidence-based practice, or research design with methods matched to outcomes), perceived impact, team qualifications, completeness across the required components, and a realistic budget inside the $25,000 ceiling, which already absorbs a 10% indirect cost rate.

Realistic odds

In 2025, 147 applications competed for two $25,000 awards, roughly a 1.4% success rate. For 2026, AACN reported over 100 applications for two awards, which puts the rate under 2%. Because the 2026 count is reported only as a floor, no exact rate can be calculated.

Self-check your draft

• Theme: does the title name the current theme's technology outright?
• Outcome: can a student competency be measured within 12 months?
• Evaluation: is the analysis method named, not implied?
• Framing: does the purpose sentence pose a question rather than describe a revision?

Timeline: Working Backward From the 2026 Call for Proposals

The Dates We Have, and the Ones Still Missing

AACN's next Faculty Scholars call is scheduled to open in May 2027. No narrower release date within that month has been published as of November 2026, and the 2027-2028 theme, deadline, and award notification date are not yet announced. Plan against the 2026 cycle instead: applications opened May 5, closed August 7 at 11:59 p.m. ET, and recipients were announced on November 6, 2026.

A Working-Backward Calendar

• Eight to ten weeks before the deadline: narrative, budget, and evaluation plan in full draft. Have a colleague read the aims against the announced theme.
• Three to four weeks out: dean or department chair review, then routing through sponsored programs or the office of research.
• Two weeks out: IRB determination letter in hand, whether exempt or expedited, not merely submitted.
• Two weeks out: a theme-fit review, because the annual theme is released with the call and can reframe a draft you considered finished.

Why Internal Deadlines Sit Weeks Ahead

AACN's published 2026 application materials did not list a separate institutional signature among the four required elements: general information, project team information, project information, and a commitment statement. Most universities still route external proposals through a dean and a research office, and those queues do not move faster because your national deadline is close. An IRB determination is likewise not something you can compress by asking politely.

Build the internal dates first and treat the August deadline as the last step, not the first.

Application Materials and Internal Approvals: The Pre-Submission Checklist

The 2026 round goes through AACN's online form in four sections, due August 7, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. ET. Everything marked "start early" takes weeks, not days, begin those first.

1. Project narrative on AACN's template

   1,200 words maximum across six sections: background, purpose, methods, expected results, limitations, implications for practice.
2. Biographical sketch for every team member

   Reviewers look for one per person listed, not just the lead.
3. Dean letter of support (start early)

   This is the institutional sign-off AACN asks for; request it three to four weeks out.
4. Budget on AACN's template

   Indirect costs allowed up to 10% at your school's discretion; reviewers score realism.
5. Primary Project Manager employment details

   Appointment status, years in role, number of direct reports, supervisor's title.
6. Commitment statement (start early)

   The fourth online section, collect signatures well before deadline week.
7. IRB or human-subjects determination (start early)

   AACN's posted materials don't say whether this is due at submission or before the project starts, so confirm with program staff now.
8. AACN member-school confirmation

   The Primary Project Manager's institution must be an AACN member school.

Mapping the Grant to MSN, DNP, PhD, EdD, and Certificate Pathways

Nursing's terminal degrees now split four ways, and faculty on every track are being asked to show fundable scholarship rather than simply describe it. The 2026-2027 Faculty Scholars awards, announced November 6, 2026, put $25,000 each behind two AI-focused simulation projects, which signals the program rewards a scoped, testable idea over a grand plan.

The same $25,000 reads differently by track: proof of concept for a certificate holder, an instrument-development budget for a doctoral candidate, a stepping stone for faculty chasing federal money.

Where each pathway fits

• MSN-Nurse Educator: build the proposal around a curriculum or simulation redesign capstone. Next step: narrow it to one course and one measurable student outcome.
• DNP-Nurse Education: translate a practice or quality-improvement project into a teaching intervention. Next step: reuse the DNP project's outcome measure as your baseline data.
• PhD in Nurse Education: treat the award as pilot funding. Next step: design the study so its results support a later NINR or HRSA application.
• EdD-Nursing Education: run a practitioner-leadership evaluation of a program, policy, or accreditation-driven change. Next step: get your IRB determination in hand before the call opens.
• Graduate certificate: the lowest-barrier entry point into funded scholarship. Next step: join an established team as co-investigator this cycle, then lead your own in the next.

Seed money, not a summit

Two $25,000 awards against more than 100 applications mean reviewers are looking for a project that ends with something larger: preliminary outcomes, a validated instrument, a published protocol, a federal application. Plan the deliverable that outlives the grant, whether that is a survey other schools can adopt, a simulation blueprint, or the data a bigger funder will want next.

What Postsecondary Nursing Instructors Earn, the Baseline for Faculty Scholarship

BLS Occupational Employment and Wage Statistics, 2025 data, put the middle 50% of these faculty at $63,510 to $101,090.