Physical Sciences & Engineering

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The CCDC ARL invites applications/proposals from covered educational institutions for research and education programs that will meet the following objectives:

a. Enhance research and engineering capabilities in areas important to national defense;
b. Increase the number of graduates in STEM disciplines; and
c. Encourage research and education collaborations with other institutions of higher education and with defense organizations.

Support for research, development, testing, evaluation, or educational enhancements will be through the competitive awarding of grants or cooperative agreements.


The Department of Defense, through the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E) Historically Black Colleges and Universities and Minority-Serving Institutions (HBCU/MI) Program will establish four new Centers of Excellence (COE) in critical technology areas.  

COE critical technology focus areas ( UofA may submit under one of these topics):

• Advanced Computing and Software
• Future Generation Wireless Technology (FutureG)
• Integrated Sensing and Cyber 
•  Renewable Energy Generation and Storage

Funding and Performance Period: $2 million per year, over 5 years
DoD will host a webinar to overview the RFPs and to address any questions that arise


Please find the registration link for the webinar below. Please also note the date/time for the webinar is 12 April 2023 at 1:30 pm ET.

Webinar Registration - Zoom:
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_dVnGm8cHTCCpc2E03aIPHg

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The intent of this solicitation is to request proposals from organizations who are willing to serve as resource providers within the NSF Advanced Computing Systems and Services (ACSS) program. Resource providers would (1) provide advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) resources in production operations to support the full range of computational- and data-intensive research across all of science and engineering (S&E), and (2) ensure democratized and equitable access to the proposed resources.

To increase the Nation's capacity for transformative S&E discoveries, NSF is interested in continuing to diversify and evolve its portfolio to take advantage of new technologies and services that include capabilities addressing emerging computational- and data-intensive S&E research topics, workflows, and communities, while expanding opportunities for participation by a broader range of potential RPs.

This competition emphasizes the provisioning of an ecosystem of advanced computational resources and services that is responsive to the dramatic increase in the number and nature of applications using NSF-funded resources. Proposals are requested for advanced CI that will acquire and deploy capabilities and services, including composable services, to address the increase in demand for computation and data analytics resources in the S&E research community, as well as explore novel paradigms for enabling transformative S&E discoveries.

The current solicitation is intended to complement previous NSF investments in advanced computational infrastructure by provisioning resources, broadly defined in this solicitation to include systems and/or services, in two categories:

• Category I, Capacity Resources: production computational resources maximizing the capacity provided to support the broad range of computation and data analytics needs in S&E research; and
• Category II, Innovative Prototypes/Testbeds: innovative forward-looking capabilities deploying novel technologies, architectures, usage modes, etc., and exploring new target applications, methods, and paradigms for S&E discoveries.

Resource Providers supported via this solicitation will be incorporated into NSF’s ACSS program portfolio. This program complements investments in leadership-class computing and funds a federation of nationally available HPC resources that are technically diverse and intended to enable discoveries at a computational scale beyond the research of individual or regional academic institutions. NSF anticipates that at least 90% of the provisioned resource will be available to the S&E community through an open peer-reviewed national allocation process and have resource users be supported by community and other support services. Such allocation and support services are expected to be coordinated through the NSF-funded “Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support” (ACCESS) suite of services, or an NSF-approved alternative as may emerge. If this is not feasible for the proposed resource, proposers must clearly explain in detail why this is the case and how they intend to make the proposed resource available to the national S&E community.

1. E. Gornish (Cooperative Extension Specialist in Ecological Restoration)
2. T.  Hodges ( Regional Academic Programs - Yuma Distance Campus)
    

UArizona can submit two proposals to this funding program. 

The purpose of this program is to support research, education/teaching, and extension projects that increase participation by women and underrepresented minorities from rural areas in STEM. NIFA intends this program to address educational needs within broadly defined areas of food and agricultural sciences. Applications recommended for funding must highlight and emphasize the development of a competent and qualified workforce in the food and agricultural sciences. WAMS-funded projects improve the economic health and viability of rural communities by developing research and extension initiatives that focus on new and emerging employment opportunities in STEM occupations. Projects that contribute to the economic viability of rural communities are also encouraged.


The submission for this funding program is coordinated by the University of Arizona Hispanic Serving Institution Initiatives (HSI), for more information don't hesitate to get in touch with Riley McIssac, Associate Director of Grants Development.

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UArizona can submit one proposal as a lead organization and can serve on no more than two proposals as a collaborator. Both, collaboration and leading projects should participate in the internal competition in other to determine the projects that will be selected to represent UofA.

All IHEs can participate in ART in some form, either as lead or partner/mentor.  It’s up to the institution to make the case of where they seem themselves fitting in.  There are different metrics that can be used to determine research translation and entrepreneurship that reflect the current capacity and status of infrastructure for translational research at an IHE.  We are asking IHEs to self-determine and provide data as justification.  

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) announced a new foundation-wide solicitation for the Accelerating Research Translation (ART) program, which was authorized by the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022.  The ART program aims to support projects that will increase the role of U.S. institutions of higher education in their region’s innovation ecosystems through building their capacity and strengthening their infrastructure for translational research and supporting translational research training for graduate students and postdocs.  For this competition, NSF recognizes “translational research” as converting research into practical applications that can be deployed at scale, including knowledge/technology transfer, commercialization, or transition to practice, resulting in tangible economic and/or societal benefits.

This solicitation seeks proposals that enable IHE-based teams to propose a blend of: (1) activities that will help build and/or strengthen the institutional infrastructure to sustainably grow the institutional capacity for research translation in the short and long terms; (2) educational/training opportunities, especially for graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, to become entrepreneurs and/or seek use-inspired and/or translational research-oriented careers in the public and/or private sectors; and (3) specific, translational research activities that offer immediate opportunities for transition to practice to create economic and/or societal impact. The funded teams will form a nationwide network of 'ART Ambassadors' who will champion the cause of translational research.

Submissions to the ART solicitation must address how an institution would:

1. “Develop institutional capacity and infrastructure for translational research activities in the short term (during the four-year duration of the award) and long term (beyond the duration of the award);
2. Create and continually train new cohorts of graduate students and postdoctoral researchers versed in translational research to successfully create economic and/or societal impact through various career pathways, e.g., as entrepreneurs, in industry or public sectors; and
3. Support a nationwide network of 'ART Ambassadors' who will be the agents of change within their institutions and region to support equal importance for translational research and its ensuing impact.”

Among other activities, ART awardees will be required to identify and fund at least two Seed Translational Research Projects (STRPs) selected from research being done at the lead institution with translational potential.  Each STRP must be supported for at least two years and total funding for all STRP projects supported throughout the duration of the award cannot be more than half of the total funding for the project. 

Colleges and universities that have high levels of fundamental research activity but low translational research activity are encouraged to apply to the ART solicitation.  NSF recommends that institutions who already have high levels of translational research activity consider participating as a collaborator that can provide expertise to funded institutions working on their translational research capacity building.  Applicants must provide data to “justify their current capacity and infrastructure for translational research activities, using multiple evidence-based methods and metrics to determine their capacity.”  NSF recommends utilizing their data on research expenditures, linked below, as a starting point to determine if an institution is operating at a high fundamental research level.  Specific metrics to reflect the level of translational research activity are up to the applicant.  Some examples provided by NSF are number of invention disclosures; number of start-ups; number of patents issued; volume of industry-funded research; broad adoption of research outputs; licenses issued; and revenue from royalties.  Institutions applying to the ART program also need to clearly state why they have significant potential to build translational research capacity. Finally, the solicitation highlights that translational research activities at institutions receiving ART awards must be valued similarly to fundamental research activities, including when institutions are making decisions about faculty recruitment, promotion, and tenure.

Sources and Additional Information:

• The ART program page is available at https://beta.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/accelerating-research-translation-art.
• The full ART solicitation is available at https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2023/nsf23558/nsf23558.htm.
• Registration information for the webinar can be found at https://nsf.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_N-mFOgtjSkijCuOI7orPvw?utm_medium=email&utm_source=govdelivery.

E. Sparks (4-H Youth Development)

The National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA), USDA announces the Children, Youth, and Families at Risk (CYFAR) funding program to improve the quality and quantity of comprehensive community-based programs for at-risk children, youth, and families supported by the Cooperative Extension System. The CYFAR program mission is to marshal resources of the Land-Grant and Cooperative Extension Systems to develop and deliver educational programs that equip limited resource families and youth who are at-risk for not meeting basic human needs with the skills they need to lead positive, productive, contributing lives.

R. Tronstad ( Agricultural and Resource Economics)

The primary goal of BFRDP, under assistance listing number 10.311, is to help beginning farmers and ranchers in the United States and its territories enter and/or improve their successes in farming, ranching, and management of nonindustrial private forest lands, through support for projects that provide education, mentoring, and technical assistance to give beginning farmers and ranchers the knowledge, skills, and tools needed to make informed decisions for their operations and enhance their sustainability. The term “farmer” is used in the broadest sense and may be interpreted to include agricultural farmers, ranchers, and non-industrial private forest owners and managers. The term "beginning farmer or rancher" means a person that (A)(i) has not operated a farm or ranch; or (ii) has operated a farm or ranch for not more than 10 years; and (B) meets such other criteria as the Secretary may establish.

S. Song (Biomedical Engineering)

UA may submit one nomination. 

The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health. The program makes grants to selected academic institutions to support the independent research of outstanding individuals who are in their first few years of their appointment at the assistant professor level. The current grant level is $300,000; $75,000 per year for a four-year period.

Candidates must hold a doctorate in biomedical sciences, medicine, or a related field, including engineering or the physical sciences.

Based on their performance during their education and training, candidates should demonstrate outstanding promise as contributors in science relevant to human health. This program does not fund clinical trials research. Strong proposals will incorporate particularly creative and pioneering approaches to basic, translational, and applied biomedical research. Candidates whose work is based on biomedical principles but who bring in concepts and theories from more diverse fields are encouraged to apply.

S. Song (Biomedical Engineering)


The internal deadline has been extended to June 07, 2023.

Due to the competitive nature of this funding program, this selection process is running with an anticipated deadline.
We will keep all applicants informed of relevant updates in the guidelines, submission deadlines, and eligibility as soon as more information becomes available.

The Searle Scholars Program supports research of outstanding individuals who have recently begun their appointment at the assistant professor level, and whose appointment is their first tenure-track position at a participating academic or research institution. Today, 168 institutions are invited to participate in the Program.

The Program was established at The Chicago Community Trust in 1980 and has been administered by Kinship Foundation since 1996. The Program is funded from the estates of Mr. and Mrs. John G. Searle. Mr. Searle was the grandson of the founder of the world-wide pharmaceutical company, G.D. Searle & Company. It was Mr. Searle's wish that certain funds be used to support "...research in medicine, chemistry, and the biological sciences."

Each year 15 new individuals are named Searle Scholars. Awards are currently set at $100,000 per year for three years. Since its inception, 617 Scholars have been named and over $174 million has been awarded.

The Searle Scholars Program Scientific Advisory Board is primarily interested in the potential of applicants to make innovative and high-impact contributions to research over an extended period of time. 

Applicants for the 2024 competition (awards which will be activated on July 1, 2024) are expected to be pursuing independent research careers in biochemistry, cell biology, genetics, immunology, neuroscience, pharmacology, and related areas in chemistry, medicine, and the biological sciences. 

Applicants should have begun their appointment as an independent investigator at the assistant professor level on or after July 1, 2022. The appointment must be their first tenure-track position (or its nearest equivalent) at an invited institution. 

Institutions which do not have tenure-track appointments should consult with the Scientific Director of the Program regarding eligibility of selected applicants PRIOR to nominating such individuals. 

The Searle Scholars Program does not ordinarily support purely clinical research but has supported research programs that include both clinical and basic components. Potential applicants who are unsure if their research is appropriate for our Program are encouraged to examine the research interests of present and former Searle Scholars on this website. 

Applicants who were nominated for awards in the previous competition year but were not awarded may still meet the eligibility criteria for the current competition. Institutions should consult with the Scientific Director of the Program regarding renomination of such individuals.

The Searle Scholars Program Scientific Advisory Board is primarily interested in the potential of applicants to make innovative and high-impact contributions to research over an extended period of time.

Amount per Award: $300,000
Duration of Award: 3 Years

V. Yurkiv ( Aerospace and Mechanical Engineering)

The DOE SC program in Basic Energy Sciences (BES) hereby announces its interest in receiving new applications for Energy Innovation Hub projects pursuing multi-investigator, crossdisciplinary fundamental research to address emerging new directions as well as long-standing challenges for the next generation of rechargeable batteries and related electrochemical energy storage technologies. Electrochemical energy storage is typically viewed as the bidirectional interconversion of electricity and chemical potential energy using electrochemistry for the purpose of storing electrical energy for later use, with lithium (Li)-ion and lead acid batteries being representative of the current generation of electrochemical energy storage. Discovery and scientific exploration of new battery chemistries, materials, and architectures for energy storage are encouraged. Research on electrolyzer/fuel cell combinations using hydrogen or hydrocarbons as the chemical storage media are supported elsewhere within DOE programs and are specifically excluded from this FOA. Regardless of materials and electrochemical processes involved, the focus must be on fundamental scientific concepts and understanding for the next generation of batteries and electrochemical energy storage. 

K. Fitzsimmons ( International Initiatives/ Environmental Science) - Collaboration Track

There is one slot still available for the Collaboration Track and two free slots for the Conference Track. 
UA may not submit more than two Collaboration and two Conference applications to this program, as a lead institution each year. There is no limit on the number of Regular applications submitted by an institution
 

For FY 2023, only two awards will be made to the same lead institution, with up to one being a Collaboration award each year. Conference awards are excluded from this award limitation. A Project Director may not apply for a Collaboration grant as the lead project director if they currently have an active USDA NIFA HSI Collaboration award in its first or second year of the project

The purpose of the HSI Education Grants Program is to encourage innovative teaching or education proposals with potential to impact and become models for other institutions that serve underrepresented students at the regional or national level. Projects supported by this program must include/address one or more of the following goals:

1.  Attract and support undergraduate and graduate students from underrepresented groups to prepare them for careers related to the food, agricultural natural resources, and human systems and sciences in the United States.
2.  Enhance the quality of postsecondary instruction within the above disciplines.
3. Provide opportunities and access to food and agricultural careers in the public, non-profit and private sectors.
4. Align the efforts of HSIs and other non-profit organizations to support academic development and career attainment of underrepresented groups.

The HSI Education Grants Program is aligned with the following USDA Strategic Plan FY 2022- 2026:

1. Strategic Goal 2: Ensure America’s Agricultural System is Equitable, Resilient, and Prosperous
2. Strategic Goal 4: Provide All Americans Safe, Nutritious Food

Collaboration Grant
Collaboration Grants for this program must be submitted by agroup of two or more HSIs forming a linkage arrangement for the purpose of carryingout common objective(s) on the group’s behalf. The arrangement must be formed topromote and strengthen the institutional abilities to carry out higher educationprograms related to FANH . Collaboration grants must support Education/TeachingProjects. Collaboration grants for Community Development Projects will not beaccepted.

Grants are designed to help institutions develop competitive projects and to attractnew students into careers in high-priority areas of national need. To ensure the cost- effectiveness of funded projects, the institutions will work together to recruit andgraduate a minimum of fifteen undergraduate and ten graduate students fromunderrepresented groups in an Associate, Baccalaureate, MS, or PhD degree program.The twenty-five students must be recruited during the duration of the grant.

Collaboration Grants will be funded up to approximately $1,000,000 total, and mustbe for a project period of four years.

All partners must have a significant role in the collaboration and each institution’sbudget needs to be appropriate to support its activities. More information regardingpartnership and allowed activities can be found in “HSI Education Grants ProgramSupplemental Information.”
 

Conference Grants
Conference Grants support scientific meetings that bring togethereducators to identify research, education/teaching, and/or extension needs, updateinformation, or advance an area of education/teaching. Individual conference grantsmust not exceed $50,000 total for a project period of up to three years. Conferencegrants are not renewable. Indirect costs are not permitted on Conference Grantawards.

In FY 2023, one of the conference grants will be awarded to an institution to bringtogether a diverse and representative group of HSIs for a HSI Assessment andEvaluation conference to convene HSIs from across the country and Puerto Rico.Applications are expected to propose a conference that will emphasize research andpractice as related to educational assessment and evaluation of projects fundedthrough the NIFA HSI Education Grants program. Projects should focus on thefollowing areas:

a.Measuring to what extent previously funded projects from the NIFA HSIEducation Grants Program achieve the following program goals to guidecurrently funded and future project applicants:

1.Attract and support undergraduate and graduate students fromunderrepresented groups to prepare them for careers related toFANH agricultural and natural resources systems and sciences inthe United States.

2.Enhance the quality of postsecondary instruction within the abovedisciplines.

3.Provide opportunities and access to food and agricultural careers in thepublic and private sector.

4.Align the efforts of HSIs and other non-profit organizations to supportacademic development and career attainment of underrepresented groups.

b.Capturing the outcomes and impacts of NIFA funds on student recruitment, retention, and graduation and faculty professional development, including retention and promotion. c. Disseminating and reporting outcomes, impacts, and best practices to federal agencies, the greater HSI community, and other stakeholders.

d. Promoting and strengthening the ability of HSIs to carry out education, applied research, and related community development programs.

Conference activities should bring together participants from a range of backgrounds and institution types to learn ways to evaluate and assess their projects, discuss challenges facing HSIs, and provide opportunities for participants to discuss their own experiences. Invitees will be determined in collaboration with the agency with a minimum of twenty-five institutions expected to attend. The conference date will be determined with guidance from program staff to accommodate agency and stakeholder needs.

Conference applications focused on assessment and evaluation should include 1) a comprehensive plan for outreach and ensuring attendance of a diverse and representative group of HSIs and stakeholders and 2) a robust dissemination plan for the conference proceedings.

The awardee is required to develop conference proceedings which will include, but not limited to: a) a detailed conference agenda, b) a list of the individuals, and their institutional affiliations, who participated as speakers or attendees in the formally planned sessions of the meeting, c) a summary of topics discussed, including current trends in evaluation methodology and recommendations of products that can assure preservation of and ready access to information and outputs from projects, and conclusions, and d) an analysis of HSIs’ future research, education, and extension needs in FANH as determined by the participants.

Applicants of regular, collaboration, or conference grants are encouraged, but not required, to partner with a USDA agency to leverage resources and expertise for the proposed project.