Launch of the Second Phase of Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge

Ohio is one step closer to finding new solutions in the battle against drug abuse and addiction. The second phase of the Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge will accelerate the development of technology in four innovation Challenges. The goal is that these technology-based discoveries will help prevent and treat addiction and overdoses.

“We were thrilled by the outpouring of ideas we received in the first phase of the Technology Challenge,” said Director David Goodman, chair of the Ohio Third Frontier Commission.  “We’re eager to move forward with this next step in developing new solutions and saving lives.”

At the request of Ohio Governor John R. Kasich, the Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge leverages $8 million of a $20 million commitment to advance new ideas in the battle against drug abuse and addiction. The Challenge is a multi-phase prize competition with escalating prize amounts associated with progress toward developing solutions. The Idea Phase, which concluded in December 2017, collected bold and creative ideas from hundreds of researchers, caregivers, service providers and citizens from across Ohio, the U.S. and the world.

The Challenge Phase will tap the expertise of the worldwide business and innovation community to advance technical solutions in the following areas:

• Diagnose: Technologies to rapidly identify individuals at high risk of addiction or overdose. Solutions are expected to come from a variety of disciplines including IT, artificial intelligence, and biological or genetic diagnostics.
• Prevent: Technologies to eliminate or reduce urges, cravings or symptoms of withdrawal. Solutions are likely to be pharmaceuticals or medical devices that specifically address addictive responses but may also come from other behavior modification innovations.
• Connect: Technologies to provide immediate and extended access to help for relapse or overdose intervention. Expected solutions are likely to include communication or social media technologies that immediately connect individuals, including those in remote and rural areas, to needed resources.
• Protect: Technologies to protect first responders and medical professionals from inadvertent exposure to toxic opioid levels. Expected solutions are likely to include ambient detection of opioid residue, medical prophylactics, or protective equipment.

Responses for the Challenge Phase of the Ohio Opioid Technology Challenge may be submitted at www.opioidtechchallenge.com and are due by July 11, 2018 at 5:00 p.m. US EDT. For the Challenge Phase, up to 12 prize recipients will be announced in September 2018 and will receive $200,000 to advance their solutions. These semi-finalists will be eligible to compete in the final phase of the program, the Product Phase, to further develop their technology for market entry.

Ohio Third Frontier Contact: Lisa Colbert, 614-466-6212, lisa.colbert@development.ohio.gov

NSF has published a new Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) Program Flyer.

The goal of the IUSE:EHR Program is to catalyze colleges and universities and their faculties to provide highly effective, evidence-based teaching and learning experiences for their undergraduate students taking STEM courses. It supports the development and use of practices that are rooted in a solid research base. In pursuit of this goal, IUSE: EHR supports a broad range of projects on two tracks. The Engaged Student Learning track supports the development, use, and testing of instructional practices and curricular innovation that engage and improve student learning and retention in STEM. The Institutional and Community Transformation track supports efforts to increase the propagation of highly effective, evidence-based teaching and learning by promoting this activity broadly at the discipline, academic department, and institutional levels. IUSE: EHR, managed by the Education and Human Resources Directorate, is one component of NSF’s larger cross-directorate investment in improving undergraduate STEM education.

Track 1 proposals focus on Engaged Student Learning and Track 2 proposals focus on Institutional and Community Transformations. Additionally, there are two different project approaches: Approach 1 – Exploration and Design and Approach 2 – Development and Implementation.

Additional information on the IUSE:EHR program can be found on the NSF webpage, including, FAQs, webinars, the solicitation and supported disciplines.

Full Proposal Window

October 1, 2017 – October 1, 2018

        Exploration and Design Tier for Engaged Student Learning & Institution and Community Transformation

    October 1, 2018 – September 30, 2019

        Exploration and Design Tier for Engaged Student Learning & Institution and Community Transformation

    December 11, 2018

        Development and Implementation Tier for Engaged Student Learning & Institution and Community Transformation

Beginning in FY 2018, there will be no single date deadlines for Exploration and Design proposals, which may be submitted at any time from October 1, 2017 onward.  Please note however that proposals received after May 1 will be held over to the subsequent financial year for possible award (for example awards will be made in FY 19 for proposals received after May 1, 2018).

Beyond the Horizon: What’s Next for Higher Education 
Tuesday, March 6, 2018 | 2:00 PM EST

Register Here

Colleges and universities are at a crossroads. Forces largely out of our control—financial, demographic, political, and technological—promise to bring massive changes to the sector in the decade ahead.

This hour-long webinar will discuss the latest trends about the future of higher education.

Participants will learn:

• How shifts in high-school graduates will alter the college-going landscape

• Whether students will continue to flock to U.S. colleges from overseas

• How to separate the hype from reality when it comes to technology

• The future for state investment in higher education

Moderator:

Jeffrey J. Selingo has written about higher education for two decades and is a regular contributor to the Washington Post and The Atlantic. His latest book, There Is Life After College (HarperCollins, 2016), is a New York Times bestseller. He is a special advisor to the president at Arizona State University and a visiting scholar at Georgia Tech’s Center for 21st Century Universities

Panelists:

Karin Fischer is a freelance journalist who focuses on higher education. She covers international education, including American colleges’ activities overseas, the globalization of the college experience, and international-student recruitment and the experience of foreign students in the United States. Learn more about Karin.

Ann Kirschner is University Professor at The City University of New York. She is the author of Sala’s Gift (Simon and Schuster, 2006), and Lady At The Ok Corral (HarperCollins, 2013), and a frequent speaker and writer on innovation in media, technology, and education. Learn more about Ann.

Michael Horn speaks and writes about the future of education. He serves as the Chief Strategy Officer for Entangled Ventures, an education technology studio, and is the co-founder of and a distinguished fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, a non-profit think tank. Learn more about Michael.

Registration is FREE! Make plans to join us!

Internal Limited Submission Deadline to the Office of Research Administration: Tuesday, March 6, 2018 at 5pm.

NSF Deadline: April 20, 2018

Synopsis of the Program (18-519):

The American National Election Studies (ANES) produce high quality data from its own surveys on voting, public opinion, and political participation. The mission of the ANES is to inform explanations of election outcomes by providing data that support rich hypothesis testing, maximize methodological excellence, measure many variables, and promote comparisons across people, contexts, and time. The ANES serves this mission by providing researchers with a view of the political world through the eyes of ordinary citizens.

The Political Science Program in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences expects to make two awards for the 2020 Presidential election cycle with the award to run from fiscal years 2018 to 2021. We anticipate that NSF will make two awards totaling no more than $11.5 million over four years. One will be for the traditional face-to-face survey. The second will be for a web-based survey. While these will be independent awards, the two awardees will be expected to work closely together. The expected start date is July 2018.

The ANES awards will fund the following activities:
ANES Face to Face award

• Data collection for the ANES around the 2020 presidential election
• Pre- and Post-election face to face interviews
• Sample based on a random probability based sample
• Survey instrument development for the ANES
• Survey design, innovations, and continual enhancement of the survey and survey items
• Participation in the Cooperative Study of Electoral Systems in the post-election survey
• Post data collection editing, processing, and generation of constructed variables, data files and codebooks
• Data dissemination through a cutting-edge web-based data archive
• Support for the Board
• Interaction with the principal investigators of the GSS and PSID
• Interaction and coordination with the principal investigators of the ANES Web to create common content across the two modes

ANES Web

• Data collection for the ANES around the 2020 presidential election
• Pre- and Post-election web interviews
• Sample based on a random probability based sample
• Survey instrument development for the ANES
• Survey design, innovations, and continual enhancement of the survey and survey items
• Develop the survey to act as a true mode comparison with the Face to Face instrument
• Post data collection editing, processing, and generation of constructed variables, data files and codebooks
• Data dissemination through a cutting-edge web-based data archive
• Support for the Board
• Interaction with the principal investigators of the GSS and PSID
• Interaction and coordination with the principal investigators of the ANES Face to Face award to create common content across the two modes

Limit on Number of Proposals per Organization:

Institutions are restricted to submitting only one proposal for this solicitation. The one proposal can be for either the ANES Face-to-Face Competition or for the ANES WEB Competition.

For full program details visit NSF’s ANES webpage.

For details regarding The University of Akron’s limited submission process, visit the ORA Limited Submission webpage.