In response to the COVID-19 public health emergency, ARPA-E has modified the SCALEUP FOA. The Preliminary Application submission phase has been reopened to allow all prospective Applicants the opportunity to apply. Preliminary Applications previously received may be revised under the modified SCALEUP requirements described herein.

Accordingly, ARPA-E has:

• Increased the Total Amount to be Awarded to approximately $60 million
• Revised the deadline for the submission of Preliminary Applications to May 7, 2020 at 9:30 am ET.
• Revised the deadlines for the submission of replies to Preliminary Application Reviewer comments, Semi-Finalist and Grant notifications, and submission of Full Applications and Full Application reviewer comments.
• Revised Section III.B.1-3 and Section VI.B.4 to amend Prime Recipient cost share amounts and payment requirements respectively.
• Revised Section IV.A.2 and Section VII.F.2, to address withdrawal and revision of Preliminary Applications and optional Small Business Grant Applications respectively, that were previously submitted to ARPA-E.
• Inserted Section IV.D to set forth formatting requirements for revised and resubmitted Preliminary Applications and Small Business Grant Applications.
• Revised Section V.A and Section VII.H, to address Merit Review of Preliminary Applications and optional Small Business Grant Applications respectively, that are amended solely to change the Prime Recipient cost shares amount or are unchanged from prior timely submissions.
• Revised Section V.C to revise the anticipated dates for award negotiation selections and award effective dates.
• Canceled the in-person SCALEUP Workshop.
• Provided information on participating in the Semi-Finalists Launch Pad website, the Semi-Finalist Bootcamp Webinar, and the SCALEUP virtual Workshop Series. See Cover Page and Section IV.A of the FOA.

To obtain a copy of the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) please go to the ARPA-E website at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov. ARPA-E will not review or consider submissions submitted through means other than ARPA-E eXCHANGE. For detailed guidance on using ARPA-E eXCHANGE, please refer to the ARPA-E eXCHANGE User Guider at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov/Manuals.aspx.

The Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy technologies with Untapped Potential (SCALEUP) solicitation provides a vital mechanism for the support of innovative energy R&D that complements ARPA-E’s primary R&D focus on early-stage transformational energy technologies that still require proof-of-concept.

ARPA-E’s mission is to develop transformational energy technologies in support of U.S. national security and economic competitiveness. ARPA-E funds the R&D of technologies to build and maintain U.S. technological leadership in highly competitive global energy markets, thus supporting American jobs and economic growth. ARPA-E’s authorizing statute directs the Agency to develop linkages between its sponsored applied research and the marketplace.^[ These linkages are central to realizing the public’s return on technology investments.

An enduring challenge to ARPA-E’s mission is that even technologies that achieve substantial technical advancement under ARPA-E support are at risk of being stranded in their development path once ARPA-E funding ends (averaging $2.5M over three years). ARPA-E-funded technologies typically face significant remaining technical risks upon completion of an award’s funding period. Experience across ARPA-E’s diverse energy portfolios, and with a wide range of investors, indicates that pre-commercial “scaling” projects are critical to establishing that performance and cost parameters can be met in practice for these very early stage technologies. These pre-commercial scaling projects aim to translate the performance achieved at bench scale to commercially scalable versions of the technology, integrate the technology with broader systems, provide extended performance data, and validate the manufacturability and reliability of new energy technologies. (These projects are often termed “pre-pilot” development in different industries) Success in these scaling projects would enable industry, investors, and partners to justify substantial commitments of financial resources, personnel, production facilities, and materials to develop promising ARPA-E technologies into early commercial products.

The SCALEUP FOA builds upon ARPA-E-funded technologies by scaling the most promising. Stranding promising ARPA-E-funded technologies in their development pathways leaves substantial intellectual property developed with American taxpayer dollars vulnerable to adoption by foreign competitors, who can and do capture it for continued development – and economic benefit – overseas. This harms national competitiveness, as U.S. industries often lose the lead on the development, scaling, and manufacturing of technologies necessary to compete in rapidly evolving global energy markets. These scaling energy technology projects will meet ARPA-E’s statutory direction to achieve the above goals by “accelerating transformational technological advances in areas that industry by itself is not likely to undertake because of technical and financial uncertainty”.

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) announced new grant guidelines designed to rapidly distribute Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security (CARES) Act funding to cultural nonprofits affected by the coronavirus pandemic. This new funding opportunity, NEH CARES: Cultural Organizations, will provide grants of up to $300,000 to sustain humanities organizations and preserve jobs in the cultural sector.

“We know that, across the country, so many cultural organizations and the staff they employ are suffering severe hardship due to the pandemic,” said NEH Chairman Jon Parrish Peede. “NEH is working quickly to distribute emergency funds to strengthen the nation’s museums, archives, libraries, historic sites, universities, and other educational institutions, and to support the communities and economies that rely on them.”

Anchoring an $878 billion domestic creative economy, museums and historic sites are reporting losses of $1 billion a month as education programs, exhibitions, and other events have been canceled.

NEH CARES: Cultural Organizations emergency relief grants provide up to $300,000 to cultural nonprofits to support a range of humanities activities across the fields of education, preservation and access, public programming, digital humanities, and scholarly research through December 31, 2020. Funding may be used for short-term activities that emphasize retaining or hiring humanities staff at cultural organizations across the country to maintain or adapt critical programs during the pandemic. The deadline to apply is May 11, 2020.

NEH CARES: Cultural Organizations application guidelines are available on the NEH website. Applicants will be informed of funding decisions by June 2020.

NEH has already distributed nearly $30 million of CARES Act funding to 55 states and US territories through state and jurisdictional humanities councils to support local cultural groups and educational programming. The remaining $45 million of the NEH supplemental appropriation will be distributed in direct grants to cultural organizations and humanists to mitigate the financial impact of the pandemic.

New NIH Resource to Analyze COVID-19 Literature: The COVID-19 Portfolio Tool

In the past few months, the scientific community has ramped up research in response to the SARS‑CoV‑2 pandemic; dozens of peer-reviewed articles and preprints on this topic are being added to the literature every day (Figure 1). This rapidly expanding effort has created challenges for scientists and the medical community who need to analyze thousands of scholarly articles for insights on the virus. Continue reading →

Cyber Safety & COVID-19

The current outbreak of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) has introduced new cybersecurity risks both at NIH and across the globe. As targeted phishing attacks prey on our desire to access trustworthy information and many of us make a shift toward remote work, we all need to be vigilant and take accountability for cyber safety. Here are some key tips to stay safe and avoid scams. Continue reading →

Security of Our Virtual Peer Review Meetings

CSR will conduct all summer peer review meetings using one of three platforms – 1) video; 2) telephone; 3) web-based discussion. A majority will take place using the Zoom video platform. We want to provide information about how we are maintaining the security and confidentiality of our review meetings. Continue reading →

Roundup of New COVID-19 Resources for NIH Applicants and Recipients: Part 2

We continue to add new resources to our COVID-19: Information for NIH Applicants and Recipients of NIH Funding webpage. We hope they are helpful in helping you navigate this unprecedented situation. Here is a summary of what’s new since the last Nexus. Continue reading →

Can recipients change the originally proposed format of a T35 program by devising an electronic curriculum rather than in-person experiences?

Yes, if the alternative methods would provide a meaningful experience related to the goals of the program. Continue reading →

What happens if an institution has already submitted an application, and due to effects of COVID-19, some of the information needs to be revised?

Institutions affected by COVID-19 will be allowed to submit post-submission grant application materials to revise information that was submitted in an application as long as the materials are received at least fourteen days before the start of the review meeting. The post-submission grant application materials policy remains in effect. Only the types of materials allowed under the policy can be accepted. A letter of explanation (one page max.) is required. Continue reading →

Calendar

• April 17-20 – eRA modules unavailable due to cloud migration  
• May 1 – Grant application deadline for due dates between 3/9/20 and 5/1/20, including continuous submission (NOT-OD-20-091)

This Notice of Special Interest (NOSI) highlights the urgent need for social, behavioral, economic, health communication, and epidemiologic research relevant to the 2019 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) and COVID-19. This NOSI encourages urgent competitive supplements and administrative supplements to existing longitudinal studies that address key social and behavioral questions related to the COVID-19 pandemic, including adherence to and transmission mitigation from various containment and mitigation efforts; social, behavioral, and economic impacts from these containment and mitigation efforts; and downstream health impacts resulting from these social, behavioral, and economic impacts, including differences in risk and resiliency based on gender, race and ethnicity, socioeconomic status, and other social determinants of health.

To rapidly improve our understanding of the critical social and behavioral aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic, this NOSI encourages submission of applications for urgent competitive revisions or administrative supplements to active grants studying existing longitudinal cohorts, particularly those cohorts with considerable data relevant to COVID-19 social and behavioral factors prior and subsequent to the SAR-CoV-2 outbreak in various locations. These submissions are encouraged to consider four broad areas:

1. Adherence to or transmission reductions from various public health containment and mitigation efforts including but not limited to risk communication, handwashing, disinfecting surfaces, social distancing, self-quarantine, paid sick leave, school closures, and business closures.
2. Economic, social, and personal well-being impacts of these various containment and mitigation actions (e.g., unemployment, social isolation, stress, mental health, substance use, physical activity).
3. The impacts and behavioral responses to misinformation being communicated about COVID-19 and its prevention, treatment and health effects via a range of information channels, including traditional and social media.
4. Downstream health effects from these economic, social, and personal impacts including but not limited to substance use/abuse, mental illness, suicide, stress-related physical disorders, and limitations on healthcare access.

In addressing any of the four areas of interest it will be necessary to examine natural variation in individual, family, social, geographic, and structural levels of response, adherence, stigma, and impact using foreign and domestic opportunities, focusing on specific sectors of the population (including but not limited to gender, age group, socioeconomic status, geographic region, race/ethnicity, urban/rural, sexual orientation, gender identity). Investigators are strongly encouraged to include a range of groups and include medically underserved regions and vulnerable populations (e.g. pregnant women, the homeless, prison populations, people with disabilities, those in shelters or residential treatment settings) to the degree possible given the characteristics of their existing cohorts.

Applications are encouraged to leverage existing cohorts that present opportunities for quasi-experimental designs, natural experiments, interrupted time series analyses, computational and statistical modeling, and AI approaches. Applications that propose only descriptive pre-post associations are strongly discouraged. Findings from proposals submitted under this NOSI should generate more precise modeling parameters that could lead to increased accuracy and actionable predictions of use in this or future epidemics, examine underlying mechanisms of these interventions and their impacts, and/or leverage the staggered implementation of these interventions and their impacts in various locations (cities, counties, states, countries) for natural experiments controlling for appropriate confounds.

Dear Colleagues:

NSF recently recorded a webinar about the requirement to use an NSF-approved format for both the biographical sketch and current & pending support documents as part of proposals submitted to NSF. The policy, outlined in the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 20-1), goes into effect for proposals submitted or due, on or after June 1, 2020.  The two NSF-approved formats are SciENcv: Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae, and an NSF Fillable PDF. 

Webinar topics include:

• The policy guidance for preparation of the biographical sketch and current and pending support sections of the proposal
• A walk-through of the user experience in accessing these formats in NSF systems
• Detailed guidance from NIH on using SciENcv for preparing both documents
• Answers to a number of frequently asked questions (FAQs)

For additional information, see the NSF pages for the biographical sketch and current and pending support.  We would like your feedback on these formats prior to the June 1^st requirement. Please provide your comments and questions to policy@nsf.gov. 

Regards,

Jean Feldman

Office of Budget, Finance & Award Management

National Science Foundation