New Funding Opportunity: Research and Evaluation on School Safety

This solicitation seeks applications for funding to study the root causes of school violence and evaluate the effectiveness of projects funded by the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) or by the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) under the STOP School Violence Act. NIJ anticipates that at least $2 million will be available to support this solicitation, with the potential for additional funding from the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA). For more information and to download the RFP click HERE.

The solicitation seeks applications for funding to conduct research to

  1. Examine the root causes of school violence.
  2. Evaluate the effectiveness of the approaches to stopping school violence found in the Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA) and the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services FY 2018 or FY 2019 STOP School Violence Act solicitations.
  3. Research on the perspectives of STOP School Violence Act solicitations.

NIH: Searching for Funding Just Got a Little Easier

What’s new with the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts? In addition to faster, more precise search results, a few key filtering features have been updated.

Notices of Special Interest (NOSIs) are displayed in the results when searching either “Funding Opportunities” or “Notices.”

screenshot of search filters showing options to search all funding opportunities, all notices, etc.

The “Type of Funding Opportunities” filter now includes “Notice of Special Interest.”

Screenshot of Guide Search NOSI filter

Quickly find notices by organization.

Screenshot of organization filter

NIH publishes funding opportunities and notices in the NIH Guide daily and recaps the week’s postings every Friday afternoon via a Weekly NIH Funding Opportunities and Notices email to the NIH Guide LISTSERV. Subscribe to receive the NIH weekly updates or to follow them on Twitter today!

New Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (NSF 20-1)

the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 20-1) has been issued. The new PAPPG will be effective for proposals submitted or due, and awards made, on or after June 1, 2020. Significant changes include:

  • NSF will require use of an NSF-approved format in submission of the biographical sketch and current and pending support documents, once the PAPPG (NSF 20-1) becomes effective;
  • New requirement for proposing organizations to submit government-wide representations and certifications in the System for Award Management (SAM).
  • New requirement for providing e-mail documentation of Program Officer approval for the submission of RAPID and EAGER proposals.
  • Clarifications to current and pending support coverage as well as other changes throughout the document.

You are encouraged to review the by-chapter summary of changes provided in the Introduction section of the PAPPG. NSF plans to conduct a webinar covering these changes on February 6 at 2PM EST. Visit the webinar website to register for this event.

While this version of the PAPPG becomes effective on June 1, 2020, in the interim, the guidelines contained in the current PAPPG (NSF 19-1) continue to apply.

A PDF version of the PAPPG will be available in the coming weeks. If you have any questions regarding these changes, please contact the DIAS/Policy Office at policy@nsf.gov.

Ohio Department of Higher Education – Third Frontier Research Initiative

On Monday, February 3, 2020, the Ohio Department of Higher Education will be releasing a Third Frontier Research Initiative Request for Proposal (RFP) targeting Principle Investigators doing research in the area of Spinal Cord injuries. The Chancellor has the authority to award up to $1.5 million in fiscal years 20 & 21 in support of this research. Interested applicants will have approximately six weeks to respond to the RFP. Responses will be evaluated by an advisory committee selected by the Chancellor. The advisory committee will make recommendations to the Chancellor who will make the final decision on which proposals, if any, will be funded. When released, the RFP can be found and will be posted on their website found HERE.

Army Research Lab – Scalable, Adaptive, and Resilient Autonomy (SARA) Funding Opportunity

Key Dates:

  • Opportunity Webinar – January 24, 2020
  • Deadline for Questions on Funding Opportunity – January 31, 2020
  • Proposals due for Cycle 1 – February 14, 2020

Program Description

Future Army forces will need to conduct cross-domain maneuver (CDM) and at times, operate semi-independently, disbursed, and while communications and infrastructure such as Global Positioning System (GPS) are disrupted or denied. Robotics and Autonomous Systems (RAS) will play a key role in expanding the operational reach, situational awareness, and effectiveness of maneuver forces in CDM. The Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC) Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is focused on developing fundamental understanding and informing the art-of-the-possible for warfighter concepts through research to greatly improve air and ground based autonomous vehicle perception, learning, reasoning, communication, navigation, and physical capabilities to augment and increase the freedom of maneuver in complex and contested environments. The Scalable, Adaptive, and Resilient Autonomy (SARA) program is focused on developing and experimentally accelerating emerging research in autonomous mobility and maneuverability, scalable heterogeneous and collaborative behaviors, and human agent teaming to realize adaptive and resilient Intelligent Systems that can reason about the environment, work in distributed and collaborative heterogeneous teams, and make optempo decisions to enable Autonomous Maneuver in complex and contested environments. In order to achieve this vision, advancements are needed in following:

  • Novel methods for all-terrain ground and aerial maneuver to interact with and move through complex environments.
  • Methods for scalable and heterogeneous collaborative behaviors in support of collaborative air and ground manned-unmanned teaming operations.
  • Techniques for improved perception, decision-making, and adaptive behaviors for fully autonomous maneuver in contested environments.
  • Methods, metrics, and tools to facilitate, simulate, and enable testing and evaluation of emerging approaches for intelligent and autonomous systems under Army relevant constraints and environments.
  • Experimental testbeds to develop and refine knowledge products to inform and transition technology to Army stakeholders.

Additional information, including the solicitation, can be found on the SARA webpage or on grants.gov.