HRSA Opioid-Impacted Family Support Program

Proposal due date: April 13, 2020

Purpose of the Program:

The purpose of this program is to support training programs that enhance and expand paraprofessionals knowledge, skills and expertise, and to increase the number of peer support specialists and other behavioral health-related paraprofessionals who work on integrated, interprofessional teams in providing services to children whose parents are impacted by opioid use disorders (OUD) and other substance use disorders (SUD), and their family members who are in guardianship roles. Additionally, a special focus is on demonstrating knowledge and understanding of the specific concerns for children, adolescents and transitional aged youth in high need and high demand areas2 who are at risk for mental health disorders and SUDs.

Program Objectives are to:

  • Enhance and expand, didactic educational support and experiential field training opportunities for OIFSP paraprofessional trainees that target children, adolescents and transitional age youth whose parents are impacted by OUD and other SUDs, and their family members who are in guardianship roles. These two components (didactic and experiential field training) comprise Level I training and are further explained in the Background section.
  • Develop, or establish a partnership with, registered apprenticeship programs to provide in-service training that places paraprofessional trainees in behavioral health-related positions addressing OUD and other SUDs. The apprenticeship program constitutes Level II training and is also further explained in the Background section.
  • Reduce financial barriers by providing financial support to trainees in the form of tuition/fees, supplies, and stipend support.
  • Create additional training positions beyond current program capacity to increase the number of paraprofessionals trained by a minimum of 10 percent in year one and maintain that level each year of the 4-year project period, with a focus on working with families who are impacted by OUD and other SUDs.

Additional information including the Notice of Funding Opportunity can be found on the HRSA site.

Department of Defense United States Army Medical Research Materiel Command Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs CDMRP – Research Funding for 2020

The Fiscal Year 2020 Department of Defense Appropriations Act provides research funding for the following peer reviewed programs managed by the Department of Defense office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP):

  • Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Research Program
  • Autism Research Program
  • Bone Marrow Failure Research Program
  • Breast Cancer Research Program
  • Chronic Pain Management Research Program
  • Combat Readiness Medical Research Program
  • Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy Research Program
  • Epilepsy Research Program
  • Gulf War Illness Research Program
  • Hearing Restoration Research Program
  • Kidney Cancer Research Program
  • Joint Warfighter Medical Research Program
  • Lung Cancer Research Program
  • Lupus Research Program
  • Melanoma Research Program
  • Military Burn Research Program
  • Multiple Sclerosis Research Program
  • Neurofibromatosis Research Program
  • Orthotics and Prosthetics Outcomes Research Program
  • Ovarian Cancer Research Program
  • Pancreatic Cancer Research Program
  • Parkinson’s Research Program
  • Peer Reviewed Alzheimer’s Research Program
  • Peer Reviewed Cancer Research Program (14 Topics)
  • Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program (44 Topics)
  • Peer Reviewed Orthopaedic Research Program
  • Prostate Cancer Research Program
  • Rare Cancers Research Program
  • Reconstructive Transplant Research Program
  • Scleroderma Research Program
  • Spinal Cord Injury Research Program
  • Tick-Borne Disease Research Program
  • Tuberous Sclerosis Complex Research Program
  • Vision Research Program

Pre-announcements and comprehensive Program Announcements will be forthcoming. The pre-announcements will provide a general overview of the anticipated funding mechanisms. The Program Announcements will include detailed descriptions of funding mechanisms, evaluation criteria, submission requirements, and deadlines. Each Program Announcement may be downloaded from the Grants.gov website http://www.grants.gov, or the CDMRP website https://cdmrp.army.mil upon its release.

For email notification when pre-announcements and Program Announcements are released, subscribe to program-specific news and updates under “Email Subscriptions” on the eBRAP homepage at https://eBRAP.org.

For more information about the CDMRP, our research programs, previous awardees, as well as research highlights and videos, please visit the website at https://cdmrp.army.mil.

DARPA Young Faculty Award Program

Federal Agency Name: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), Defense Sciences Office (DSO)

Due Dates:

  • Executive Summary (strongly encouraged): September 18, 2019, 4:00 p.m.
  • Full Proposal: November 19, 2019, 4:00 p.m.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior faculty positions in academia and equivalent positions at non-profit research institutions and expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security challenges and needs. In particular, this YFA will provide high-impact funding to elite researchers early in their careers to develop innovative new research directions in the context of enabling transformative DoD capabilities. The long-term goal of the program is to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers in the research community who will focus a significant portion of their future careers on DoD and National Security issues. DARPA is particularly interested in identifying outstanding researchers who have previously not been performers on DARPA programs, but the program is open to all qualified applicants with innovative research ideas.

Participation in the YFA program is limited to any current tenure-track Assistant or Associate Professors and to tenured Assistant or Associate Professors within three (3) years of their tenure appointment at a U.S. institution of higher education or equivalent at a U.S. non-profit science and technology research institution.

Topic Areas:

  • Unlocking the Secrets of Roman Concrete – Developing new, extremely durable, and crack resistant materials for use in the marine environment is of great national interest.
  • In Vivo Biosensors – To monitor biological changes in response to military-relevant injuries, DARPA is seeking innovative biosensor technologies and platforms to detect a range of relevant biomolecules. These minimally invasive sensors should collect and transmit the concentration of a target molecule in real-time or near real-time and should be biocompatible for use in vivo.
  • Decision Making Algorithm for Medical Countermeasure (MCM) Development – DARPA seeks to develop algorithms to address the ability to predict the translation efficiency of a monoclonal antibody from a nucleic acid construct in vivo. It is envisioned that the proposed work will consist primarily of three components: data generation, computational analysis and in vivo validation of the computational results.
  • Microbial Community Modeling – For this YFA topic, novel modeling approaches are sought to generate predictive models of dynamic multi-organism systems and their environmental interactions that account for the following: intracellular metabolism, extracellular chemical/biochemical processes, maintenance of membrane chemical/charge potentials, associations with other organisms, and dynamic extracellular conditions.
  • Biological Systems for Sensing, Reporting, and Mitigating Air Contamination – The aim of this topic is to develop platform technologies that allow complex engineered living communities to sense, report, and mitigate airborne pollutants and toxins.
  • Distributed Intelligence in Flexible Robots – This YFA topic area builds upon this material computation concept that utilizes the computing power inherent in the diverse dynamics of actuating soft materials to achieve a form of distributed intelligence.
  • Bioinspired Soft-Matter Electrical Circuits – DARPA is interested in new approaches to develop ion-based circuit models that incorporate soft-matter components with functionality that may be inspired by a biosystem.
  • Room-temperature Chip-scale Quantum Opto-mechanical Sensors – This topic seeks development of technologies that enable the coupling between single phonons and photons, i.e. quantum optomechanic, to enable mechanical sensors with ultimate sensitivity.
  • AI System Engineering – This effort should focus on extending state-of-the-art software and system engineering design, implementation, application, and evaluation methods, techniques, and tools that are appropriate, effective, and scalable for large, complex, heterogeneous, adaptable cyber-physical systems comprising AI and other types of components.
  • Advanced Corrosion Control – This topic seeks combined theoretical-experimental efforts to connect atomic-level corrosion nucleation mechanisms with mesoscale chemistry and the surface/interface microstructural features conducive to nucleation. An understanding of how transient environmental conditions affect nucleation kinetics is also desired.
  • Economics-driven Secure Multiparty Computation (MPC) – This effort should focus on looking to further bridge the gap of using sophisticated understandings of economics in order to create novel secure multiparty computation that critically rely on understanding of economics notions (e.g., utility functions, equilibrium theories) to enable breakthrough new capabilities for MPC, particularly those that examine more realistic use cases (and greater incentives for use) via economic analyses.
  • Cross-Cultural Extrapolation of Privacy-Oriented Human-Technology Interactions – This effort looks to create greater understandings of human-technology interaction for privacy amongst communities that have not previously been examined.
  • Scientific Model Aware Computing – Model Aware Computing would be the automated generation of specialized, optimal software tailored to the needs of a specific scientific model under consideration without the complexity of highly generic simulations capable of representing many possible phenomena, which fundamentally changes how scientists interact with software development. Model Aware Computing will support the improvement of scientific software and the automating of scientific reasoning, but it will also expose, represent, and realize the interconnected nature of the modeling structures within and between scientific domains.
  • Push Science – This topic seeks the development of technologies to build and maintain rich models of complex systems (scientific, social, etc.) by identifying new data and information resources automatically, extracting useful information (causal relations, correlations, context, parameters, etc.), and integrating this into machine-curated expert models.
  • Visualization Innovations for Cyber Terrain Operations Representation (VICTOR) – VICTOR research efforts should be focused on disruptive and novel approaches to a physics of cyberspace. This physics will aid situational awareness for US cyberwarriors operating in cyber terrain, e.g., heatmaps, selective revelation of information, and its urgency and persistence.
  • Reducing Errors in Quantum Systems – This topic seeks to accomplish two objectives: 1) improve the realism of error correction in gate-based quantum computation and 2) finding advantages for computation and/or sensing by combining error correction and sensing techniques.
  • Dielectrics for High-Temperature CMOS FETs – Investments in wide bandgap (WBG) materials such as silicon carbide (SiC) and gallium nitride (GaN) have enabled new commercially available power electronics. The WBG material foundation can be leveraged for other applications such as high temperature capable electronics.
  • A Physics-Based Re-exploration of Spectrum Allocation – In this topic, DARPA wants to rethink approaches to EMS management through a holistic and physics-driven methodology. The research should first contextualize the problem based on the history of applications, spectrum regulations, and technology. The work should produce a new perspective on EM spectrum device capabilities to inform new approaches to spectrum sharing and point the way to inform the next generation of EM devices.
  • Detecting Cognitive Dissonance & Belief Shift Over Time – This topic seeks to develop and validate methods: 1) for detecting and identifying cognitive dissonance – or when a person or community holds two beliefs that are in conflict, and specifically when a belief is in conflict with an action, and 2) for predicting when confronted with the conflict, what action the conflicted will take to resolve the tension (e.g., change beliefs, change actions, add rationalizing thoughts, trivialize the inconsistency, etc.). Of particular interest is how repeated and recursive cycles of confrontation and resolution shift belief and/or actions over time – weeks, months or even years.
  • Chip-scale Blind Sampled Wideband Periodogram and Time Transfer by Machine Learning – This topic seeks to explore how machine learning chip-scale solutions can provide low latency detection, synchronization and timing transfer of accurate clocks between cognitive mobile devices operating in the absence of centralized reference clock signals, such as provided by a basestation or GPS.
  • Practical Antineutrino Detectors – This topic seeks to advance antineutrino detector technology toward the practical use of antineutrinos as a tool for national security applications.
  • RF Power Harvesting for Remote Sensing – DARPA is seeking innovative methods for harvesting RF energy with high efficiency in regions with low RF power (<<1mW).
  • Low Loop Latency Distributed Time Transfer – This topic seeks innovative solutions for significantly reducing the effect of loop latency for the purpose of maintaining tightly synchronized reference clocks from multiple radios (>10) across long distances (>> 1 km) despite the presence of substantial phase nose.
  • High-Entropy Alloys Study – DARPA seeks proposals that investigate ultra-low density materials (<1% wt. bulk) comprised of high-entropy alloys, that could be used for a low density “skin”. We also seek ideas for deposition of these skins (such as electrodeposition from ionic solutions) or their creation via in situ nuclear decay.
  • Ocean Object Identification via Distributed Sensors – This topic seeks new methods or technologies that enable detection of man-made objects in an ocean environment utilizing ‘through the sensor’ environmental data from large distributed arrays of in-situ sensors.
  • Flame Stability and Ignition in Partially-Premixed High-Speed Flows – This effort should be focused on the application of modern diagnostics and computational modeling to better understand the mechanisms by which these flames ignite and stabilize relative to flame stratification, degree of partial-premixing, and burning location.
  • On-Orbit Servicing Architectures for Proliferated Low Earth Orbit (LEO) Constellations – This topic seeks innovative approaches to on-orbit servicing of proliferated LEO constellations.

Additional information can be found on the DARPA YFA FedBizOpps page or in the Research Announcement, available on grants.gov.

Supplemental Funding Opportunity to Support Student Design Projects Directly Related to NSF Research

The mission of NSF is to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare of the US. Fostering the growth of a more capable and diverse research workforce and advancing the scientific and innovation skills of the Nation are strategic objectives of NSF. To support its mission and this objective, NSF continues to invest in programs that directly advance the nation’s Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) workforce. As part of this effort, a supplemental funding opportunity is being made available starting in FY 2019 to provide support for mentored, student-led design projects that are directly related to currently funded NSF awards from the Engineering Directorate. This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) describes a new opportunity for principal investigators to expand the Broader Impact of their awards through a Design Supplement.

Background

Engineering, by its very nature, involves design – creating solutions to real world problems. While the design process can take place based on existing technologies and well-established science, engineering innovation often requires a connection to cutting-edge science. One way to prepare future engineering professionals to interact with researchers and push the frontiers of engineering innovation is to introduce this connection to engineering students. While Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) supplements allow individual students to be integrated into a research laboratory experience, the research and design processes are very different.

As defined by ABET, the accrediting organization for engineering programs in the US, engineering design is a process of devising a system, component, or process to meet desired needs and specifications within constraints1. It is an iterative process that involves identifying opportunities, developing requirements, performing analysis, generating multiple solutions, evaluating those solutions against the requirements, considering risks, and making trade-offs – all for the purpose of obtaining a high-quality solution under the given circumstances. All students in an accredited engineering program must complete a culminating design experience. Providing a mechanism to connect students’ design education to the research conducted in NSF-funded laboratories will create a bridge between the discovery of research and the translational potential of design.

Supplemental Funding Opportunity

NSF will consider supplemental funding requests to support student design projects connected to active NSF grants. The goals of these supplements are the following:

  • To connect student design projects to innovative, NSF-supported research and the latest advances in engineering science.
  • To expose students to the discovery process of research while preparing them for their roles in the engineering workforce.
  • To provide a team of students with the funds necessary to pursue the design process, from need finding, industry and customer discovery, through prototyping and validation.

Description of Activities Supported

The PI of an active NSF award (see below for the participating Divisions) may request supplemental funding to support a mentored, student-led design project that is connected to their NSF award. To be eligible, the design-research connection should meet one of the following two criteria:

  • A project that builds on scientific advances from the research by applying that knowledge to solve a current challenge.
  • A project that challenges students to design a technology, device, or system to complement or augment the methods or aims of the research project.

In addition, eligible projects are expected to meet the following requirements:

  • Projects must be conducted by students, preferably as a team
  • The solution to the challenge should not be pre-determined (i.e. the students are not simply implementing a design developed by the PI), so that the students go through the complete engineering design process – including development of a prototype or system simulation, as appropriate.
  • The project should require students to consider relevant standards and realistic constraints.
  • Project support from the supplement must be used to support the design process, including need finding, industry and customer discovery, prototyping, and validation/verification, not student time.

Requirements

PIs must describe how the design project will be mentored and assessed. The project may be part of a capstone design course or an independent project course, both of which have mentoring and assessment frameworks. Please see the list below for the participating divisions that will consider these supplemental funding requests.

Participating Divisions – Directorate for Engineering

Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET)

Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI)

Electrical, Communications, and Cyber Systems (ECCS)

Additional information including preparation instructions, funding amount, allowable costs, due dates and period of support can be found in the NSF Dear Colleague letter NSF 19-078.

NIH Notice of Intent to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for Accelerating the Pace of Drug Abuse Research Using Existing Data (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)

Notice Number: NOT-DA-19-035

Key Dates

  • Release Date: July 17, 2019
  • Estimated Publication Date of Funding Opportunity Announcement: September 08, 2019
  • First Estimated Application Due Date: October 05, 2019
  • Earliest Estimated Award Date: February 01, 2020
  • Earliest Estimated Start Date: February 01, 2020

Related Announcements: PAR-18-062

Purpose

The National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) intends to reissue PAR-18-062 “Accelerating the Pace of Drug Abuse Research Using Existing Data (R01 Clinical Trial Optional)” to solicit applications proposing innovative analysis of existing social science, behavioral, administrative, and neuroimaging data to study the etiology and epidemiology of substance using behaviors (defined as alcohol, tobacco, prescription and other substances) and related disorders, prevention of substance use and HIV, and health service utilization.

This Notice is being provided to allow potential applicants sufficient time to develop meaningful collaborations and responsive projects.

The FOA is expected to be published in September 2019 with an expected application due date in October 2019.

This FOA will utilize the R01 activity code.

Details of the planned FOA are provided below.

Research Initiative Details

This Notice encourages investigators to submit innovative analyses of extant data, including new aims that are being addressed with existing data, new or advanced methods of analyses, or novel combination and integration of datasets to allow the exploration of new questions.

Strongly encouraged is the application of innovative methods or techniques from other disciplines that are novel to substance use and disorder research, such as utilization of systems science methodologies (e.g., agent based modeling, system dynamics modeling, network analysis) or geographic information systems (GIS). Use of multiple sources of data towards predicting substance use behaviors and solutions is also encouraged.

Grants under this announcement are not intended as a means to carry out currently ongoing data analysis, for the maintenance and distribution of data sets, or to analyze banked biospecimens for which data are not already available. Proposed research should be distinct from the aims and methods of the primary research under which the data were collected. For example, datasets collected for other purposes might be reanalyzed to address issues of health disparities and subgroup differences in the trajectories of substance use, prevention outcomes, and treatment utilization and outcomes including morbidity and mortality. Research using extant data that analyzes effects or outcomes that were not previously examined in the original scope of research is a priority for this announcement.