The full list of notices and opportunities is available here.

Highlights:

Superfund Research Program Occupational Health and Safety Education Programs on Emerging Technologies (R25 – Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
(RFA-ES-20-011)
National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
Application Receipt Date(s): August 3, 2020 All applications are due by 5:00 PM local time of applicant organization. All types of non-AIDS applications allowed for this funding opportunity announcement are due on the listed date(s). Applicants are encouraged to apply early to allow adequate time to make any corrections to errors found in the application during the submission process by the due date.

Emergency Awards: Rapid Investigation of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (R01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
(PAR-20-178)
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Application Receipt Date(s): Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, beginning on 04/30/2020.

Emergency Awards: Rapid Investigation of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) (R21 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
(PAR-20-177)
National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
Application Receipt Date(s): Applications will be accepted on a rolling basis, beginning on 04/30/2020.

Notice of Changes in NCI K00 Salary Caps in The NCI Predoctoral to Postdoctoral Fellow Transition Award (F99/K00)
(NOT-CA-20-049)
National Cancer Institute

Summary:

The DOE SC program in Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) hereby announces its interest in proposals for basic research that significantly advances Neuromorphic Computing as a brain-inspired, energy-efficient tool for scientific discovery. DOE has the responsibility to address the energy, environmental and nuclear security challenges that face our nation. SC’s mission is the delivery of scientific discoveries and major scientific tools to transform our understanding of nature and to advance the energy, economic, and national security of the United States.

In the post-exascale computing time-frame, scientific progress will be predicated on our ability to create, transfer, and process large complex datasets from extreme scale simulations, experiments, and/or observational facilities. Scientific computing is facing multiple challenges i.e. high energy usage, memory, concurrency, parallelism, heterogeneity, input/output, storage, retrieval, fault tolerance, etc. Currently, high performance computing systems consume in the order of megawatts of power, and energy consumptions levels have been kept manageable through the usage of heterogeneous architectures. On the other hand, the energy consumption of the human brain is in the order of watts, or about six orders of magnitude more energy efficient than current state-of-the-art HPC systems.

Mandatory pre-applications due: June 3, 2020

Full proposals due: July 1, 2020

For more information, including the FOA, please visit grants.gov.

Full proposals due: May 20, 2020

The USGS Earthquake Hazards Program (EHP) Research Priorities presented here reflect its mission within the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) to reduce loss of lives and property from earthquakes and improve public safety and community resilience in the Nation.

Applicants should review the four major program elements described below and the priority research targets listed below for each region and topic. Proposed work should advance the science that underlies EHP products by posing and testing new hypotheses and/or developing novel data acquisition tools, analysis methods, and products. Proposed work can also improve information dissemination and make research results more effective in mitigating losses from earthquakes. While proposed projects may involve collection of data and/or application of existing analysis methods, such activities should be in support of clearly stated research goals. Proposals focused on development of new products must demonstrate strong collaboration with intended users.

Element I. National and regional earthquake hazards assessments. The EHP publishes national and regional assessments of the expected degree of ground deformation and shaking, and their impacts over various time periods. These products, developed from research on earthquake locations, magnitudes, recurrence, and ground motions, are the basis of the seismic safety elements of building codes affecting construction nationwide. The EHP also prepares long-term forecasts of earthquake probabilities, as well as scenario ground motion maps of the expected shaking and ground deformation. These products support the development of cost-effective mitigation measures and practices in structure design, construction, and land use planning. The USGS is particularly interested in research that results in improvements to the National Seismic Hazard Model (NSHM), and the assessment of earthquake hazards in large metropolitan areas. Models of seismic source, recurrence, ground-motions, and site effects that may be directly incorporated into the NSHM are sought.

Element II. Earthquake information, monitoring and notification. The EHP supports efforts to improve the accuracy of algorithms and processes that provide information about earthquakes in near-real-time, including early warning, improved detection and location techniques, estimation of finite fault rupture extent, and refined seismic moment determinations. However, routine monitoring activities are evaluated and funded under a separate solicitation for seismic and geodetic network operations.

Element III. Research on earthquake occurrence, physics, effects, impacts, and risks. Earthquake impact and risk assessments help emergency managers, planners, and the public prepare for future earthquakes. With the goal of improving hazard assessments, earthquake forecasts, and earthquake monitoring products, the EHP supports applied research on earthquake processes and effects. This work is focused on multi-disciplinary observations, theory, experiments, and development of testable models of earthquake and tectonic processes and of earthquake effects (e.g., macroseismic intensities, ground shaking, ground failure, and structural response).

Element IV. Earthquake safety policy and communication. The EHP produces data and information on earthquakes and related hazards, but the production of data and reports alone is not sufficient to reduce earthquake risk; the Program also takes an active role with the user community in the application and interpretation of Program results. Active engagement with our user community provides opportunities for dialogues on modifications to our existing products and new products that make our work and results more relevant and applicable. The EHP supports opportunities for engaging the user community at both the national and regional levels. See Section 1 for earthquake safety policy and communication priorities common to all Research Areas. Proposals for research on earthquake safety policy and communication applicable to a specific area should be submitted to the relevant regional or topical Research Area.

Additional information, including the program guidelines, can be found on the grants.gov site.

ONR Global is interested in promising concepts to achieve revolutionary capability advances with both military and commercial value in the multidisciplinary technology challenge areas described below. Specifically excluded are approaches that primarily result in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice, or are already funded by existing research programs.

ONR Global recognizes that international scientists and engineers conduct creative and novel research. This Global-X Challenge provides an opportunity for these international researchers to collaborate, generate revolutionary ideas and demonstrate these ideas will succeed. ONR Global invites outstanding international researchers to form multi-national, multidisciplinary teams to address one or more of these capability challenges. ONR Global will use existing online collaboration tools to help researchers to connect, collaborate and form teams. ONR Global will provide more information about collaboration forums during the Kick-off Webinar. Individual researchers may participate on more than one team. Teams are responsible for establishing nondisclosure agreements among team members, if necessary. All ONR Global and U.S. Federal employees are already covered by Federal laws requiring the protection of trade secrets and proprietary information.

Researchers from academia and industry may participate. ONR Global expects, but does not require, that multi-national teams will consist of at least two research entities outside of the U.S., whether from academia, industry and/or the broad research community. Researchers from U.S. research entities may also participate, but are not required. As stated above, this Global-X Challenge is an opportunity specifically directed toward international researchers; therefore, ONR Global expects the majority of team members will be outside of the U.S. Each team shall designate a lead Principal Investigator (PI) whose research organization outside of the U.S. will submit the white paper or proposal, and that will distribute funding to co-PIs and other subrecipients. For a given project team, one award is made to the PI’s institution. Only the PI’s institution will be the prime awardee, and that institution is responsible for all aspects of the grant, including conditions on the use of funds and other terms and conditions of the grant.

Teams must submit white papers describing their concept and approach by 23:59 EDT on 25 May 2020. ONR Global will evaluate submitted white papers and will invite teams with the most promising and revolutionary concepts, on or before 5 June 2020, to submit a grant proposal. Full proposals are due by 23:59 EDT on 13 July 2020.

Challenge Problem Statements:

• Tailored Material and Manufacturing
• Multifunctional Maritime Films for Persistent and Survivable Platforms and Warfighters
• Object Detection and Identification in any Medium (Air, Water, Sand/Earth)

Additional information, including the BAA, can be found on grants.gov.

SARS-CoV-2 is a novel coronavirus that has recently been identified as the causative agent of COVID-19, a respiratory disease that exhibits a wide range of clinical outcomes from mild disease to severe viral pneumonia and Acute Respiratory Distress Syndrome (ARDS). SARS-CoV-2 is able to spread efficiently from person-to-person and cases have been detected in most countries. On March 11, the SARS-CoV-2 outbreak was classified as a pandemic by the WHO. Transmission characteristics and the associated morbidity and mortality, viral pathogenesis, host immunity, natural history, and host range are currently poorly understood. Research is an important component of the public health emergency response before, during and after the emergency. Given this, there is an urgent public health need to better understand SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19, particularly to improve understanding of fundamental virology, immunology, and the development of animal models, reagents, and medical countermeasures and to share findings quickly and broadly.

Research Objectives and Scope:

• Studies to understand critical aspects of viral infection, replication and pathogenesis
• Studies to understand critical aspects of viral transmission
• Identification and characterization of the onset and duration of immunity in healthy and at-risk populations
• Virologic and serologic surveillance studies and natural history studies to understand the origin of the virus including the animal host reservoir, potential intermediate hosts, factors leading to spill over events, evidence of continued spill over events and studies at the human-animal 
• Studies to assess and characterize the natural history and long-term consequences of SARS-CoV-2 infection in various human populations including at risk populations
• Development or improvement of clinical diagnostic tests for SARS-CoV-2 to increase the sensitivity, specificity and ability to provide rapid results
• Development and testing of SARS-CoV-2 therapeutic candidates, in relevant in vitro, ex vivo or animal models, including
• Development of SARS-CoV-2-specific or broadly protective coronavirus vaccine candidates including
• Studies to inform the development of vaccination strategies for at-risk populations including use of age-specific adjuvants or novel antigen formulations/dosing;
• Development of assays and animal models
• Assess animal models for SARS-CoV-2 and how the models compare to human infection including animal models that represent at risk populations (elderly, immunocompromised, very young, pregnant models)
• Development of animal models for transmission experiment
• Development of organoid culture models and/or ex vivo explant models
  Computational modeling studies to identify and evaluate interventions to protect at-risk populations and for making public health policy decisions for control and mitigation measures
• Study interactions and impact between SARS-CoV-2 and other respiratory pathogens including influenza (e.g., co-infections, interference)
• Comparative studies of SARS-CoV-2 to other coronaviruses including SARS-CoV-1 and MERS
• Data science approaches to develop algorithms, models, and informatics solutions

This program is designed to provide expedited funding for research projects focusing on obtaining time-sensitive data in light of this public health emergency (e.g., the research questions cannot be efficiently addressed in another context and the nature of the event and/or impacted populations are well suited for the proposed study). Hence it is critical to enhance data-sharing and access and to have NIAID-funded data be findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR). All NIAID-funded researchers are expected to share research data to enhance the rigor and reproducibility of research results and secondary use per the NIAID Data Sharing Guideline at https://www.niaid.nih.gov/research/data-sharing-and-release-guidelines, as appropriate and consistent with achieving the goals of the program.

Additional information can be found in PAR-20-178.