The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) is publishing this Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) pursuant to authority provided by section 1741(f) of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 (Pub. L. 116-92, December 20, 2019), to be codified in the NIST Organic Act at 15 U.S.C. § 278s(f), as amended.

Collectively, Manufacturing USA institutes have over 2,000 member institutions including small manufacturers, two-thirds of Fortune 50 U.S. manufacturers, and nearly every top ranked research and engineering university in the United States. Its network of research and development institutes that engage with these industry-led institutions positions it well to distribute high-impact funding into existing efforts in the manufacturing sector to both stimulate the US economy and to support efforts to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health crises.

Projects should focus on responding to the COVID-19 pandemic. Projects may include medical countermeasures; non-medical countermeasures; leveraging institute capabilities to strengthen state and community resilience; grants to companies and technical support to accelerate productions of critical materials, equipment, and supplies; creation of additional production facilities; technology road-mapping for pandemic response and recovery; re-shoring the manufacture of critical conventional drugs and ensuring supply chain for critical materials related to pandemic response; or workforce development and training for a skilled advanced manufacturing workforce.

Please note that this is not an exhaustive list of potential proposal topics, but examples. Any proposals responsive to public needs due to the COVID-19 pandemic will be considered.

The Manufacturing USA institutes, for example, can direct expertise in manufacturing scale up toward critical technologies such as: wearable and environmental sensors for biothreat detection and personal protective equipment; agile, intensified and automated biomanufacturing platforms for medical counter measures; re-shoring the supply chain for critical raw materials needed to manufacture medical counter measures; and reducing the energy and environmental impact of the above. Through the Manufacturing USA network, they can also efficiently resource collaborative projects between institutes for these efforts.

In addition to developing materials for direct production of medical countermeasures, the manufacturing sector needs to alleviate shortages in advanced manufacturing technology. The Manufacturing USA institutes, working as appropriate with Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) centers, for example, can leverage their expertise to retool factories to convert their traditional manufacturing to advanced manufacturing facilities; retooling examples include adding smart sensing for digital tracking of supply chain, advanced automation, and digital controls.

Proposals can provide support to existing or planned state or other non-federal efforts to develop needed local manufacturing capabilities to respond to COVID-19 and other public health crises, for example. Examples include retooling of existing manufacturing equipment to support specific needs for personal protective equipment, increasing capacity for needed testing supplies, institute-led projects that speed production and increase quality control using automated production of medical implements; rapidly deployable hospital set-ups to meet the need in critical locations.

Proposals can leverage technical expertise at the Manufacturing USA institutes to provide targeted grants to accelerate production of critical materials, equipment, and supplies needed for responding to the COVID-19 pandemic and other public health crises, for example. The institutes can also propose technical support to ensure rapid, successful deployment of new equipment. Examples include advanced manufacturing equipment for producing of critical equipment, such as equipment for producing N95 masks; additive and composites; manufacturing of tooling for critical needs; and portable and deployable equipment for emergency response.

Background: From 1665 to 1666, the Great Plague of London swept across England, likely taking the lives of over 100,000 people (United Kingdom Public Archives, 2020). Though the germ theory of disease would not be formulated until the 1860s, the English public engaged in “social distancing” behaviors to avoid illness (Washington Post, 2020), leading to the closure of universities. Among the displaced was a young Isaac Newton, still a student at Trinity College in Cambridge. During the ensuing year of isolated study and reflection, Newton developed the basis for calculus, as well as foundational theories in gravitation, motion, and optics.

Separated from the Great Plague by 350 years, the COVID-19 pandemic has led to similar health responses among the general public and scientific community, forcing the closure of laboratories and universities throughout the world and slowing scientific progress across theoretical and empirical domains. To help stimulate scientific thought and encourage efforts and advancements in the spirit of Sir Isaac, the Basic Research Office in the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) announces the Newton Award for Transformative Ideas during the COVID-19 Pandemic.

Program Objective: This award will be presented to a single investigator or team of up to two investigators that develops a “transformative idea” to resolve challenges, advance frontiers, and set new paradigms in areas of immense potential benefit to DoD and the nation at large. Proposals should aim to produce novel conceptual frameworks or theory-based approaches that present disruptive ways of thinking about fundamental scientific problems that have evaded resolution, propose new, paradigm-shifting scientific directions, and/or address fundamental and important questions that are argued to be undervalued by the scientific community. Approaches can include analytical reasoning, calculations, simulations, and thought experiments. While the use and production of datasets is allowed, any new supporting data should be generated without the use of any experimentation or instrumentation, as the nation-wide closure of laboratories limits the ability of investigators to follow normal safety procedures set by their institutions, in accordance with federal and state regulations.

Given the novelty of and circumstances surrounding this one-time Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the objective of this program is to generate proposals that are equally novel and pioneering. Therefore, this FOA should be viewed as an opportunity to propose basic research that falls outside the bounds of traditional proposals.

Expectations of Award Recipients: Newton Award recipients will produce novel conceptual frameworks or theoretical approaches to addressing outstanding or emerging challenges facing the scientific community. The resulting frameworks and approaches should include clear predictions that can be tested by the scientific community in the years following the return to the laboratory environment. Findings must be submitted as pre-publication material in open archives and disseminated through open publication in a journal. Award winners will brief the Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD(R&E)) leadership at the end of the award period of performance, and may be asked to design and chair a Future Directions Workshop on the topic of their findings. In addition, OUSD(R&E) will support funded projects in finding pathways to continue the funding, validation, and development of their transformative ideas.

Only one proposal total may be submitted by each investigator.

The Humanities Collections and Reference Resources program supports projects that provide an essential underpinning for scholarship, education, and public programming in the humanities. Thousands of libraries, archives, museums, and historical organizations across the country maintain important collections of books and manuscripts, photographs, sound recordings and moving images, archaeological and ethnographic artifacts, art and material culture, and digital objects. This program strengthens efforts to extend the life of such materials and make their intellectual content widely accessible, often through the use of digital technology. Awards are also made to create various reference resources that facilitate use of cultural materials, from works that provide basic information quickly to tools that synthesize and codify knowledge of a subject for in-depth investigation.

Proposed projects may address the holdings or activities of a single institution or may involve collaboration between institutions. However, even in the case of single-institution projects, working with specialists in other offices or departments or colleagues in other institutions often helps ensure that proposed activities are achievable and will have maximum impact for the humanities. Collaboration can be crucial in providing the appropriate mix of humanities content and methodological expertise and can help broaden the scope of, and audiences for, proposed collections or reference resources.

The ARPA-E REPAIR FOA is soliciting applications for technologies required to rehabilitate legacy natural gas distribution pipes. The desired rehabilitation technologies will enable the automated construction of a new pipe inside the old pipe. The primary success criteria are the new pipe (1) must meet utilities’ and regulatory agencies’ requirements, (2) have a minimum life of 50 years, (3) have sufficient material properties to operate throughout its service life without reliance on the exterior pipe, and (4) have an installation cost of less than $1 million per mile.

For the ARPA-E REPAIR FOA, NETL seeks to engage partners for one or more the following research topics to help accomplish the ARPA-E program’s objectives:

• Joining technologies: Various joining technologies (ultrasonic welding, laser welding, etc.) for thin metal foils will need to be developed and scaled up for continuous operation.
• Coating technologies: Polymer coatings will be applied inside and outside of the liner for mechanical strength and corrosion protection.
• Sensor technologies: The proposed composite liner will be embedded with the state-of-the-art sensor technologies to remotely monitor the health of liners over time. Corrosion, gas composition, and strain monitoring are of interest.
• Testing and characterization of composite materials.
• Manufacturing: Joining and coating capabilities to fabricate pipes/liners 10-20 in diameter and 3-20 ft long.
• Expertise in natural gas pipeline regulations in state and federal level.
• Experience relevant to the development of embedded sensors.
• Development of a novel coating with smart features.

The project duration will be proposed at up to 24 months. The anticipated funding for the partner selected under this opportunity to participate is up to $1,000,000 total, which includes mandatory cost share of up to 20%* of total project costs. NETL anticipates total project costs to be proposed at up to $2,000,000.

*Project Teams composed exclusively of domestic educational institutions, domestic nonprofits, and/or FFRDCs/DOE Labs/Federal agencies and instrumentalities (other than DOE) are not required to providecost share.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) provides cooperative agreement support for statewide and/or interstate regional networks to achieve the following objectives: (1) to support the development and/or enhancement of infrastructure and human resources required to address clinical and translational research needs in IDeA-eligible states/jurisdictions, (2) to strengthen clinical and translational research that addresses the broad spectrum of health challenges faced by populations in IDeA-eligible states/jurisdictions, and (3) to foster and coordinate collaboration in clinical and translational research within an IDeA-CTR network and with other institutions. It is expected that IDeA-CTR networks will expand the capacity for clinical and translational research in IDeA-eligible states/jurisdictions and enhance the competitiveness of the investigators to obtain extramural funding for clinical and translational research.

NIH established the Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program in 1993 to enhance biomedical research activities in states that have had historically low NIH grant funding success rates. The program currently supports competitive research in 23 states and Puerto Rico. Strengthening clinical and translational research in IDeA-eligible states and jurisdictions is a pressing need, since health conditions such as obesity, diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, cancer, infectious diseases, chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases, maternal health, and substance overuse disorders are disproportionally prevalent in these mostly rural and often economically disadvantaged states/jurisdictions. NIH is committed to supporting health and health research professionals with first-hand knowledge about these challenges to lead the charge in improving the health of residents in IDeA states/jurisdictions. This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) supports the development and/or enhancement of statewide and/or interstate regional networks for clinical and translational research in IDeA-eligible states/jurisdictions.

The objectives of the IDeA-CTR initiative are the following:

• To support the development and/or enhancement of infrastructure and human resources required to address clinical and translational research needs in IDeA-eligible states.
• To strengthen clinical and translational research that addresses the broad spectrum of health challenges faced by populations in IDeA-eligible states/jurisdictions.
• To foster and coordinate collaboration in clinical and translational research within an IDeA-CTR network and with other institutions.

For the purposes of this initiative, the following definitions apply:

• “Clinical research” comprises studies and trials in human subjects as defined by NIH Regulations and Policies.
• “Translational research” includes research that aims to convert basic research advances to practical applications in humans, and research aimed at the adoption of best practices in community healthcare.

This FOA provides funding through the U54 cooperative agreement mechanism. As a cooperative agreement, implementation involves the participation of NIGMS IDeA Program staff in the planning and execution of the proposed activities.