DoD Spinal Cord Injury, Investigator- Initiated Research Award

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Current Closing Date for Applications:Sep 03, 2021 
Description:The SCIRP IIRA is intended to support studies that have the potential to make an important contribution to SCI research, patient care, and/or quality of life. Important aspects of this award mechanism include:
• Impact: Applications should articulate the short- and long-term impact of the proposed research on both the SCI research field as well as the SCI community. Projects must address one or more of the FY21 SCIRP Focus Areas.
• Relevance to Military Health: Projects should be relevant to spinal cord-injured military Service Members, Veterans, and/or their family members and care partners. Collaboration with military and VA researchers and clinicians is encouraged.
• Preliminary Data: Observations that drive a research idea may be derived from laboratory discovery, population-based studies, a clinician’s first-hand knowledge of patients, or anecdotal data. Applications must include preliminary and/or published data that are relevant to the mission of the SCIRP and support the proposed research project. IIRA applications may focus on any phase of research from basic through translational, though studies focused exclusively on target identification are discouraged. Permitted research includes preclinical studies in animal models (except where otherwise specified), research with human subjects, or human anatomical substances, as well as ancillary studies associated with an existing clinical trial.

For more information, please visit the award page.

Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP)

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Synopsis of Program:

The NSF’s Alliances for Graduate Education and the Professoriate (AGEP) program contributes to the National Science Foundation’s objective to foster the growth of a more capable and diverse research workforce.1 Through this solicitation, the NSF seeks to build on prior AGEP work, and other research and literature concerning racial and ethnic equity, in order to address the AGEP program goal to increase the number of historically underrepresented minority faculty in STEM.2 Furthering the AGEP goal requires advancing knowledge about new academic STEM career pathway models, and about evidence-based systemic or institutional change initiatives to promote equity and the professional advancement of the AGEP populations who are pursuing, entering and continuing in non-tenure and tenure-track STEM faculty positions. The use of the term “historically underrepresented minority” reflects language from Congress, and in the context of the AGEP program, the AGEP populations are defined as STEM doctoral candidates, postdoctoral scholars and faculty, who are African Americans, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. The terms for these racial and ethnic populations are derived from the US government’s guidance for federal statistics and administrative reporting. At the graduate student level, only doctoral candidates are included because they have greater potential to enter a faculty position within the project duration time frame.

Improving equity and inclusion is critical to advancing STEM faculty, educating America’s future STEM workforce, fostering individual opportunity and contributing to a thriving U.S. economy. The NSF AGEP program, therefore, seeks to fund grants that advance and enhance the systemic factors that support equity and inclusion and, consequently, mitigate the systemic inequities in the academic profession and workplace. The AGEP program goal to increase the number of historically underrepresented minority faculty is bolstered by the National Science Board’s Vision 2030: Vision for the Future.3

Systemic and organizational inequities may exist in areas such as policy and practice as well as in institutional, departmental, laboratory and classroom culture and climate. AGEP proposals may address, for example, practices in academic departments that result in the inequitable allocation of service or teaching assignments which may impede research productivity, delay career advancement, and create a culture of differential treatment and rewards. Similarly, policies and procedures that fail to mitigate implicit bias in hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions could lead to people who are members of AGEP populations being evaluated less favorably, perpetuating historical under-participation in STEM academic careers and contributing to an academic climate that is not inclusive.

All AGEP Alliances are expected to engage similar institutions of higher education (IHE) to work collaboratively and use intersectional approaches in the design, implementation, and evaluation of systemic change strategies. The collaborating IHEs must be similar to each other based on such variables as Carnegie classification, geographic location and student and/or faculty demographic characteristics.

This solicitation includes three funding tracks that all support the AGEP program goal. All tracks require collaborative IHE teams to use an intersectional lens as they address systemic and institutional change strategies at IHEs to promote equity for AGEP populations.

  • The AGEP Institutional Transformation Alliance (ITA) track is designed to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative systemic and institutional change strategies that promote equity for AGEP populations, within similar IHEs. ITAs will create permanent policy and practice changes that advance AGEP populations, and the project work is expected to be sustained after NSF funding expires. Please note that a preliminary proposal to the ITA track is required, and that at least one of the institutions submitting must first have or have had an AGEP Catalyst Alliance. The proposing IHEs represented in the preliminary ITA proposal must be the same collaborating IHEs who will plan to submit a full ITA proposal, if invited by NSF to submit the full ITA. Please read the full solicitation for details about ITA Preliminary and Full proposal submissions that begin in FY2022.
  • The AGEP Faculty Career Pathways Alliance Model (FC-PAM) track is intended to support the development, implementation, evaluation, and institutionalization of Alliance models that will advance AGEP populations, within similar IHEs. The FC-PAM collaborators must also self-study into how socio-cultural, economic, structural, leadership and institutional variables affect the formation of the FC-PAM Alliance, and the strategies or interventions the collaborators implement to advance the AGEP populations. A Letter of Intent (LOI) is required ONLY for IHEs that plan to submit an FC-PAM collaborative proposal, and only one LOI is needed for the collaborating research institutions that plan to submit the FC-PAM proposal. The FC-PAM track will only be available in FY2021-FY2022 and it will be discontinued thereafter.
  • The AGEP Catalyst Alliance (ACA) track supports the design and implementation of one or more organizational self-assessment(s) to collect and analyze data that will identify inequities affecting the AGEP populations; pilot equity strategies as appropriate; and develop a five-year equity strategic plan for the AGEP populations. The ACA is meant as a facilitator grant to help similar IHEs generate the foundational work necessary to initiate an ITA project.

For more information about this award, please visit the award page.

Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (FY22 Air Force Submission)

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Current Closing Date for Applications:Sep 27, 2021 
Award Ceiling:$1,500,000
Award Floor:$1,000,000
Expected Number of Awards:500

Agency Name:

Air Force Office of Scientific Research

Description:

See full announcement in Related Documents folder for detailed descriptions of the SPECIFIC MURI TOPICS.

Program Description:
The MURI program supports basic research in science and engineering at U.S. institutions of higher education (hereafter referred to as “universities”) that is of potential interest to DoD. The program is focused on multidisciplinary research efforts where more than one traditional discipline interacts to provide rapid advances in scientific areas of interest to the DoD. As defined in the DoD Financial Management Regulation:


Basic research is systematic study directed toward greater knowledge or understanding of
the fundamental aspects of phenomena and of observable facts without specific
applications towards processes or products in mind. It includes all scientific study and
experimentation directed toward increasing fundamental knowledge and understanding in
those fields of the physical, engineering, environmental, and life sciences related to longterm national security needs. It is farsighted high payoff research that provides the basis for technological progress (DoD 7000.14-R, vol. 2B, chap. 5, para. 050105. A.)


DoD’s basic research program invests broadly in many fields to ensure that it has early
cognizance of new scientific knowledge.

For more information, please visit the grant page.

Collections Assessment for Preservation Program

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Application: Visit www.culturalheritage.org/cap for application information and the status of current application availability.

Please note that applications are currently only being accepted for an organization to administer this program through a new cooperative agreement with IMLS. Interested and eligible applicants can find the Notice of Funding Opportunity here (PDF, 530KB).

Program Overview:
The Collections Assessment for Conservation (CAP) program is designed to help small and mid-sized museums better care for their collections.

A CAP assessment is a study of an institution’s collections, buildings, and building systems, as well as its collections care policies and procedures. The assessment involves a site visit by collections and building assessors, who spend two days touring the museum and interviewing staff and governing officials. The assessors then prepare a comprehensive report that outlines recommendations for improving collections care.

A CAP assessment may assist small and mid-sized museums by:

  • Providing recommendations and priorities for collections care specific to your collections
  • Facilitating the development of a long-range preservation plan
  • Serving as a fundraising tool for future collections projects

Deadline: April 19, 2021

For more information, please visit the program page.

RFI on Manufacturing Carbon Negative Materials to Reduce Embodied Emissions in Buildings

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Current Closing Date for Applications:Apr 21, 2021  Responses to this RFI should be submitted in PDF format to the email address ARPA-E-RFI@hq.doe.gov by 5:00 PM Eastern Time on April 21, 2021. Please see the RFI in its entirety at https://arpa-e-foa.energy.gov for more information.

Description:
Request for Information (RFI): Manufacturing Carbon Negative Materials to Reduce Embodied Emissions in Buildings.

This is a Request for Information (RFI) only. This RFI is not soliciting application for financial assistance. The purpose of this RFI is solely to solicit input for ARPA-E consideration to inform the possible formulation of future programs.

The purpose of this RFI is to solicit input for a potential future ARPA-E research program focused on technologies that could enable buildings to be transformed into carbon sinks to reduce their embodied emissions while also providing a pathway for expanding carbon utilization approaches. This vision entails manufacturing novel materials derived from feedstocks including forestry and other purpose-grown raw materials, agricultural residues, as well as direct use of greenhouse gases (e.g., carbon dioxide, methane). The aim is to use these materials in place of existing building construction materials wherever possible, as well as to enable more efficient building designs.

Attaining this vision requires a radical departure from the use of modern building materials, and likely from the conventional manufacturing methods for building materials. At the same time, operational energy performance and the structural and fireproof code requirements of the buildings themselves must not be sacrificed. Comprehensive and robust life-cycle analyses and carbon accounting, along with permanency of storage and end-of-life design, will also be necessary. For these reasons, ARPA-E is especially interested in perspectives from both inside and outside the buildings sector community.

Many of today’s buildings consist of steel, concrete, stone, brick and masonry materials. Their continued use is challenged by the energy intensive nature of their processing and manufacture. These manufacturing approaches can be particularly difficult to decarbonize. Wood, another common construction material, has seen a resurgence in interest with engineered woods and mass timber opening new possibilities due, in part, to their ability to store carbon. Land usage, transportation, and environmental impacts of adhesives used in engineered wood and mass timber production must be considered, however, for widespread adoption and to offset associated emissions. Additional pathways for increasing carbon storage content of the building stock, as well as exploring alternative materials with additional drawdown capabilities using greenhouse gas-based feedstocks will require advancements in materials and processing-to-scale. The nascency of these alternative materials pose an additional challenge for implementation in the risk-averse construction industry.

For more information, please visit the grant page.