December 14, 2022
Federal Funding Opportunities
The Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program supports basic research to understand the fundamental nature of biological processes relevant to Department of Energy (DOE) energy and environmental mission goals. Within BER, the Genomic Science Program supports systems biology research on microbial, plant, plant-microbe interactions, and environmental microbial communities to address DOE’s mission in sustainable bioenergy development. Understanding and harnessing the metabolic and regulatory networks of plants and microbes will enable their design and re-engineering for improved energy resilience and sustainability, including advanced biofuels and bio products. Specifically, through this funding opportunity DOE solicits applications that propose innovative computational solutions that can integrate large, disparate data types from multiple and varied sources, and/or the integration of data to achieve coordinated knowledge or integration of knowledge to decipher relationships of biological systems of relevance to DOE. Novel computational tools and analytical approaches of large-scale, multimodal, and multiscale data that will lead to scalable solutions for omics analysis, data mining, and knowledge extraction from complex data sets (experimental and calculated) are sought, and bioinformatics tools or computational applications that are interoperable and effective for computationally intensive data processing and analyses for systems-level investigations are desirable. Also encouraged is the enhancement of existing software or approaches that are demonstrated to be in broad use by the genomics community, to aid the interpretation of multimodal data for environmental sciences.
The DOE program in Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) is interested in receiving single-investigator or small-group research applications to carry out frontier-level research in basic plasma science and engineering. The FES Discovery Plasma Science: Plasma Science and Technology–General Plasma Science program supports research at the frontiers of basic and low temperature plasma science, including dynamical processes in laboratory, space, and astrophysical plasmas, such as magnetic reconnection, dynamo, shocks, turbulence cascade, structures, waves, flows and their interactions; behavior of dusty plasmas, non-neutral, single-component matter or antimatter plasmas, and ultra-cold neutral plasmas; plasma chemistry and processes in low temperature plasma, interfacial plasma, synthesis of nanomaterials, and interaction of plasma with surfaces, materials or biomaterials. In addition, this portfolio supports microelectronics and Quantum Information Science research opportunities.
Understanding fine-scale, local and community impacts of climate change across this nation is a critical gap in climate research and analysis today. Further, climate change is known to disproportionately impact people in disadvantaged communities due to increased exposure and vulnerability. BER seeks to establish Climate Resilience Centers (CRC) at historically black colleges and universities, non-R1 minority-serving institutions, and emerging research institutions to address critical research questions in support of the needs of stakeholders and communities in the pursuit of equitable climate solutions. The CRCs will facilitate two-way engagement between BER sponsored research and regional communities, enhancing accessibility and translation of DOE research to inform and build climate resilience. Efforts focused at local levels are expected to identify data sets, technical and process information, tailored models, and community contexts that will aid in the new investigations as well as bring critically needed community and local perspectives more centrally within DOE’s climate research planning. CRCs will build upon and enhance the talent and capabilities at local institutions, providing a valuable resource to advance climate research, identify local resilience challenges, and develop equitable solutions. These centers have the potential to catalyze additional research activities in climate and energy, the development of future technology innovations, and new jobs in communities across the country.
Authorized the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, this funding opportunity seeks applications to develop and commercially demonstrate Regional Direct Air Capture (DAC) Hubs in the U.S. Funding will be provided for projects that contribute to the development and demonstration of four domestic Regional DAC Hubs to accelerate the commercialization of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal via integrated capture from the atmosphere, processing, transport, and secure geologic storage and/or conversion.
This funding opportunity announces the renewal of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program, established to facilitate and accelerate the translation of academic biomedical discoveries into products that improve patient care and public health. Through this program, NIH will provide the qualifying institutions with the funds to seed the creation of academic entrepreneurship Hubs. Hubs will be responsible for providing innovators with both the initial investment and resources to support the proof-of-concept work and the mentorship in product development and commercialization needed to develop high priority technologies within the NIH’s mission. Funded Hubs are intended to work as a consortium to enable: the infrastructure for identifying the most promising technologies, funding for product definition studies (e.g. feasibility studies, prototype development, proof-of-concept studies) provided to individual researchers, access to resources and expertise in areas required for early stage technology development (including scientific, regulatory, reimbursement, business, legal, and project management), and skills development and hands-on experience in entrepreneurship. Establishing public-private partnerships and providing additional non-federal funds will be critical for success.
The purpose of the Nurse Anesthetist Traineeship program is to increase the supply and distribution of Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetists (CRNAs) who are well prepared and well positioned to practice independently and collaboratively within interprofessional teams and to deliver evidence-based, high quality, and safe anesthesia and pain management services. The program aims to expand access to anesthesia services, especially to rural, urban, and tribal underserved communities nationwide. Eligible grant award recipients are accredited institutions that educate registered nurses to become nurse anesthetists; recipient institutions, in turn, disburse funds to students in the form of traineeship support.
The goal of this initiative is to address the structural incentives that limit translation from epidemiology into prevention science using a two-pronged approach. The phased mechanism will support innovative epidemiologic research using either primary data collection or analysis of existing data related to substance use and addiction in the first phase to provide the foundation for a targeted prevention intervention in the second phase. The second phase will apply the findings from the first phase to either adapt or target an existing intervention to increase effect size or reach a new population or develop a novel intervention to address a new prevention target.
The overarching goal of this program is to support educational activities that complement and/or enhance the training of a diverse workforce to meet the nation’s biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research needs. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this funding opportunity will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on Courses for Skills Development in cross-cutting methodologies and analytics that are needed to advance behavioral and social sciences research but are not well-address by existing educational programs.
Grants for Arts Projects provide comprehensive and expansive funding opportunities for communities. Through project-based funding, this program supports opportunities for public engagement with the arts and arts education, for the integration of the arts with strategies promoting the health and well-being of people and communities, and for the improvement of overall capacity and capabilities within the arts sector.
The purpose of this solicitation is to broaden participation in innovation ecosystems that advance emerging technologies (e.g., advanced manufacturing, advanced wireless, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, quantum information science, semiconductors and microelectronics) by supporting capacity-building efforts at institutions of higher education interested in growing external partnerships.
National Science Foundation Campus Cyberinfrastructure proposals due March 1, 2023
The Campus Cyberinfrastructure program invests in coordinated campus-level cyberinfrastructure improvements, innovation, integration, and engineering for science applications and distributed research projects. Learning and workforce development in cyberinfrastructure is also explicitly addressed in the program. Projects that help overcome disparities in cyber-connectivity associated with geographic location, and thereby advancing the geography of innovation and enabling populations based in these locales to become more nationally competitive in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics research and education are particularly encouraged.
The Designing Materials to Revolutionize and Engineer our Future (DMREF) Program seeks to foster the design, discovery, and development of materials to accelerate their path to deployment by harnessing the power of data and computational tools in concert with experiment and theory. DMREF emphasizes a deep integration of experiments, computation, and theory; the use of accessible digital data across the materials development continuum; and strengthening connections among theorists, computational scientists (including data scientists), and experimentalists as well as those from academia, industry, and government. DMREF is committed to the education and training of a next-generation materials research and development workforce that is diverse, equitable, and inclusive; well-equipped for successful careers as educators and innovators; and able to take full advantage of the materials development continuum and innovation infrastructures that the National Science Foundation is creating with partners in other federal agencies.
The main goal of the Scholarships in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (S-STEM) program is to enable low-income students with academic ability, talent or potential to pursue successful careers in promising STEM fields. Ultimately, the S-STEM program seeks to increase the number of academically promising low-income students who graduate with a S-STEM eligible degree and contribute to the American innovation economy with their STEM knowledge. Recognizing that financial aid alone cannot increase retention and graduation in STEM, the program provides awards to institutions of higher education not only to fund scholarships, but also to adapt, implement, and study evidence-based curricular and co-curricular activities that have been shown to be effective supporting recruitment, retention, transfer (if appropriate), student success, academic/career pathways, and graduation in STEM.
National Science Foundation releases new Research Coordination Networks Program Solicitation
The goal of the Research Coordination Networks (RCN) program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic, and international boundaries. The RCN program provides opportunities to foster new collaborations, including international partnerships where appropriate, and address interdisciplinary topics. Innovative ideas for implementing novel networking strategies, collaborative technologies, training, broadening participation, and development of community standards for data and meta- data are especially encouraged. RCN awards are not meant to support existing networks; nor are they meant to support the activities of established collaborations. RCN awards also do not support primary research. Rather, the RCN program supports the means by which investigators can share information and ideas; coordinate ongoing or planned research activities; foster synthesis and new collaborations; develop community standards; and in other ways advance science and education through communication and sharing of ideas.
