New Funding Opportunities Posted This Week

Program: Graduate Assistance in Areas of National Need (GAANN)
URL: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2009/pdf/E9-27581.pdf
 
Summary:  Departments or Programs may apply for funding for fellowships in areas of national need to assist graduate students with excellent academic records who
demonstrate financial need and plan to pursue the highest degree available in their course of study at the institution. A project must provide fellowships in one or more of the following areas of national need: Biology, Chemistry, Computer and Information Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, Nursing, Physics, and Educational Assessment, Evaluation, and Research.
 
Estimated Range of Awards: $131,265-$262,530.
Estimated Average Size of Awards: $175,020.
Estimated Number of Awards: 52
Project Period: Up to 36 months
 Due: December 18, 2009

Digital Humanities Start-up Grants
URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/digitalhumanitiesstartup.html
 
Summary: The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) invites applications to the Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants program. This program is designed to encourage innovations in the digital humanities. By awarding relatively small grants to support the planning stages, NEH aims to encourage the development of innovative projects that promise to benefit the humanities. Proposals should be for the planning or initial stages of digital initiatives in any area of the humanities. Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants may involve:
research that brings new approaches or documents best practices in the study of the digital humanities;
planning and developing prototypes of new digital tools for preserving, analyzing, and making accessible digital resources, including libraries' and museums' digital assets;
scholarship that examines the philosophical implications and impact of the use of emerging technologies;
innovative uses of technology for public programming and education utilizing both traditional and new media;
and new digital modes of publication that facilitate the dissemination of humanities scholarship in advanced academic as well as informal or formal educational settings at all academic levels.
Awards are for up to eighteen months.
Digital Humanities Start-Up Grants have two levels of funding:
Level I Grants range from $5,000 to $25,000 in outright funding.
Level II Grants range from $25,001 to $50,000 in outright funding. 
 Due: March 23, 2010

Basic Research Award
URL: http://www.grants.gov/search/synopsis.do;jsessionid=yZNJLFQS9lv2TKn2tVKlDrRkHzN1MxppvryPbpcjtn1kJhCdm0ZV!-82303134
 
Summary: This Program Announcement/Funding Opportunity is focused on basic research, defined as research directed towards attaining greater knowledge and understanding of fundamental principles of science and medicine. The DMRDP Basic Research Award is designed to promote new ideas that are still in the early stages of development and have the potential to yield highly impactful data and new avenues of investigation. This mechanism supports conceptually innovative, high-risk/high-reward research that could ultimately lead to critical discoveries or major advancements that will accelerate the delivery of new medical countermeasures and information to protect military personnel from a variety of health threats inherent in the military operational environment, and to effectively diagnose and treat these personnel when they are ill or injured. These awards will also support basic research to enhance the training and education of military personnel and health care providers. Presentation of preliminary data is not required. However, investigators must demonstrate logical reasoning and a sound scientific rationale established through a critical review and analysis of the literature for the proposal to be competitive. Research projects should include a well-formulated, testable hypothesis based on strong scientific rationale. Awards under this announcement will consist solely of assistance agreements. This announcement is intended only for extramural investigators.
 Due: Feb. 17, 2010
 

Program: Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (NSF 10-506)
 
URL: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10506/nsf10506.htm?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25

Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) is NSF's bold five-year initiative to create revolutionary science and engineering research outcomes made possible by innovations and advances in computational thinking.  CDI seeks ambitious, transformative, multidisciplinary research proposals within or across the following three thematic areas: 
From Data to Knowledge: enhancing human cognition and generating new knowledge from a wealth of heterogeneous digital data;

Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems: deriving fundamental insights on systems comprising multiple interacting elements;  and

Virtual Organizations: enhancing discovery and innovation by bringing people and resources together across institutional, geographical and cultural boundaries.
Two types of CDI awards will be supported as a result of the FY 2010 CDI competition:
Type I awards will require efforts up to a level roughly comparable to: summer support for two investigators with complementary expertise; two graduate students; and their collective research needs (e.g. materials, supplies, travel) for three years.

Type II awards will require larger (than Type I) efforts up to a level roughly comparable to: summer support for three investigators with complementary expertise; three graduate students; one or two senior personnel (including post-doctoral researchers and staff); and their collective research needs (e.g. materials, supplies, travel) for four years.  The integrative contributions of the Type II team should clearly be greater than the sum of the contributions of each individual member of the team.
Estimated Number of Awards:  30 - In FY 2010, the number of Type I and Type II awards will be determined based on the results of separate review processes.

Due: Type I: January 04, 2010 - February 04, 2010 submission window
Type II: January 05, 2010 - February 05, 2010 submission window
 

 

 

Workforce Program in the Mathematical Sciences
URL: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=503233
 
Summary:
The long-range goal of the DMS Workforce Program is to increase the number of well-prepared U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents who successfully pursue careers in the mathematical sciences and in other NSF-supported disciplines. Among intermediate goals to this end are improvements in recruitment, retention, education, and placement of trainees in the mathematical sciences.

The program's primary interest is in activities centered on education through research involvement for trainees at the undergraduate through postdoctoral educational levels.  Activities that broaden participation in the mathematical sciences are of significant interest to the Division of Mathematical Sciences.

The program is particularly interested in activities that improve:

recruitment and retention:  increasing the number and diversity of U.S. students who successfully pursue undergraduate and graduate degrees in mathematics and statistics;
educational breadth:  broadening graduate education and undergraduate education content in the mathematical sciences to prepare students for a wider range of career opportunities; and
professional development:  enhancing the professional skills of mathematical sciences postdoctoral associates, graduate students, and undergraduate students to better prepare them for both academic and nonacademic employment.
The program particularly seeks unsolicited proposals for activities that are:

novel and potentially transformative, in that they promise extraordinary outcomes;
portable, in the sense that they potentially can be duplicated at other institutions;
sustainable, meaning that the activity can be continued in the absence of external funding;
likely to have large impact in terms of the numbers of trainees affected; and
exemplary, in that they can serve as national models for education through research involvement.

Thermal Transport Processes
 
URL: http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13367&org=NSF&sel_org=NSF&from=fund
 
Summary: The proposal window for this program has been changed to February 1, 2010 - March 3, 2010
The Thermal Transport Processes program supports engineering research aimed at gaining a basic understanding of the microscopic and macroscopic levels of thermal transport phenomena (heat and mass transfer) in energy conversion and conservation, the synthesis and processing of materials, cooling and heating of infrastructure and equipment, the interaction of industrial processes with the environment, the propulsion of air and land-based vehicles, and thermal phenomena in biological and environmental systems.  The program supports fundamental research and engineering education in transport processes that are driven by thermal gradients, and manipulation of these processes to achieve engineering goals.
Examples of critical fundamental areas include, but are not limited to:
Thermal transport in energy conversion and conservation processes, including environmental interactions
Heat and mass transfer at length and/or time scales from the molecular to the continuum, including applications in energy conversion and conservation, biotechnology, microelectronics, and biochemical detection
The fundamental understanding of the interaction of energetic beams, such as produced by lasers, with solid, liquid or porous surfaces in advanced meso-, micro- and nano-manufacturing
The duration of unsolicited awards is generally one to three years.  The average annual award size for the program is $100,000.  Small equipment proposals of less than $100,000 will also be considered and may be submitted during these windows.  Any proposal received outside the announced dates will be returned without review.

 

URL:  http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=13343
Summary: The SES program supports research on strategic decision making, design, planning and operation of commercial, nonprofit, and institutional service enterprises with the goal of improving their overall effectiveness and cost reduction.  The program has a particular focus on healthcare and other similar public service institutions, and emphasizes research topics leading to more effective systems modeling and analysis as a means to improved planning, resource allocation, and policy development.