Featured Opportunities

April 24, 2024

• • • Recognizing the importance of use-inspired collaborations in promoting scientific discoveries, the National Science Foundation (NSF), in collaboration with the Department of Agriculture, National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA/NIFA), seeks proposals to advance foundational research in agricultural robotics as announced in joint Dear Colleague Letter. These proposals should be of mutual interest to the NSF Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR) program and to USDA/NIFA. NSF's FRR program, jointly led by the Directorate for Engineering (ENG) and the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), supports research to create innovative robots with unprecedented new functionality. USDA/NIFA has the mission to provide leadership and funding for programs that advance agriculture-related sciences. Proposals submitted under this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) should present a compelling vision for pioneering robots with transformative potential in agricultural contexts. It is highly suggested that potential proposers contact the USDA/NIFA program director first with a short narrative to determine project applicability for this program. If appropriate, an NSF program director will be further consulted. NSF is the lead agency for this collaboration. Proposals to be considered under this Dear Colleague Letter should have a title prefixed by "NIFA:" and should be submitted to the FRR program.
    • The National Endowment for the Humanities’ Dangers and Opportunities of Technology: Perspectives from the Humanities (DOT) program supports research that examines technology and its relationship to society through the lens of the humanities, with a focus on the dangers and/or opportunities presented by technology. NEH is particularly interested in projects that examine the role of technology in shaping current social and cultural issues. This grant program is one of ten NEH programs that are part of NEH’s Humanities Perspectives on Artificial Intelligence initiative, which is encouraging research on the ethical, legal, and societal implications of AI. To learn more about the initiative, please see their page about the AI initiative.
    • The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), ARPA-H announced three new programs with RFAs coming out shortly. The first, Lymphatic Imaging, Genomics, and Phenotyping Technologies (LIGHT), seeks comprehensive diagnostic solutions across three technical areas: diagnosis and monitoring through biomarker discovery; imaging technologies; and prevention, prediction, and diagnostic confirmation through genetics, epigenetics, and models of lymphatic dysfunction. The second, Building Resilient Environments for Air and Total Health (BREATHE), program envisions smart building systems that monitor and respond to changes in indoor air quality. Green buildings balance thermal comfort and energy efficiency and BREATHE aims to employ similar approaches to handle indoor pathogen and allergen exposure. To succeed, BREATHE will need to develop tools to sense airborne bioaerosols, assess indoor air quality exposure risk, and deliver cost-effective building interventions to improve human health. ARPA-H also announced that it is now accepting submissions to its Mission Office-specific ISOs. The four Mission Office-specific ISOs include: health science futures, proactive health, resilient systems, and scalable solutions. Mission Office-specific ISOs allow ARPA-H to fund health-related technology research and development outside of the traditional grant or contract structure by using solicitations designed for cooperative agreements and "other transactions" for flexibilities outside of the Federal Acquisition Regulation.
    • On March 6, 2024, the Department of Energy (DOE) announced the launch of the Electronics Scrap Recycling Advancement Prize. This three-phase competition will award up to $4 million to competitors to substantially increase the production and use of critical materials recovered from electronic scrap—or e-scrap. E-scrap—which includes mobile phones, home appliances, medical or office equipment, and anything else powered by electricity—represents the fastest growing waste stream globally, with e-scrap generation expected to double 2014 levels by 2030. This prize encourages innovations that enhance the recovery of critical materials along the recycling value chain from end-of-life products to reintroduction. Innovation is also needed to facilitate the integration of the separation technologies into the recycling value chain. This is a limited submission with notifications (working title, team list, a 2-3 sentence project synopsis) due to the Office of Research Development by June 4, 2024 via ordlimitedsubs@ksu.edu.
    • The Joint Office of Energy and Transportation (Joint Office), through the Department of Energy (DOE), has made available $54 million in new federal funding for projects through the Communities Taking Charge Accelerator program that will expand community e-mobility access and provide clean reliable energy. The funding will drive innovation in equitable clean transportation and is aligned with strategies detailed in the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization. This program will make strategic investments at the local level that address key barriers to expanding access to electrified mobility options for individuals without home charging; accelerate the transition to electrified fleets; and mature the implementation of managed charging systems to mitigate impacts and optimize usage of the grid. Topic areas in the Joint Office’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 funding opportunity include: 1) Solving for No-Home Charging: Expanding Charging Access for Privately Owned E-Mobility; 2) Expanding E-Mobility Solutions through Electrified Micro, Light and Medium-Duty Fleets; and 3) Managed Charging for Clean Reliable Energy.
    • The Department of State, Bureau of International Security and Nonproliferation, Office of Export Control Cooperation (ISN/ECC) announces, Enhancing IP Frameworks for a Secure Semiconductor Ecosystem, an open competition for organizations interested in submitting application to implement a project aimed at advancing U.S. foreign policy and national security priorities by supporting initiatives that make decision-making structures and processes in fragile, conflict, or crisis-affected contexts more reflective of and responsive to the needs and perspectives of partner states to ensure strategic trade control systems meet international standards and by engaging on bilateral, regional and multilateral levels with foreign governments to aid in the establishment of independent capabilities to regulate transfers of weapons of mass destruction, WMD-related items, conventional arms, and related dual-use items, and to detect, interdict, investigate, and prosecute illicit transfers of such items. Specifically, the goal of this project is to address national security deficiencies in India’s technology protection mechanisms centering on semiconductor-related technology and Intellectual Property (IP). Specifically, this project has two components (both of which must be included in an application) and calls for capacity building for (1) IP rights compliance within the industry and (2) IP rights enforcement by the relevant authorities, as they pertain to the semiconductor technology ecosystem. This is a limited submission; thus, if you are interested in applying, you must notify (working title, team list, a 2-3 sentence synopsis) the Office of Research Development by May 3, 2024 via ordlimitedsubs@ksu.edu.
    • NSF’s Mind, Machine, and Motor Nexus program supports fundamental research that explores embodied reasoningas mediated by bidirectional sensorimotor interaction between human and synthetic actors. For the purposes of this program, embodiment is defined as the capacity to interact with physics-based environments. The M3X program encourages research on sensorimotor interaction and embodied reasoning between human and synthetic actors in real, virtual, or hybrid settings, over a range of spatial and temporal scales, and for different modes of interaction. The M3X program supports research derived from conceptual, mathematical, empirical, experimental, computational, and cross-cutting perspectives, among others. Multi-disciplinary perspectives are encouraged but must be integrated to promote a holistic treatment of the research. Topics of interest to the M3X program include — but are by no means limited to — collaboration, cooperation, and competition among human and synthetic actors; the role of virtual, mixed and hybrid environments in decision making and learning; new approaches to modeling, guiding and controlling processes of reasoning and interaction; as well as the development of research infrastructure (including open source instrumentation, models, data and environments) that will accelerate research in this area.
    • HHS, NIH’s Global Infectious Disease Research Training Program (D43) encourages joint applications for the Global Infectious Disease (GID) Research Training programs from low- and middle-income country (LMIC) and U.S. institutions. The application should propose a collaborative training program that will strengthen the capacity of a LMIC institution to conduct infectious disease research (not including HIV/AIDS). FIC will support research training programs that focus on 1) major endemic or life-threatening emerging infectious diseases, 2) neglected tropical diseases, 3) infections that frequently occur as co-infections in HIV infected individuals or 4) infections or microbiomes associated with non-communicable disease conditions of public health importance in LMICs.Advanced scientific training related to prevention, treatment or public health approaches to any technical area of basic, epidemiological, clinical, behavioral or social science health research may be supported. Research training programs should incorporate didactic, mentored research and professional development skills components to prepare individuals for sustainable careers that will have significant impact on the priority health research needs of LMICs.
    • HHS, NIH’s BRAIN Initiative Connectivity across Scales (BRAIN CONNECTS): Specialized Projects for Scalable Technologies (U01) seeks projects to develop current or emerging technologies to generate comprehensive atlases of brain connectivity, with an emphasis on human, non-human primate (NHP), and mouse. Projects using other species are also permitted, if their use is well justified and the goal is test and validate approaches that can be generalized across species. Applications may address any aspect(s) of data collection, reconstruction, analysis, integration, dissemination, and interpretation of brain connectivity and associated data pipelines, to enable faster, more precise, and more cost-effective generation and interpretation of brain-wide wiring diagrams. Proposals are encouraged to develop distinct capabilities and competencies that may be expected to complement Comprehensive Centers solicited by the companion FOAs, with aims of further developing and optimizing current technologies, or proposing entirely new, disruptive, and potentially risky approaches.
    • HHS, NIH’s Time-Sensitive Obesity Policy and Program Evaluation (R01) establishes an accelerated review/award process to support time-sensitive research to evaluate a new policy or program that is likely to influence obesity related behaviors (e.g., dietary intake, physical activity, sedentary behavior, and/or sleep) and/or weight outcomes in an effort to prevent or reduce obesity. This FOA is intended to support research where opportunities for empirical study are, by their very nature, only available through expedited review and funding. All applications submitted to this FOA must demonstrate that the evaluation of an obesity-related policy or program offers an uncommon and scientifically-compelling research opportunity that will only be available if the research is initiated with minimum delay. For these reasons, applications submitted to this time-sensitive FOA are not eligible for re-submission. It is intended that eligible applications selected for funding will be awarded within 4 months of the application due date; however, administrative requirements and other unforeseen circumstances may delay issuance dates beyond that timeline.