May 2018  
 
The FAS Research Development group publishes this monthly Funding Newsletter for SEAS faculty and researchers. The newsletter includes notable Federal, private, and internal Harvard funding opportunities. 
 
Questions?
Erin Hale: [email protected] | 617-496-5252 
Jennifer Corby:  [email protected] | 617-495-1590  
 
  For more information on our support services, please visit our website .

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 Harvard affiliates have access to Pivot , a funding opportunity database. 
 
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News, Announcements, & Special Features
Feature: N ew Investigator Opportunity Spotlight
Quick links to early career opportunities in this month's newsletter.

Funding Opportunities

Click on the links below to read a program synopsis

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)
 
U.S. Department of Energy (DOE)   
Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA)
 
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Computer & Information Science and Engineering (NSF: CISE)

Foundation Opportunities

BrainResearch
Scientific Innovations Award
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: May 17, 2018 
Sponsor LOI Deadline (if nominated): June 22, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $150,000 for a two year grant period
Target Applicants: Applicants must be an Associate Professor or Full Professor working in the area of brain function in health and disease; have major NIH or other peer-reviewed funding in the past three years (2015 or later), though current support is preferred; and propose a new research project that is not funded by other sources. This award does not cover overhead costs, which falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
 
The Brain Research Foundation's Scientific Innovations Award Program provides funding for innovative science in both basic and clinical neuroscience. This funding mechanism supports creative, exploratory, cutting edge research in well-established research laboratories under the direction of established investigators. Funding is to be directed at projects that may be too innovative and speculative for traditional funding sources but still have a high likelihood of producing important findings. This should be a unique project for senior investigators who are encouraged to stretch their imagination into areas that can substantially change an area of research.
 
Please Note: Harvard University, as a single institution, is limited to submitting one Letter of Intent for this competition. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research is facilitating an internal application process for eligible applicants. Applicants may apply for the internal application process  here .

Research Grants
OSP Deadline: June 22, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: July 1, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $75,000 for one year or up to $150,000 for 2 years for Design and Development Grants.  This award provides 8% in overhead costs, which falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
 
The mission of the Paralyzed Veterans of America Research Foundation is to promote innovative research to find better treatments and cures for paralysis; support efforts to improve the quality of life of individuals with spinal cord dysfunction until treatments are found; and train post-doctoral fellow investigators and encourage them to specialize in the area of spinal cord research. The Foundation supports innovative research that improves the lives of those with spinal cord injury and disease, including Design and Development Grants for new or improved rehabilitative and assistive devices to improve function for individuals with spinal cord injury or disease.

FoundationUnitedEng
Sponsor Concept Paper Deadline (required): June 1, 2018
OSP Deadline: July 25, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: August 1, 2018
Award Amount: No specified limit, but 5 - 10 grants are awarded per year totaling nearly $800,000. This award does not cover overhead costs, which falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
 
The United Engineering Foundation advances the engineering arts and sciences for the welfare of humanity. It supports engineering and education by, among other means, making grants. While all eligible proposals will be considered, broad-based, interdisciplinary proposals that further the engineering profession as a whole are preferred. Technical research proposals and proposals by individuals are seldom accepted. Projects that are outside "business as usual" of the proposing organization are preferred. Multiple-year proposals are welcome, but funding is awarded for a single year only. Proposals for subsequent years follow procedures identical to that of single-year proposals. No commitment for funding of subsequent years of a multiple-year project should be inferred from funding of a prior year.


FoundationBIRD
Executive Summary Deadline: July 9, 2018
OSP Deadline: August 14, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: August 21, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $1M, but no more than 50% of the R&D costs associated with the joint project.  This award provides 5% in overhead costs, which falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
 
"BIRD Energy" is the implementation of a cooperation agreement between the U.S. Department of Energy's Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), the Israel Ministry of Energy jointly with the Israel Innovation Authority, and the BIRD Foundation.
 
To be considered, a project proposal should include:

  • R&D cooperation between two companies or cooperation between a company and a university/research institution (one from the U.S. and one from Israel)
  • Innovation in all areas of Renewable Energy and Energy Efficiency, such as Solar and Wind Power, Advanced Vehicle Technologies and Alternative Fuels, Smart Grid, Storage, Water-Energy Nexus, Advanced Manufacturing, etc.
  • Significant commercial potential; the project outcome should lead to commercialization


Industry/Corporate Opportunities

Cisco 
Cisco Research Center Grants
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Budgets depend on the institution and geography. Overhead is limited to 5%. This falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
Cisco Research Center (CRC) connects researchers and developers from Cisco, academia, governments, customers, and industry partners with the goal of facilitating collaboration and exploration of new and promising technologies. Cisco is primarily interested in exploring issues, topics, and problems that are relevant to its core business of improving the Internet. It is also deeply interested in adjacent technologies that leverage the power of the network to change the world around us.
 
CRC supports a broad range of research interests and award types in engineering and applied sciences. For a complete list of Requests for Proposals (RFPs), please scroll to the bottom of this link. Please note that CRC also welcomes research proposals that do not fit cleanly into any of the RFPs listed.
 
IBM_World
IBM
World Community Grid
OSP Deadline: Not required 
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Up to 150,000 years of computing power through World Community Grid; weather data from The Weather Company, an IBM Business; and cloud storage from IBM Cloud.
IBM invites scientists studying climate change or ways to mitigate or adapt to its impacts to apply for free crowdsourced supercomputing power, weather data and cloud storage to support their climate or environmental research projects. In return, awardees are asked to publicly release the research data from their collaboration with IBM, enabling the global community to benefit from and build upon those findings.
 
Grantees will receive free, 24/7 access to computing power though World Community Grid, an award-winning IBM Citizenship initiative that enables anyone with a computer or Android device to support scientific research by carrying out computational research tasks on their devices. This allows researchers to conduct large-scale investigations, often magnitudes larger than they would have otherwise been able to conduct. Grantees may also request access to weather data and cloud storage.

Internal Opportunities
Deadline: May 18, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $20,000
Eligible Applicants: The designated faculty leader(s) must hold primary Harvard faculty appointments at the rank of Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor or senior non-ladder faculty appointments including Senior Lecturer, Senior Preceptor, and Professor of Practice.
 
The Provost's Fund for Interfaculty Collaboration (PFIC) was developed to promote faculty collaboration across multiple Harvard Schools. This fund can be used to support a variety of projects, including but not limited to cross-School interdisciplinary course support, research working groups, and small-scale conferences. The Fund will occasionally prioritize particular forms of collaboration, and during the 2017-2018 academic year, funding priority will be given to proposals intended to advance cross-School teaching. 
 
To be eligible for support, the designated faculty leader(s) must hold primary Harvard faculty appointments at the rank of Assistant, Associate, or Full Professor or senior non-ladder faculty appointments including Senior Lecturer, Senior Preceptor, and Professor of Practice, and the project must engage faculty and/or students from at least two Harvard Schools. Priority will be given to applicants who have not previously received funding from the grant. Colleagues from outside Harvard may be included as well.
 
These one-year grants should be considered seed money rather than continuing support. Funding should be expended within a year of the award. Preference will be given to proposals that illustrate the potential cross-School impact of funding (e.g., cross-listed courses, sponsored research opportunities, resulting scholarly products) as well as to proposals that leverage other resources (e.g., cost-sharing with a Department, School, or outside funder).
Dean's Fund for Scientific Advancement: Acceleration Award
Deadline: June 18, 2018
Award Amount: $100,000 (direct costs) for a 12-month project period with an automatic 6-month no-cost extension to cultivate collaborative/transdisciplinary research, develop cross-cutting research platforms, and support pedagogical advancement.
Target Applicants: This award is open to Harvard Chan School faculty of any rank who have a primary appointment at the Harvard Chan School, but applications will require the substantial engagement of at least two Harvard Chan School Departments or Centers and must include collaboration from at least one other Harvard School.
 
The Dean's Fund for Scientific Advancement expands the School's internal research funding with the goal of creating a pipeline of support from awards that support the exploration of early ideas, to the development of strong interdisciplinary team science, through to supporting transformative research collaborations that advance the frontiers of science. Acceleration Awards are collaboration-focused planning grants supporting research, platforms, and education. Up to three awards will be distributed annually across three focal areas:
 
Research Grants: the two priority topic areas this year are Aging & Longevity and Emerging Health Threats. Those who receive Research Grants are eligible to apply for the Dean's Fund Transformation Award at the conclusion of the Acceleration Award funding period. 
 
Research Platforms : the two priority topics this year are Data Science and Implementation Science. Research Platforms, defined broadly, are adaptable and dynamic resources that can be accessed by multiple faculty to support projects in a variety of disciplines. The goal is to provide one-time support for the development of research platforms that can be funded in the future by external support mechanisms.
 
Public Health Pedagogy: the two priority topics this year are Service Learning and Team Teaching. This focal area intends to produce scalable innovations that will improve the quality of teaching and learning at the Harvard Chan School. Special consideration will be given to applications that have the potential to be scaled up School-wide to benefit teaching and learning at all levels. The goal is to provide one-time support for the development of pedagogical innovations that can be integrated into our educational programs or funded in the future by external support mechanisms.


U.S. Department of Defense

Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
SIGMA+ Sensors
OSP Deadline: May 23, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: May 31, 2018
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. DARPA is soliciting detailed proposals for the Phase 1 effort only, consisting of a 30-month base period.
 
The Defense Sciences Office at DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of advanced chemical and biological detector technologies to support a networked system of sensors for the detection, interdiction, and deterrence of clandestine weapons of mass destruction (WMD). A future BAA, anticipated to be released in the first half of the 2019 Government Fiscal Year, will address the development of automated intelligence analytics and advanced adversary modeling, as well as further developments for the SIGMA network backbone that are expected to be required to perform full fusion of the data and methods.
 
The sensors thrust consists of two technical areas (TAs). TA1 encompasses environmental chemical sensing. TA2 involves biological sensors and is further divided into new detectors for environmental sensing of aerosolized biological threats (TA2.1), and new human-based sensors that may indicate illness before the onset of significant symptoms (TA2.2).
 
Multiple awards are anticipated.

DODDARPAURSA
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Urban Reconnaissance through Supervised Autonomy (URSA)
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (strongly encouraged): May 24, 2018
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission 
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: July 3, 2018 
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The URSA program is a two-phase, 36-month development effort.  At this time, DARPA is soliciting full proposals for Phase 1 only.
 
The goal of the URSA program is to assess the feasibility and effectiveness of integrating unmanned systems, sensor technologies, and advanced autonomy algorithms to enable improved techniques for  rapidly discriminating hostile intent and filtering out threats in complex urban environments.
 
Phase 1 will include initial technology research and trade studies to develop an evolutionary demonstration architecture and demonstration approach. The Phase 1 program will be comprised of two performer tracks. Track A will be focused on system-level solutions and demonstrations. Track B will be used to fund compelling critical enabling capabilities such as component-level algorithms, behavioral analysis techniques, technologies or other unique research that could enhance multiple system level approaches. The objective of Track B is to enable participation by companies with niche expertise who can only offer partial solutions to URSA. Track B performer results will be due approximately 12 months after award to enable assessment and potential teaming with Track A performers for Phase 2. In Phase 2, one or more Track A performers will continue to enhance their system-level capabilities and migrate to an urban environment test site for field demonstrations.
 
DARPA envisions three to four Track A performers and multiple Track B performers. Up to $22.6M is the total amount anticipated to be awarded for Phase 1.


DARPA_COMPASS
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Collection and Monitoring via Probes for Active Situational Scenarios (COMPASS)
OSP Deadline: May 25, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 4, 2018
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The COMPASS program is planned as a two phase, 30-month effort.
 
DARPA is soliciting innovative proposals for the Collection and Monitoring via Planning for Active Situational Scenarios (COMPASS) program. COMPASS develops decision aids that drive probing actions designed to improve situational awareness and reduce the ambiguity of actors and objectives in gray zone environments. Gray zone warfare is characterized by "limited conflict, sitting between 'normal' competition between states and what is traditionally thought of as war". Gray zone actors use techniques such as misinformation, intimidation, pressure, and disruptions of services to destabilize nations and possibly produce advantageous conditions for military engagements. Proposed efforts should make advances in the computational areas of artificial intelligence, game theory, complex and non-linear systems, and human-machine decision making in complex situations under uncertainty and risk.
 
COMPASS is soliciting proposals in the following three technical areas (TAs):
  1. Technical Area 1: Decision aids that discover the intent of gray zone actors, including goals, objectives and desired strategies;
  2. Technical Area 2: Decision aids to estimate the adversary campaigns, including the actors, relationships, timings, and dependencies of the adversary tactics; and
  3. Technical Area 3: An architecture that integrates the decision aids and allows operators to assess the decision space, recommend probing actions, monitor progress, and suggest adjustments.
Multiple awards are anticipated for all TAs.


DARPA_N3
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Next-Generation Non-Surgical Neurotechnology (N^3)
OSP Deadline: May 29, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 5, 2018
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will
depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The N 3 program will provide up to 4 years of funding.
 
DARPA seeks proposals to design, build, demonstrate, and validate a nonsurgical bidirectional neural interface system to broaden the applicability of neural interfaces to the able-bodied warfighter. The final technology aims to enable neural recording and stimulation with sub-millimeter spatial resolution.
 
To reach high temporal and spatial resolution, N3 will focus on two approaches: noninvasive (Technical Area 1 -TA1) and "minutely" invasive (Technical Area 2 - TA2) neural interfaces. Final N3 deliverables will include a complete integrated bidirectional brain-machine interface system. Non-invasive approaches will include sensor (read) and stimulator (write) subcomponents integrated into a device (or devices) external to the body. Minutely invasive approaches will develop the nanotransducers for use inside the brain to facilitate read out and write in. Minutely invasive approaches will also develop the external subcomponents and integrated devices that interact with the internal nanotransducers.


DODDARPABlackjack
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Blackjack
OSP Deadline: May 30, 2018 
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: June 6, 2018 
Award Amount:  The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds.
 
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative proposals in the following technical area(s): low cost space payloads and/or commoditized satellite buses. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in low size, weight, power, and cost (SWaP-C) payloads that provide military utility from a distributed low earth orbit (LEO) constellation and in commoditized satellite buses capable of hosting military payloads assuming their primary commercial payloads for user terminal connectivity are not installed. Specifically excluded is research that results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice of small quantities of exquisite high-value spacecraft.
 
DARPA envisions five separate categories of contracts across multiple opportunities; commoditized bus, payload, autonomy/integration, launch, and operations. This BAA is focused on the first two categories: payloads (Track A) and commoditized buses (Track B). Offerors may propose multiple concepts to Track A - payloads and/or a single concept to Track B - commoditized buses, and teaming is encouraged. The program anticipates future announcements and awards that are not encompassed by this BAA that will be utilized to solicit for autonomy hardware and software, launch services, ground systems, and constellation flight operations.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated. The total planned budget for award is $117.5M over three phases of the Blackjack program, which is expected to be awarded to two to eight bus and/or payload performers.
 
Please note: Offerors should submit a single proposal per proposer DUNS number containing all concepts. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please contact Erin Hale at  [email protected] . 


DODDARPACHESS
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
 Computers and Humans Exploring Software Security (CHESS)
 OSP Deadline: June 8, 2018 
 Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: June 15, 2018 
 Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this solicitation has not been predetermined and will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The program will span 42 months divided into one 18-month phase and two 12-month phases.

 DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals to develop techniques and systems that will substantially accelerate software vulnerability research (VR). The goal of the CHESS program is to develop computer-human systems to rapidly discover all classes of vulnerability in complex software. These novel approaches for the rapid detection of vulnerabilities will focus on identification of system information gaps that require human assistance, generation of representations of these gaps appropriate for human collaborators, capture and integration of human insights into the analysis process, and the synthesis of software patches based on this collaborative analysis.

 CHESS will be structured with five technical areas. Each proposal submitted against this solicitation shall  address  only one TA:
  • TA1 - Human Collaboration
  • TA2 - Vulnerability Discovery
  • TA3 - Voice of the Offense
  • TA4 - Control Team
  • TA5 - Integration, Test, and Evaluation

DARPA anticipates multiple awards for technical areas 1 and 2; and single awards for technical areas 3, 4 and 5.


 

DODONRCommNet
Office of Naval Research (ONR)
Communications and Networking Discovery and Invention
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (required): June 22, 2018
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission 
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): September 28, 2018 
Award Amount: $300,000-$500,000 per year for up to 3 years
 
The goal of the Communications and Networking Program within the Office of Naval Research is to support the Navy's Information Warfare vision by developing measurable advances in technology that can directly enable and enhance end-to-end connectivity and quality-of-service for mission-critical information exchange among widely dispersed naval, joint, and coalition forces. The vision is to provide high throughput robust communications and networking to ensure all warfighters - from the operational command to the tactical edge - have access to information, knowledge, and decision-making necessary to perform their assigned tasks.
 
White papers for potential FY19 Exploratory Development/Applied Research (Budget category 6.2) projects are sought under the following focus areas:
  1. Wide (instantaneous) bandwidth power amplifier technologies for phased array, with high drain efficiency and linearity for simultaneous multi-beam operation;
  2. Innovative options for communications (e.g., RF/magnetic, optical) across the air-water interface to submerged platforms or between two underwater platforms;
  3. Techniques for mobile troposcatter communications that reduces cost to acquisition by reusing shipboard SATCOM antenna and RF frontend with minimal modifications to hardware and its configuration;
  4. Novel approaches for low probability of detect/intercept communications against advanced electronic threats;
  5. Dynamic scheduling, routing and control mechanisms to efficiently and reliably deliver traffic with varying level of service requirements (e.g., latency, loss rate, priority); and
  6. Machine learning and other techniques/concepts for autonomous network management by translating Commander's Intent into network policies.
ONR is receptive to innovative ideas which are not within the above focus areas but nonetheless are important to the Navy/Marine Corps communications and networking.
 
ONR anticipates an annual budget of approximately $2,000,000 for this program.


DODAROICORPS
Army Research Office (ARO) and the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (Research Directorate/Basic Research Office)
Proof of Concept Commercialization Pilot Program Innovation Corps @ Department of Defense (I-Corps @ DoD) Fiscal Year 2018
OSP Deadline: June 28, 2018 
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: July 6, 2018 
Award Amount: $40,000-$70,000 for 1 year
 
The Innovation Corps at the Department of Defense (I-Corps @ DoD) program is an opportunity for currently/recently DoD funded-Principal Investigators to learn how to commercialize their discoveries/innovations. Successful applicants will receive a grant to attend a program that provides extensive training in product commercialization from industry experts and 'serial entrepreneurs' who have helped train over 1,000 I-Corpsâ„¢ Teams in how to bring their innovations to market. The I-Corps @ DoD program is a pilot program modeled after the National Science Foundation (NSF) I-Corpsâ„¢ program. 
 
The key component of the I-Corps @ DoD program is the I-Corps Team. The I-Corps Team is comprised of the Technical Lead, the Entrepreneurial Lead and the Mentor. The Technical Lead will typically be a faculty member, senior research scientist or postdoctoral scholar with deep and direct technical expertise in the actual core technology about which the I-Corps team is exploring commercial potential. Typically, the Technical Lead will also serve as the proposal Principal Investigator (PI). The Entrepreneurial Lead is typically a postdoctoral researcher, graduate student, or other student, who possesses relevant technical knowledge and a deep commitment to investigate the commercial landscape surrounding the innovation. The Mentor brings entrepreneurial experience and serves as the principal guide in determining the technology disposition. Technical Leads/PIs ideally locate their own mentor, but can also contact the I-Corps @ DoD Program Manager for assistance with locating a mentor. 
 
DoD intends to award roughly $1,000,000 under this Program Announcement, subject to the availability of funds. Up to 14 awards are anticipated for FY 18.


DODAS
Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Acquisition and Sustainment (A&S)
FY18 Acquisition Research Program
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (required): July 5, 2018
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission 
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): September 5, 2018 
Award Amount: Up to $120,000 for 1 year
 
The Acquisition Research Program (ARP) conducts and supports research in academic disciplines that bear on public procurement policy and management. These include economics, finance, financial management, information systems, organization theory, operations management, human resources management, risk management, and marketing, as well as the traditional public procurement areas such as contracting, program/project management, logistics, test and evaluation and systems engineering management.
 
The ARP is interested in innovative proposals that will provide unclassified and non-proprietary findings suitable for publication in open scholarly literature. Studies of government processes, systems, or policies should also expand the body of knowledge and theory of processes, systems, or policies outside the Government.
 
Note: Proposals for workshops, conferences, and symposia, or for acquisition of technical, engineering, advisory and assistance, and other types of support services for the Government will not be considered.
 
The Government anticipates making multiple awards under this program.  


Research Associateship Programs
OSP Deadline: July 25, 2018
Sponsor Deadlines: August 1, 2018
Award Amount: Awards include stipends (ranging from $42,000-$80,000), health insurance, professional travel and relocation. Award durations vary by program.
 
The National Research Council (NRC) administers competitive graduate, postdoctoral and senior research awards on behalf of 26 U.S. federal research agencies and affiliated institutions with facilities at over 100 locations throughout the U.S. and abroad. Awardees have the opportunity to conduct independent research in an area compatible with the interests of the sponsoring laboratory; devote full-time effort to research and publication; access the excellent and often unique facilities of the federal research enterprise; and collaborate with leading scientists and engineers at the sponsoring laboratories. Disciplines include Chemistry; Earth, Atmospheric and Space Sciences; Engineering, Applied Science, and Mathematics; Life Sciences; and Physics.
 
Find research opportunities that match your interests by exploring this website: www.nationalacademies.org/rap . Contact prospective Research Adviser(s) and host lab(s) to discuss your interests and then you may apply online using the WebRAP electronic application system. Prospective applicants should carefully read the details and eligibility of the program to which they are applying. Some laboratories have citizenship restrictions (open only to U.S. citizens and permanent residents), and some laboratories have Research Opportunities that are not open to senior applicants (more than 5 years beyond the Ph.D.). In addition, applicants should note application deadlines, as not all laboratories participate in all reviews.
U.S. Air Force Academy (USAFA)
Project on Advanced Systems and Concepts for Countering Weapons of Mass Destruction (PASCC)
OSP Deadline: May 31, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (required): June 7, 2018
Award Amount: Awards for studies will range from $50,000-$150,000 and awards for strategic dialogues will range from $125,000-$225,000. The anticipated period of performance is 12-24 months.
 
With this Fiscal Year 2019 call for papers, the U.S. Air Force's Institute for National Security Studies announces to academia, research institutions, and non-profit organizations it is soliciting white paper for studies and strategic dialogues that will help enable the DoD and the United States Government to ensure nuclear deterrence and to prepare for and combat WMD and improvised threats. The white papers should propose rigorous, innovative projects that:  
  1. Facilitate critical engagement between U.S. and foreign subject-matter experts (SMEs) on key WMD, counter-WMD (CWMD), or nuclear deterrence issues;
  2. Address current and emerging challenges facing the Combatant Commands (CCMDs) and DoD; or
  3. Expand knowledge or develop new concepts relevant to the national security missions and requirements of DoD and the Armed Services.
Award recipients must produce a written product outlining the purpose, methodology, and results of their study or dialogue, including U.S. national security risks, policy, strategy, and operational implications, and resulting recommendations.
 
Annual funding for PASCC is $3.5M.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
Polyplexus Pilot
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (strongly encouraged): June 1, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: July 20, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 for up to 1 year
 
The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at DARPA is seeking participants for a pilot program designed to utilize modern connectivity to rapidly develop promising basic research pathways and then efficiently develop basic research proposals. Polyplexus is an online platform being developed under the DARPA Gamifying the Search for Strategic Surprise (GS3) program. The goal of the new Polyplexus platform is to fundamentally reshape the R&D process by reducing the time between concept emergence and worthy proposal submission. The Polyplexus platform aims to achieve this goal via efficiency gains that arise from collaborative activities focused on rigorous evidence collection and hypothesis generation, both of which are facilitated by online conversation. Faculty and postdoctoral researchers are eligible to participate. Graduate students and undergraduates who perform research under the supervision of faculty or postdoctoral researchers may also qualify if they are participating in original scientific or technical research. The registration deadline for Polyplexus Pilot is now separate from the registration for the Proposers Day for this program. The registration deadline for the Polyplexus Pilot has been extended to May 31, 2018.
 
As an inducement to participate on a platform that is not fully mature, DARPA is making research funding available for ideas and concepts of scientific merit that may emerge from the online conversation that occurs during the pilot. DARPA anticipates making any such funding awards in September 2018. Note that submission of abstracts and proposals is not required to participate in the Polyplexus Pilot. Researchers who desire to participate due to curiosity; the desire to learn, teach, or explore; or any other constructive reason are encouraged to do so.
 
DARPA anticipates four awards if worthy ideas emerge from this process.
Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
Air Force Fiscal Year 2019 Young Investigator Research Program (YIP)
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: June 1, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $150,000 per year for 3 years. Exceptional proposals will be considered individually for higher funding levels and/or longer duration.
 
The Fiscal Year 2019 Air Force Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) intends to support early career scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees by 1 April 2012 or later showing exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. The program objective is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for the young investigator to recognize the Air Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering. YIP PIs must be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident.
 
AFOSR seeks unclassified proposals from qualified and responsible applicants in the research areas of interest identified in the most recent Broad Agency Announcement titled "Research Interests of the Air Force Office of Scientific Research." Proposals may be submitted for only one research portfolio area.
 
AFOSR anticipates approximately 36 awards under this competition.

U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences (ARI)
U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences Broad Agency Announcement for Basic Research (Fiscal Year 2018)
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: June 15, 2018
Award Amount: No award floor or ceiling thresholds have been established for individual awards under this BAA. In recent years, the performance period of Standard Research Awards has typically been 2-3 years, with a median total award of $556,000. Budgets for Early Career proposals should be modest: approximately $110,000 for the initial year. No specific dollars have been reserved for total awards under this BAA.
 
The U.S. Army Research Institute for the Behavioral and Social Sciences is the Army's lead agency for the conduct of research, development, and analyses for the improvement of Army readiness and performance via research advances and applications of the behavioral and social sciences that address personnel, organization, training, and leader development issues. The basic research program supports research projects that are designed to expand fundamental knowledge and discover general principles in the behavioral and social sciences. ARI will accept Standard and Early Career proposals, and requests for Conference support, in response to this BAA. To be eligible for an Early Career award, the Principal Investigator must have received their Ph.D. within five years of the time of proposal submission, and not previously received funding from ARI as a Principal Investigator.
 
In addition to looking for proposals that provide for programmatic efforts to develop and evaluate psychological and behavioral theory, ARI strongly encourages applicants to propose novel, state-of-the-art, and multidisciplinary approaches that address difficult problems. A key consideration in the decision to support a research proposal is that its findings are likely to stimulate new, basic behavioral research which, in turn, will lead to improved performance of Army personnel and their units. Proposals may address both traditional behavioral issues as well as psychophysiological (to include neuroscience) and network science approaches to social phenomena, memory, cognition, and personality. While all proposals will be considered, ARI has identified the following five domains as particularly germane to its basic research needs: 1) Personnel Testing and Performance; 2) Leader Development; 3) Organizational Effectiveness; 4) Learning in Formal and Informal Environments; and 5) Culture.
Army Research Office (ARO), Office of Naval Research (ONR), and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
Fiscal Year 2019 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP)
OSP Deadline: June 28, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: July 6, 2018
Award Amount:  With few exceptions, a DURIP award provides between $50,000 and $1.5M for 1 year.
 
DURIP is designed to improve the capabilities of accredited U.S. institutions of higher education to conduct research and to educate scientists and engineers in areas important to national defense, by providing funds for the acquisition of research equipment or instrumentation. Proposals must address the impact of the equipment or instrumentation on the institution's ability to educate students through research in disciplines important to DoD missions. DoD's areas of research interest are listed in the ARO BAA, ONR BAA, and AFOSR BAA.
 
DURIP funds must be used for the acquisition of major equipment or instrumentation to augment current, or develop new, research capabilities. Proposals may request funding for more than one item if the requested items comprise a "system" that is used for a common research purpose. Requests for computing equipment for DoD-relevant research programs are appropriate and eligible for funding.
 
DoD intends to award approximately $47 million under this DURIP competition for fiscal year 2019.

Army Research Office (ARO), Office of Naval Research (ONR), and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)
Fiscal Year 2019 Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI)
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (encouraged): June 29, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: October 16, 2018
Award Amount:  Typical annual funding per grant is $1.25M-$1.5M for 5 years.
 
DOD's MURI program addresses high risk basic research that is of potential interest to DoD and attempts to understand or achieve something that has never been done before. 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. The MURI program was initiated over 25 years ago and it has regularly produced significant scientific breakthroughs with far reaching consequences to the fields of science, economic growth, and revolutionary new military technologies. Key to the program's success is the close management of the MURI projects by Service program officers and their active role in providing research guidance.
 
The FY 2019 MURI competition is for the following topics:
ONR
Topic 1: Fundamental Limits on Information Latency
Topic 2: Molecularly Programmable Graphene Architecture (MPGA)
Topic 3: Identifying invariances for improved modeling and prediction of oceanographic phenomena
Topic 4: Self-Assembly for High Performance Organic Electronics
Topic 5: Bio-inspired high-dimension control through models of cephalopod distributed information processing
Topic 6: Active Perception and Knowledge Exploitation in Navigation and Spatial Awareness
Topic 7: Advanced Analytical and Computational Modeling of Arctic Sea Ice
Topic 8: Topology & Advanced Dynamics of Coupled Human/Machine Systems
ARO
Topic 9: Clearing Your Head: The Glymphatic System and Restorative Effects of Sleep
Topic 10: Foundations of Emergent Computation and Self-Organized Adaptation
Topic 11: Multi-layer Network Modeling of Plant and Pollen Distribution across Space and Time
Topic 12: Near Field Radiative Heat Energy Transfer between Nanostructured Materials
Topic 13: Networked Interactions Governing Community Dynamics
Topic 14: Prediction and Control in Particulate Systems
Topic 15: Reactive and non-Reactive Scattering from Targeted Molecular Quantum States
Topic 16: Unified Decision Theory: From Bounded to Unbounded Rationality
AFOSR
Topic 17: THz Electronics Based on Antiferromagnets
Topic 18: Quantum Information Concepts from Tensor Networks and the Holographic Principle
Topic 19: 2D Heterostructures for Flexible, Lightweight Electronics and Optoelectronics
Topic 20: Feedback control and sparse neural signals
Topic 21: Dissipation Engineering in Open Quantum Systems
Topic 22: Group-IV Alloy Synthesis and Materials Properties
Topic 23: Neuromorphic Networks for Multifunctional Intelligent Systems
Topic 24: Microstructurally-aware Continuum Models for Energetic Materials
 
The total amount of funding for the five years available for grants resulting from this MURI FOA is estimated to be approximately $170M pending out-year appropriations.


Office of Naval Research (ONR)
FY18 Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) for the Office of Naval Research (ONR) Navy and Marine Corps Science, Technology, Engineering & Mathematics (STEM), Education and Workforce Program
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Window for White Papers (required): April 2-July 31, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Invited Full Proposals: September 28, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $250,000 per year, with one-year option periods, for up to 3 years
 
The ONR seeks a broad range of applications for augmenting existing or developing innovative solutions that directly maintain, or cultivate a diverse, world-class STEM workforce in order to maintain the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps' technological superiority. The goal of any proposed effort must provide solutions that will establish and maintain pathways of diverse U.S. citizens who are interested in uniformed or civilian DoN (or Navy and Marine Corps) STEM workforce opportunities. As the capacity of the DoN Science and Technology (S&T) workforce is interconnected with the basic research enterprise and STEM education system, ONR recognizes the need to support efforts that can jointly improve STEM student outcomes and align educational efforts with Naval S&T current and future workforce needs. This announcement explicitly encourages projects that improve the capacity of education systems and communities to create impactful STEM educational experiences for students and workers. Submissions are encouraged to consider including active learning approaches and incorporating 21st century skill development. Projects must aim to increase student and worker engagement in STEM and enhance people with needed Naval STEM capabilities. ONR encourages applications to utilize current STEM educational research for informing project design and advancing our understanding of how and why people choose STEM careers and opportunities of naval relevance.
 
While this announcement is relevant for any stage of the STEM educational system, funding efforts will be targeted primarily toward projects addressing the below communities or any combination of these communities:
  • Secondary education communities;
  • Post-Secondary communities;
  • Informal science communities; and
  • Current naval STEM workforce communities.
ONR intends to award approximately 25 awards for an estimated total value of $6,250,000, subject to the availability of funds.

USDODCDMRP
U.S. Department of Defense
Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP)
Peer Reviewed Medical Research Program
OSP Deadline: Varies by program 
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposal: Varies by program 
Award Amount: Varies by program
 
The vision of the FY18 PRMRP is to improve the health and well-being of all military Service members, Veterans, and beneficiaries. The PRMRP challenges the scientific and clinical communities to address at least one of the FY18 PRMRP Topic Areas (see program solicitations for a full list of the Topic Areas) with original ideas that foster new directions along the entire spectrum of research and clinical care. The program seeks applications in laboratory, clinical, behavioral, epidemiologic, and other areas of research to advance knowledge in disease etiology, improve prevention, detection, diagnosis, treatment, and quality of life for those affected by a relevant disease or condition, and to develop and validate clinical care or public health guidelines. 
 
Applicants should select the FY18 PRMRP Program Announcement most appropriate to the stage of the proposed research. DoD offers several types of awards under this program, including a  Discovery Award ,  Investigator-Initiated Research Award ,  Technology/Therapeutic Development Award , and  Focused Program Award .
 
The FY18 appropriation for PRMRP is $330,000,000.

 
DoD_Other
Other DoD Opportunities:
I f you are interested in DoD funding opportunities, please note:
The  Defense Innovation Marketplace  is a centralized source for Department of Defense science and technology (S&T) planning, acquisition resources, funding, and financial information. 
 

U.S. Department of Energy
Developing Technologies for Advancement of Associated Geologic Storage in Basinal Geo-Laboratories
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 1, 2018
Award Amount: $2,500,000-$3,500,000 over 3-5 years. Cost sharing is required and must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects.
 
The U.S. Department of Energy, Carbon Storage Program, Storage Infrastructure Technology Area supports research to develop technologies focused on field laboratory studies, including regional characterization and field validation testing of technologies, to demonstrate that different storage complexes in various geologic settings, distributed over different geographic regions, both onshore and offshore, have the capability to safely and permanently store CO2. These field laboratory projects, along with other supporting research and development (R&D) projects, have yielded significant advancements in carbon storage technology. However, key gaps in experience and knowledge remain, which arise due to the diversity in geologic settings of potential storage complexes in different geographic regions of the country. Research supported by this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), which addresses these gaps, will be key in achieving value-added CO2 geologic storage.
 
This FOA focuses on R&D specific to various basins representing diverse geologic settings throughout the U.S. (e.g., Appalachian, Williston, Illinois, Michigan, Permian, Gulf Coast Region) where there are opportunities for associated storage. For the purposes of this FOA, "associated storage" refers to CO2 storage in conjunction with enhanced oil and/or enhanced gas recovery operations, and includes saline storage where a project in a storage complex involves stacked saline and oil/gas reservoirs.

 
DOEOEEREBuildingAM
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Building America Industry Partnerships and Research Priorities for High Performance Housing Innovation
Sponsor Letter of Intent Deadline (required): May 25, 2018
OSP Deadline: June 4, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: June 11, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $1M for up to 3 years. Cost sharing is required and must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects.
 
The mission of the Residential Buildings Integration (RBI) Program is to accelerate energy performance improvements in existing and new residential buildings using an integrated building systems approach to achieve peak energy performance. The RBI Program's market outcome goal is to reduce, by 2025, the energy used for space conditioning and water heating in single-family homes by 40% from 2010 levels. RBI's focus on space conditioning and water heating offers the best opportunities for influencing residential energy use.
 
With this FOA, RBI will select building science project teams in 2018 for the Building America Program to conduct early stage research and validation of energy performance improvements in existing and new residential buildings with integrated building systems approaches, and achieve optimal home energy performance. These Building America teams will work with industry partners and real world homes to develop and validate technologies and practices that achieve optimal energy and cost performance while effectively managing related risks (e.g., indoor air quality and moisture durability). 
 
Building America seeks to fund projects with a high potential for significant impact. Successful applicants will present a relevant problem statement, compelling hypothesis and/or solution, and effective research question(s) to be answered or technology/practice to be validated. Successful applications will also include a well-developed plan for answering the research questions or validating the innovative technology/practice, and will describe a clear and compelling rationale linking successful project outcomes to lasting impact in the housing industry. Teams should have strong partnerships with affected industry stakeholders, such as builders, remodelers, and/or manufacturers.

Please Note: Harvard may only submit one Full Application as the prime applicant for each topic area of this FOA. If interested in applying, please contact Erin Hale at [email protected].

 DOEAdvVehicle
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Advanced Vehicle Technologies Research
Sponsor Concept Paper Deadline (required): May 29, 2018
OSP Deadline: July 6, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: July 13, 2018
Award Amount: $500,000-$5M for up to 3 years.  Cost sharing is required and varies based on the topic area. See solicitation for full details.
 
To support U.S. economic growth and offer consumers and businesses additional transportation choices, the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technologies Office invests in early-stage research to enable future private-sector development and commercialization of affordable, energy-efficient transportation technologies that can strengthen our energy security. This FOA seeks research projects to address priorities in the following areas: batteries and electrification; materials; technology integration and energy efficient mobility systems; energy-efficient commercial off-road vehicle technologies; and co-optimized advanced engine and fuel technologies to improve fuel economy.


DOEASEC
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Affordable and Sustainable Energy Crops (ASEC)
Sponsor Letter of Intent Deadline (required): May 30, 2018
OSP Deadline: June 20, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 27, 2018
Award Amount: $2.5M-$5M for up to 5 years. Cost sharing is required and must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects.
 
The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy announces a notice of availability of funds for financial assistance to accelerate research and development related to the production of affordable and sustainable non-food energy crops that can be used as feedstocks for the production of price-competitive biofuels and bioproducts. This funding opportunity announcement supports EERE's performance metrics to reduce U.S. dependence on foreign oil, increase the viability and affordability of renewable energy technologies and processes, and spur growth in the domestic bioeconomy.


DOEBEEPS
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
BioEnergy Engineering for Products Synthesis (BEEPS)
Sponsor Letter of Intent Deadline (required): May 30, 2018
OSP Deadline: June 20, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: June 27, 2018 
Award Amount: $1M-$2.5M for up to 3 years. Cost sharing is required and must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects.

The U.S. Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Bioenergy Technologies Office announces a notice of availability of funds for financial assistance to address gaps in current research and development which hinder better utilizing waste streams (e.g. lignin, CO2, and biosolids), improving organic and inorganic catalysts to increase conversion efficiency and decrease costs, and creating high-value performance-advantaged bioproducts to allow for more profitable biorefineries.

This funding opportunity announcement contains six Topic Areas as follows:
  1. Topic 1: ChemCatBio Industrial Partnerships (CCB)
  2. Topic 2: Agile BioFoundry Industry Partnership Initiative (ABF)
  3. Topic 3: Performance Advantaged Bioproducts (PABP)
  4. Topic 4: Biofuels and Bioproducts from Wet Organic Waste Streams (WWTE)
  5. Topic 5: Rewiring Carbon Utilization (Rewiring)
  6. Topic 6: Lignin Valorization (Lignin)


DOEProcDevAdBio
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Process Development for Advanced Biofuels and Biopower
Sponsor Letter of Intent Deadline (required): May 30, 2018
OSP Deadline: June 20, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: June 27, 2018 
Award Amount: $1M-$3M over up to 3 years. Cost sharing is required and must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects.
 
The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to identify, evaluate, and select applications proposing research, development and execution plans to test engineering principles and unit operations for the production and testing of Drop-in Renewable Jet Fuel Blendstocks and Drop-In Renewable Diesel Fuel Blendstocks from eligible feedstocks. In Topic Area 3, the FOA also seeks proposals to convert wet waste feedstocks, including municipal solid wastes and biosolids, into biopower or intermediates used to produce biopower.
 
Scale-up and verification of these process technologies is essential to enable the industry to design, construct, and operate pilot-scale facilities. This FOA seeks applications for projects to bridge technologies from scientific research to engineering, to integrate unit operations, and to engage in the R&D of integrated processes designed to produce drop-in renewable jet fuel blendstocks, drop-in renewable diesel fuel blendstocks, and biopower. Applicants proposing to produce drop-in renewable jet fuel blendstocks and drop-in renewable diesel fuel blendstocks will be required to verify that resulting fuels meet or exceed industry/market specifications and complete basic engineering packages to enable preliminary cost estimation and techno-economic analysis.
 
This funding opportunity contains three topic areas as follows:
  1. Topic Area 1: Drop-in Renewable Jet Fuel Blendstocks
  2. Topic Area 2: Drop-in Renewable Diesel Fuel Blendstocks
  3. Topic Area 3: Biomass, Biosolids, and Municipal Solid Waste to Energy

DOECarbonUseAlgal
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Efficient Carbon Utilization in Algal Systems
Sponsor Letter of Intent Deadline (required): May 30, 2018
OSP Deadline: June 20, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: June 27, 2018 
Award Amount: $1.5M-$2.5M for up to 3 years. Cost sharing is required and must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects.
 
Advanced biofuels and bioproducts made from algae have the potential to enhance energy security, create domestic jobs, enable energy affordability, and spur the advancement of the bioeconomy. The objective of the Advanced Algal Systems Program is to accelerate the commercialization of algal biofuels by overcoming barriers identified in the 2010 National Algal Biofuels Technology Roadmap, updated in June 2016. The Bioenergy Technology Office (BETO)'s Algae Program is implementing a long - term applied research and development strategy to support the bioeconomy by lowering the costs of production for algal biofuels and bioproducts.
 
This FOA supports research on increasing carbon utilization efficiencies as well as on developing direct air capture technologies, with the goals of increasing productivity and reducing costs. CO2 quantity, quality, availability, delivery into the system, uptake in the organism, and dispersion techniques represent some of the areas directly related to productivity and the economics of an overall algae cultivation system. Each must be considered when optimizing CO2 utilization within the system as well as when developing a product regime (that must include an advanced biofuel) for that system. To address CO2 utilization efficiency within algae cultivation systems, this FOA has two topic areas: one focused on CO2 utilization improvements (Topic Area 1) and the other on economic direct air capture technologies (Topic Area 2). This FOA will allow for a variety of approaches to addressing CO2 utilization including but not limited to capturing CO2 directly from the air for delivery to cultivation systems, optimizing organisms for better uptake and utilization, and engineering the delivery and cultivation systems themselves for better dispersion and utilization within cultivation systems. BETO encourages partnering; therefore, both Topic Areas are directed at small teams and/or consortia, led by industry and academia.

DOEMarineHydroTechAd
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Marine and Hydrokinetic Technology Advancement and Data Dissemination
Sponsor Concept Paper Deadline (required): May 31, 2018
OSP Deadline: July 10, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: July 17, 2018
Award Amount: $500,000-$3.5M. Topic areas 1 and 2 require cost sharing of at least 20% of the total allowable costs from non-federal sources.
 
This FOA announces DOE's intent to support marine and hydrokinetic (MHK) research and development projects in three Topic Areas:
 
  1. Topic Area 1, Early Stage Device Design Research: The goal of this Topic Area is to provide funding support for early-stage development and evaluation of next generation wave and tidal/current systems. This topic will target high potential prototype scale systems which can be proven through numerical simulations and testing validation. Through various testing scenarios including lab, tank, and open water, projects will demonstrate that devices are capable of achieving high performance with a clear path forward towards testing larger-scale devices in relevant lab or open-water environments. Investments at these scales will advance a technological pipeline towards achieving cost competitiveness in maritime markets (i.e. non-grid), while working toward long-term cost competitiveness at the utility scale.
  2. Topic Area 2, Controls and Power Take Off (PTO) Design Integration and Testing: This Topic Area focuses on early-stage design of PTO and control systems in parallel. Past experience in controls implementation has shown that the best results are achieved by designing a PTO in conjunction with a control system. Significant improvements in costs and risks can be achieved by testing a functional PTO with control system in a laboratory setting at a sufficient scale such that test results can be scaled up to predict full scale performance. Design and development of prototype PTO and control systems will be conducted concurrently, and each will inform the other. PTOs will be built with an operational real time control system at a relevant scale in a laboratory or other appropriate testing environment.
  3. Topic Area 3, Dissemination of Environmental Data and Analyses to Facilitate the Marine Energy Regulatory Process: This Topic Area aims to increase regulatory familiarity with (1) the various types of MHK technologies and (2) the current scientific understanding of potential environmental impacts, with the ultimate goal of reducing time and costs for MHK device permitting processes. Projects funded under TA 3 will leverage existing research, publications, reports, previous activities, events, and results to propose materials, activities, and methodologies that can ultimately inform and improve the process for permitting and licensing projects.


DOEBENEFIT 
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Buildings Energy Efficiency Frontiers & Innovation Technologies (BENEFIT) Sponsor Concept Paper Deadline (required): June 8, 2018
OSP Deadline: August 16, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: August 23, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $1.5M depending on topic area for up to 3 years. Cost sharing is required and must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects, and must come from non-Federal sources.
 
This FOA supports research and development of innovative energy saving technologies, systems, tools, and models that could lead to significant reduction in building energy consumption. BENEFIT 2018 focuses on early-stage R&D to enable the development of novel technologies that can improve efficiency and reduce the energy costs of the nation's buildings and facilitate interaction with the electricity grid. 
 
Under this funding opportunity, BTO is interested in six topic areas:
  • Topic 1: Advanced Separation Technologies for Building Energy Efficiency
  • Topic 2: Advanced Building Materials
  • Topic 3: High-Performance Windows
  • Topic 4: Novel Approaches for Cyber-physical Systems in Buildings
  • Topic 5: Integration Research of Advanced Commercial Energy Efficiency Packages
  • Topic 6: Advancements in Natural Gas and Other Fuel-driven Equipment



DOESolidLightAdTech
Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy
Solid-State Lighting Advanced Technology Research and Development (R&D)
OSP Deadline: June 11, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 18, 2018
Award Amount: $500,000-$1.5M for up to 3 years. Cost sharing is required and varies based on the topic area. See solicitation for full details.
 
The U.S. Department of Energy's Building Technologies Office Emerging Technologies (ET) Program is working in partnership with industry, national laboratories, and academia to develop innovative energy saving technologies, systems, tools, and models that could lead to a significant reduction in building energy consumption. The ET Program has identified the program-specific goal of supporting the development of cost-effective technologies capable of reducing the energy use of typical buildings by 45% by 2030, relative to high-efficiency technologies available in 2010. This funding opportunity targets early-stage R&D, enabling industry to develop novel technologies that can improve the efficiency and reduce the energy costs of the nation's buildings.
 
The objective of this funding opportunity is to select a diverse portfolio of early-stage R&D projects projects which can contribute to achieving:

  • Maximized energy-efficiency of SSL products;
  • Improved lifetime, color quality, and lighting system performance for SSL technology; and,
  • Reduced costs of SSL sources and luminaires.
 
Success in this portfolio of early-stage R&D is expected to further contribute to the growth, leadership, and sustainability of domestic U.S. advanced manufacturing within the SSL industry.



DOEIndPartnerCyber
Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability
Industry Partnerships for Cybersecurity of Energy Delivery Systems Research, Development and Demonstration
OSP Deadline: June 11, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 18, 2018 by 3:00PM
Award Amount: Up to $4M over 3 years. Cost sharing is required. Cost sharing must be at least 20% of the total allowable costs for research and development projects and 50% of the total allowable costs for demonstration and commercial application projects.
 
The objective of this Announcement is to enhance the reliability and resilience of the nation's energy infrastructure through innovative RD&D cybersecurity solutions. The energy infrastructure includes electricity generation, transmission and distribution as well as the production, refining, storage and distribution of oil and gas. 
 
This Announcement will support multi-year research, development and demonstration of tools and technologies to enhance the cybersecurity of energy delivery systems. Proposed solutions should be interoperable, scalable, readily manageable advanced tools and technologies and are compatible with common methods and best practices. It is expected that a strategy for transitioning solutions into practice throughout the energy sector, for example through commercialization or by making the solution available through open source, will be included. The tools or technologies must not impede critical energy delivery functions; must not introduce a burden for operating and maintaining the system; must be manageable by asset owners; must recognize energy reliability as a priority; must be demonstrated at a relevant end-user site to validate a clear path to industry acceptance; and must be red-team tested by an independent third party using project funds.
 
This Announcement includes five (5) Topic Areas:
  • Topic Area 1 - Redesign for Cyber-resilient Architecture - Electric and Oil and Natural Gas (ONG) Subsectors
  • Topic Area 2 - Cybersecurity for the Oil and Natural Gas (ONG) Environment
  • Topic Area 3 - Cybersecure Communications
  • Topic Area 4 - Cybersecure Cloud-based Technologies in the Operation Technology (OT) Environment
  • Topic Area 5 - Innovative Technologies that Enhance Cybersecurity in the Energy Sector

DOE_Isotope
Office of Science, Nuclear Physics 
Research, Development and Training in Isotope Production
OSP Deadline: June 8, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 15, 2018
Award Amount: $100,000-$750,000 per year for 1-2 years
 
The DOE Isotope Program, managed by SC Nuclear Physics, hereby announces its interest in receiving applications for Research and Development on novel methods to produce or improve production of radioactive or enriched stable isotopes needed for a wide variety of research and applications. This announcement is administered under the NP Isotope Development & Production for Research and Applications Sub-Program.
 
The proposed R&D should generate data relevant to isotope production or lead to new and innovative technologies, or improvements to existing technologies to foster enhanced production of isotopes. Successful proposals will clearly describe how the outcome of the proposed work would support and enhance the production of isotopes used for research and applications in medicine, homeland security, the physical sciences, biological and geological sciences, energy, industry, etc. Applications incorporating effective ways to train personnel with essential knowledge and skills related to the production, processing, purification, and distribution of enriched stable and radioactive isotopes are strongly encouraged.

DOEAPRAEDAYS
Advanced Research Projects Agency - Energy (ARPA-E) 
Duration Addition to electricitY Storage (DAYS)
Sponsor Deadline for Notices of Intent (required): June 15, 2018
OSP Deadline: June 25, 2018
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: July 2, 2018
Award Amount: $500,000-$10M for up to 3 years. Cost sharing is required and varies based on project participants. See solicitation for full details.
 
The Duration Addition to electricitY Storage (DAYS) program will pursue new long-duration electricity storage (LDES) technologies with discharge durations that range from 10 to approximately 100 hours at rated power. Such "long" durations are beyond the requirements for intra-day ("daily") energy time shift and many other stationary electricity storage applications common on the grid today. ARPA-E believes durations at rated power of 10 to 100 hours are relevant for needs that go beyond daily cycling but are short of seasonal energy time-shift applications. Long-duration storage applications present new forms of technical challenges associated with exceptionally low lifetime cost requirements (including both capital and operating expenses), particularly for the energy storage media and related components. However, the lower number of cumulative cycles, acceptability of slow ramp rates, and other relaxed performance requirements that are associated with long durations and infrequent cycling provide opportunities for design tradeoffs that may be leveraged to reduce costs and realize economically-viable LDES systems.
 
The primary objective of the DAYS program is the development of LDES systems that deliver electricity at a levelized cost of storage (LCOS) of 5 cents/kWh-cycle across the full range of storage durations (i.e. 10 to approximately 100 hours). This requirement results in a target lifetime cost that decreases with increasing storage duration, a marked divergence from many existing storage cost targets that focus on a single duration and thus a single cost metric. The LCOS target of 5 cents/kWh-cycle likely requires system round-trip efficiencies greater than 50%.
 
For this focused program, ARPA-E expects chemical, electrochemical, thermal, and mechanical technical approaches to potentially address this problem statement. The DAYS program requires that all proposed storage systems be charged by electricity alone and produce electricity as the sole output.
 
If successful, the DAYS program will provide new forms of stationary electricity storage systems that enhance grid resiliency, provide low-cost capacity, support the transmission and distribution infrastructure, enable a greater share of low-cost, intermittent sources of wind and solar in the future generation mix, along with other benefits.


DOE_Other
Other DOE Opportunities

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency

EPAPFAS
National Priorities: Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS)
OSP Deadline: June 11, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 18, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $1,984,400 over three years. Cost sharing of 25% is required and may include in-kind contributions.
 
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency announces the release of its National Priorities: Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (PFAS) RFA. EPA is seeking applications that generate new information for nationally assessing PFAS fate and transport, exposure, and toxicity. PFASs are manmade chemicals designed to resist heat, water, and oil.  Used in a variety of consumer products and industrial applications, PFASs are moderately to highly water soluble, persistent, bio accumulative, and toxic.  EPA is issuing this Request for Applications (RFA) to better understand the impacts of per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) on water quality and availability across the U.S.  
 
The Agency is seeking new information on:
  1. The fate and transport of short (C4 to C7) and long-chain (≥ C8) PFAS in the environment, including per- and poly-fluorinated carboxylic acids, sulfonic acids, and ethers, and associated precursor and transformation products;
  2. Comprehensive human and ecosystem exposure to PFAS; and
  3. PFAS toxicity, modes of action, physiologically-based pharmacokinetics and pharmacodynamics, and other topics related to hazard assessment. 
Proposals may address any or all of these topic areas in support of the development of robust risk assessments for human and ecological exposure to PFAS in water.

This RFA will inform new strategies that protect public health and the environment from PFAS exposure and adverse outcomes. 


IARPA
IARPA_other

IARPA Opportunities
National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)

NASA Flight Opportunities (FO) Appendix F1
OSP Deadline: June 1, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: June 8, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $275,000 for up to 2 years
 
The Flight Opportunities program within the NASA Space Technology Mission Directorate strategically invests in the growth of the commercial spaceflight market while helping advance technologies that will enable future space missions for exploration and science. The Program achieves these self-reinforcing objectives by selecting promising technologies from industry, academia, and government to test on commercial suborbital launch vehicles, reduced gravity aircraft, and high-altitude balloon flights. Investment in tests that take technologies from the laboratory to a relevant flight environment facilitates technology maturation, validates feasibility and reduces technical risks. These investments enable infusion of key space technologies into multiple future space missions. By funding technology developers to purchase flights from the evolving entrepreneurial U.S. commercial space industry, the Program facilitates the availability and lower-cost access to these suborbital platforms for a broad range of technologists to test, demonstrate, and mature space-related technologies.
 
NASA anticipates making 12-15 awards.


NASASpaceTechESI
Space Technology Research Grants Program, Early Stage Innovations (ESI) Appendix
Sponsor Deadline for Notices of Intent (strongly encouraged): May 23, 2018
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Proposals: June 20, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $500,000 for up to 3 years, and the amount in any one year may not exceed $200,000.
 
ESI is focused on innovative, early-stage space technology research of high priority to NASA's Mission Directorates. This Appendix seeks proposals on specific space technologies that are currently at low Technology Readiness Levels (TRL). Investment in innovative low-TRL research increases knowledge and capabilities in response to new questions and requirements, stimulates innovation, and allows more creative solutions to problems constrained by schedule and budget. Moreover, it is investment in fundamental research activities that has historically benefited the Nation on a broader basis, generating new industries and spin-off applications.

This ESI Appendix challenges universities to examine the theoretical feasibility of new ideas and approaches that are critical to making science, space travel, and exploration more effective, affordable, and sustainable. It is the intent of the Space Technology Research Grants (STRG) Program and this Appendix to foster interactions between NASA and the awarded university PIs/teams. Therefore, collaboration/interaction with NASA researchers should be expected while conducting space technology research under these awards.
 
This Appendix exclusively seeks proposals that are responsive to one of the six topics:
  • Topic 1 - Modeling for Small Spacecraft Electric Propulsion
  • Topic 2 - Smart and Autonomous Systems for Space
  • Topic 3 - Omni-Optical Antennas and Optical-Multiple-Access Technologies for Free-Space Near-Earth Satellite Communication
  • Topic 4 - Modeling Shock Layer Radiation and Chemical Kinetics for Planetary Entry
  • Topic 5 - Physical and Mechanistic Modeling of the Self-Reacting Friction Stir Welding Process
  • Topic 6 - Smart Tribological Mechanical Systems for Extreme Temperature Space Environments
 
NASA plans to make approximately 12 awards as a result of this Appendix.

Unsolicited Proposals
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling through September 30, 2018
Award Amount: Proposed budget should be commensurate with the scope of the project.
 
NASA encourages the submission of unique and innovative proposals that will further the Agency's mission. While the vast majority of proposals are solicited, a small number of unsolicited proposals that cannot be submitted to those solicitations and yet are still relevant to NASA are reviewed and some are funded each year. Proposals should be submitted at least six months in advance of the desired starting date.
Before any effort is expended in preparing a proposal, potential proposers should:
  1. Review the current versions of the NASA Strategic Plan and documents from the specific directorate, office, or program for which the proposal is intended to determine if the work planned is sufficiently relevant to current goals to warrant a formal submission.
  2. Potential proposers must review current opportunities (e.g., at https://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/solicitations/solicitations.do?method=init&stack=push) to determine if any solicitation already exists to which the potential project could be proposed.
  3. Potential proposers should review current awards (e.g., by doing key word searches at Research.gov, or at the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) grant status page, and the NASA Life and Physical Sciences Task Book) to learn what, if any, related work is already funded by NASA. Such preparation reduces the risk of redundancy, improves implementation, and sometimes results in collaboration.
After those three things have been done, the proposer may contact an appropriate NASA person to determine whether NASA has any interest in the type of work being proposed and if any funding is currently available.
Dual Use Technology Development Cooperative Agreement Notice (CAN) 2018
OSP Deadline: Not required for Notices of Intent 
Sponsor Deadline for Notices of Intent (required): Rolling through September 30, 2018
Award Amount: The budget must be sufficient and reasonable to accomplish the project. The participating partner will contribute an equal value of resources to match the NASA funding for the project.
 
John C. Stennis Space Center (SSC) is the primary NASA rocket propulsion testing center. SSC tests items ranging from multi-engine stages to individual components of rocket engines. Propulsion test customers include NASA, the Department of Defense and the commercial space launch industry. SSC manages a large federal city that is home to over forty federal, state, university and industry entities. SSC manages a restricted airspace that is available for development, testing and operation of unmanned aerial vehicles. SSC engineering laboratories design and test electronics, sensors, algorithms and mechanical components. This CAN supports identification and implementation of cost-sharing partnerships to develop technology to meet a specific NASA need at SSC. This notice seeks responses from potential partners interested in entering into a Cooperative Agreement with NASA for the joint development of technologies to meet SSC needs.
 
SSC technology interests include, but are not limited to, the following:
  • Propulsion system test technology
  • Autonomous & intelligent systems
  • Advanced sensors & instruments
  • Image & signal processing
  • Energy harvesting
  • Innovative components & materials
  • Big data processing & analysis
  • Systems engineering & optimization
  • Computational modeling & simulation
  • Decision support tools & systems

NASAJohnsonSpace
Johnson Space Center:  Research Opportunities for ISS Utilization
Exploration Technology Demonstration and National Lab Utilization Enhancements
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to sponsor deadline
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (recommended): Rolling through October 31, 2019 (see solicitation for schedule of review cycles)
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Rolling through December 31, 2019 (see solicitation for schedule of review cycles)
Award Amount: Details below
 
This announcement is for the development of experiment hardware with enhanced capabilities; modification of existing hardware to enable increased efficiencies (crew time, power, etc.); development of tools that allow analyses of samples and specimens on orbit; enhanced ISS infrastructure capabilities (eg, communications or data processing); and specific technology demonstration projects. Submission of a white paper is recommended in advance of a full proposal.
 
Within the NASA International Space Station (ISS) Research Integration Office, the Technology and Science Research Office (TSRO) and Commercial Space Utilization Office (CSUO) act as "gateways" to the ISS. The Technology and Science Research Office serves as the gateway for NASA-funded technology demonstrations. The Commercial Space Utilization Office serves as the gateway for non-NASA government-funded investigations, as well as non-profit or commercially-funded investigations.
 
Proposed technology demonstrations submitted to TSRO should address at least one of the technology areas mentioned in the ISS Technology Demonstration Plans . In addition, NASA seeks technology demonstrations related to the following thrust areas: Space Suit CO2 Sensor and Experiment Housing for Space Biology Pathfinder Research on Orion EM-1 (please note that submissions for this second Thrust Area do not fit into a standard NRA Cycle).
 
NASA also seeks technological concepts via CSUO related to the National Lab Thrust Areas and to expand the onboard research and analytical capabilities. The general thrust areas are:
  • Innovative uses of the ISS or ISS hardware that leverage existing capabilities to stimulate both utilization of the ISS and economic development in the U.S.
  • Other improvements to existing ISS capabilities, including but not limited to infrastructure, in situ analytical tools, and communication/data transmittal, to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the technology demonstrations and science investigations performed on the ISS.
  • Unique partnering arrangements that leverage NASA's existing capabilities but increase the commercial participation in research and on board services. 
Funds are not currently available for awards under this NASA Research Announcement (NRA). The Government's ability to make award(s) is contingent upon the availability of appropriated funds from which payment can be made and the receipt of proposals that NASA determines acceptable for award under this NRA. Successful proposals will have launch and integration costs covered by NASA. 

OtherNASA
Other NASA Opportunities
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

NIH_Shared
National Institutes of Health
Shared Instrumentation Grant Program
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: May 31, 2018
Award Amount: $50,000-$600,000
Target Applicants: Groups of three or more PIs on active, distinct NIH research awards
 
The objective of the NIH Shared Instrumentation Grant (SIG) Program is to make available to institutions expensive research instruments that can only be justified on a shared-use basis and that are needed for NIH-supported projects in basic, translational or clinical areas of biomedical and bio-behavioral research. The SIG Program provides funds to purchase or upgrade a single item of expensive, state-of-the-art, specialized, commercially available instrument or an integrated instrumentation system. An integrated instrumentation system is one in which the components, when used in conjunction with one another, perform a function that no single component could provide. The components must be dedicated to the system and not used independently.
 
Please Note: While there is no restriction on the number of applications an institution can submit for these opportunities, there are restrictions on applications submitted for similar equipment from the same institution. In order to determine if there are any overlapping requests within Harvard, interested applicants should contact Erin Hale at [email protected] .
 NIH_HighEnd  
National Institutes of Health
High End Instrumentation Grant Program
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: May 31, 2018
Award Amount: $600,001-$2,000,000
Target Applicants: Groups of three or more PIs on active, distinct NIH research awards
 
The objective of the High End Instrumentation Program is to make available to institutions expensive research instruments that can only be justified on a shared-use basis and that are needed for NIH-supported projects in basic, translational or clinical areas of biomedical/behavioral research. The HEI Program provides funds to purchase or upgrade a single item of expensive, specialized, commercially available instrument or an integrated instrumentation system. An integrated instrumentation system is one in which the components, when used in conjunction with one another, perform a function that no single component could provide. The components must be dedicated to the system and not used independently.
 
Please Note: While there is no restriction on the number of applications an institution can submit for these opportunities, there are restrictions on applications submitted for similar equipment from the same institution. In order to determine if there are any overlapping requests within Harvard, interested applicants should contact Erin Hale at  [email protected] .

NIH_SIFAR  
National Institutes of Health
Shared Instrumentation for Animal Research (SIFAR) Grant Program
OSP Deadline: May 24, 3018
Sponsor Deadline: May 31, 2018
Award Amount: $50,000-$750,000
 
The Shared Instrumentation for Animal Research (SIFAR) Grant Program encourages applications from groups of NIH-funded investigators to purchase or upgrade scientific instruments necessary to carry out animal experiments in all areas of biomedical research supported by the NIH. Applicants may request clusters of commercially available instruments configured as specialized integrated systems or as series of instruments to support a thematic well-defined area of research using animals or related materials. Priority will be given to uniquely configured systems to support innovative and potentially transformative investigations. This program supports requests for state-of-the art commercially available technologies needed for NIH-funded research using any vertebrate and invertebrate animal species. This program does not support requests for single instruments. 
 
Please Note: While there is no restriction on the number of applications an institution can submit for these opportunities, there are restrictions on applications submitted for similar equipment from the same institution. In order to determine if there are any overlapping requests within Harvard, interested applicants should contact Erin Hale at  [email protected] .
Cutting Edge Informatics Tools for Illuminating the Druggable Genome (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)
OSP Deadline: June 29, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: July 9, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $300,000 per year for up to 2 years
 
The overarching goal of this FOA is to add informatics capabilities to the Common Fund program, Illuminating the Druggable Genome IDG;  https://commonfund.nih.gov/idg/ . The IDG consortium's purpose is to facilitate the unveiling of the functions of selected understudied proteins in the Druggable Genome using experimental and informatics approaches. Currently, this research consortium is composed of multiple Data and Resource Generation Centers, a Knowledge Management Center (KMC), and a Resource Dissemination and Outreach Center.
 
The purpose of this specific FOA is to solicit applications to build a set of Cutting Edge Informatics Tools that will augment the capability of the KMC as well as the broader IDG Consortium in the following ways: (1) by developing and deploying tools to enhance the community's ability to process, analyze, and visualize IDG data, (2) to prioritize new data resources and methods to be incorporated into Pharos https://pharos.nih.gov/idg/index  that will strengthen predictions about physiological and disease associations around the understudied proteins, and (3) by developing methods to prioritize understudied IDG families (non-olfactory GPCRs, protein kinases, and ion channels) for deeper study using experimental assays both within the IDG pipeline or by the larger community.

NIHPioneer
NIH Director's Pioneer Award
OSP Deadline: September 7, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: September 14, 2018
Award Amount: $700,000/year for 5 years
 
The NIH Director's Pioneer Award supports individual scientists of exceptional creativity who propose highly innovative approaches to addressing major challenges in the biomedical or behavioral sciences towards the goal of enhancing human health. Applications proposing research on any topic within the broad mission of NIH are welcome. Emphases are on the qualities of the investigator and the innovativeness and potential impact of the proposed research. Preliminary data and detailed experimental plans are not requested. 
 
To be considered pioneering, the proposed research must reflect substantially different ideas from those being pursued in the investigator's current research program or elsewhere. The Pioneer Award is not intended to expand a current research program into the area of the proposed project. While the research direction may rely on the applicant's prior work and expertise as its foundation, it cannot be an obvious extension or scale-up of a current research enterprise which may be competitive as a new or renewal R01 application. Rather, the proposed project must reflect a fundamental new insight into the potential solution of a problem, which may develop from exceptionally innovative approaches and/or radically unconventional hypotheses. 


  NIH_Directors
NIH Director's Early Independence Award
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: July 16, 2018 by 12:00PM
OSP Deadline (if nominated): September 20, 2018 
Sponsor Deadline (if nominated): September 27, 2018
Award Amount: $250,000/year for five years plus applicable F&A
Eligible Applicants: Date of terminal doctoral degree or completion of clinical residency of the PI must be between June 1, 2017 and September 30, 2019. At the application deadline, the PI must not have served as a post-doctoral fellow following a previous doctoral degree for more than twelve months and must not yet have research independence.
 
The NIH Director's Early Independence Award Program supports exceptional investigators who wish to pursue independent research directly after completion of their terminal doctoral/research degree or clinical residency, thereby forgoing the traditional post-doctoral training period and accelerating their entry into an independent research career. Though most newly graduated doctoral-level researchers would benefit from post-doctoral training, a small number of outstanding junior investigators would benefit instead by launching directly into an independent research career. For these select investigators, who have established a record of scientific innovation and research productivity and who have demonstrated unusual leadership, drive, and maturity, post-doctoral training would unnecessarily delay their entry into performing independent research. By the end of the award period, the Early Independence Award investigator is expected to be competitive for continued funding of his/her research program through other NIH funding activities and for a permanent research-oriented position.
 
Please Note: This is a limited submission opportunity and only two applications may be submitted from candidates to be hosted by Harvard University in the University Area (Cambridge Campus) . Information on the internal selection process administered by the Office of the Vice Provost for Research can be found here .

OtherNIHOpps
 
National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation: Dear Colleague Letters
 
DCL_Growing
NSF: Dear Colleague Letter
Growing Convergence Research 
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of a full proposal 
Sponsor Deadline for Prospectus Submission: October 15, 2018 (to be considered for FY2019 funding)  
Award Amount: Up to $1M over up to 3 years

This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) seeks to identify potential future research areas that go beyond NSF's Big Ideas , require a convergence approach, cross internal and/or external organizational and disciplinary boundaries, and advance the progress of science as articulated in NSF's mission. NSF encourages the submission of prospectuses to identify these new areas and specific projects within them. NSF may invite the teams submitting the most promising prospectuses to submit proposals to further explore their research strategies. Prospectuses must outline novel approaches and research strategies that are likely to result in a clear demonstration of the potential for transformative advances. The research areas and proposed projects must reflect the characteristics of convergence outlined  here .

Interested researchers who would like to compete for FY 2019 funding must submit a prospectus describing a new area of research and an exploratory research project within it to the [email protected] mailbox. A prospectus may be submitted at any time to help NSF identify new areas of research that require convergence, but must be submitted by October 15, 2018 to be considered for FY 2019 funding. Researchers describing the most promising research ideas and exploratory projects will be invited to submit a proposal within 60 days after issuance of the invitation. 

DCL_Real-Time 
Real-Time Learning and Decision-Making in Engineered Systems (Real-D) 
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2018 
Sponsor Deadline: June 1, 2018 (for consideration in FY2018) 
Award Amount: up to $300,000 over up to 2 years

The Directorate for Engineering announces its interest in receiving EArly-Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals to support research in fundamental theory, algorithms, engineering principles, and applications for real-time learning and decision-making that may lead the way toward safe, reliable, and efficient data-enabled engineering systems. To encourage convergence research, proposals are expected to have PIs with complementary expertise and significant research background in: the domain of the specific engineering infrastructure systems under consideration; and in machine learning, optimization, systems modeling and control and/or data science. Examples of research topics include but are not limited to:
  1. Theory, methods, and implementation of distributed real-time learning and decision-making with substantial improvement compared to other distributed real-time learning algorithms and traditional centralized processing.
  2. Theory, development, and implementation of real-time learning of unlabeled data which could then be used together with a model-based approach, supervised learning algorithms, and/or anomaly detection methods.
  3. Innovations in theory and methods that can exploit availability of data -- historical and real-time - to achieve higher fidelity dynamic models of complex high-order interconnected systems and to formulate advanced control strategies for such systems. 
  4. Innovative approaches for combining model-based and model-free approaches including evaluation of data trustworthiness and fairness, and methods for model validation.
EAGER proposals must follow NSF's Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) Chapter II.E.2:  https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappg18_1/pappg_2.jsp#IIE2 ). This includes discussing the proposal with at least one of the program directors listed in the Dear Colleague Letter well before submission and establishing that the project satisfies the high-risk/high-return expectations for EAGERs.
Rules of Life (RoL): Forecasting and Emergence in Living Systems (FELS)
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 1, 2018 (Conference proposals)
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 for up to one year
 
NSF seeks to highlight the importance of research that forecasts the direction and dynamics of change in living systems. The robustness and reproducibility of processes associated with the emergence of complex properties in biological systems suggests the existence of underlying general principles ("rules") across the spectrum of biological phenomena. Identification and application of these fundamental rules would be of high value to both the scientific community and the Nation. This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) describes an initial opportunity to identify areas where such rules may exist, to catalyze approaches toward their discovery, and to focus efforts on using these rules for prediction and design of useful biological systems. Open competitions supported by this DCL include Conferences. 

NSFDCUK
Special Guidelines for Submitting Collaborative Proposals under the Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems, the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation, and the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems - the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (ENG-EPSRC) Lead Agency Activity
Deadline for Statement of Interest: July 1, 2018
OSP Deadline: 5 days prior to submission of a full proposal
Award Amount: varies by program

The Directorate for Engineering (ENG), Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET), the Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI), and the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) of the National Science Foundation and the Engineering, ICT and Manufacturing the Future Themes of the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) are pleased to announce the ENG-EPSRC Lead Agency Activity. The goal of this activity is to reduce some of the barriers that researchers currently encounter when working internationally. The ENG-EPSRC Lead Agency Activity will allow US and UK researchers to submit a single collaborative proposal that will undergo a single review process.

Proposals will be accepted for collaborative research in areas at the intersection of CBET, CMMI, and/or ECCS with the EPSRC Engineering, ICT and/or Manufacturing the Future Themes' programs. Proposers should review the CBET, CMMI, and ECCS Program Descriptions for research supported through these divisions and the EPSRC website for further information on what areas of research are eligible for support through this activity. Proposals are expected to adhere to typical proposal budgets and durations for the relevant CBET, CMMI, and ECCS programs and EPSRC Themes from which funding is sought.


NSFDCMPSDates
Proposal Due Date Changes for the Division of Mathematical Sciences (MPS)
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Deadline: varies by program
Award Amount: varies by program

The Division of Mathematical Sciences has changed the dates for submission of proposals to six of its programs. Principal Investigators may want to pay particular attention to those programs whose due dates are now earlier than in previous years:
These changes were made to improve internal efficiency and reduce turnaround time in award decisions. These date changes are effective immediately, so please be aware of these changes when preparing proposals to DMS.


NSFDCLD3SC
Data-Driven Discovery Science in Chemistry (D3SC)
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission 
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling; EAGER, RAISE, and supplemental funding requests can be submitted at any time but are encouraged by April 15, 2019, 5:00 pm, submitter's local time, to ensure timely consideration.
Award Amount:  varies by program type

This Dear Colleague Letter invites research proposals that utilize modern data science in the context of chemical and chemical engineering research. Successful D3SC proposals will emphasize  new information that can be obtained from better utilization of data (including data from multiple laboratories, techniques, and/or chemical systems), and how this can lead to new research directions . Proposals that foster and strengthen interactions among chemists and data scientists, and that jointly engage theory, modeling, and experimentation to advance research goals are strongly encouraged. The most competitive proposals will provide detailed discussion of specific data-enabled approaches to be used, the significant chemical problem to be studied, new fundamental chemical knowledge to be gained and the broader relevance of the proposed activities to other areas of chemical research. Proposal elements that consider error and uncertainty analysis, record and store appropriate metadata, and determine the robustness and reliability of data are encouraged. Examples of possible topics include (but are not limited to) using tools of data visualization, data mining, machine learning (including emerging approaches such as deep learning and active learning), or other data analysis approaches to:
  • Accelerate the discovery of homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysts with improved activity and selectivity, as well as the discovery of new catalytic transformations;
  • Advance the design of new chemical species and/or synthetic reactions, and forecast improved synthetic conditions;
  • Map the mechanisms by which chemicals interact and transform, both covalently and noncovalently, and predict structure/property relations based on existing chemical datasets;
  • Discover principles of multiscale organization underlying emergent chemical phenomena in macromolecular systems;
  • Enable real-time feedback loops between chemical data collection and processing for rapid identification and correlation of key events during chemical measurements;
  • Harness chemistry's rich, diverse but distributed datasets and identify novel ways of sharing and utilizing chemical data derived from multiple instruments, datatypes, and locations;
  • Develop innovative approaches for integrating, correlating, and analyzing chemical simulation or measurement data to provide new chemical insights.
Stimulating Educational Neuroscientific Research through the Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) Program
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Varies by award type
 
The   Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) program 
supports projects that provide new empirical insights, expand theoretical understanding, facilitate development of computational and bioengineered systems, promote new educational approaches, and generate new hypotheses that connect physical, biological, and cognitive mechanisms. With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), the National Science Foundation (NSF) seeks to stimulate work in educational neuroscience in the NCS program through foundational grants, noting that advances in neural systems can have significant implications for research on education. While the application period for the foundational component of this award has passed, NSF continues to accept applications on a rolling basis for capacity-building proposals through conference proposals and Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals. 
 

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (NSF: CISE)

 CISE_CICI 
NSF: CISE
Cybersecurity Innovation for Cybersecurity (CICI)
OSP Deadline: May 25, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 4, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $1,000,000 for up to 3 years (Secure Scientific Cyberinfrastructure and Research Data Protection); up to $5,000,000 for up to 3 years (Collaborative Security Response Center)
The objective of the Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program is to develop, deploy and integrate security solutions that benefit the scientific community by ensuring the integrity, resilience and reliability of the end-to-end scientific workflow. CICI seeks three categories of projects:
  1. Secure Scientific Cyberinfrastructure: These awards seek to secure the scientific workflow by encouraging novel and trustworthy architectural and design approaches, models and frameworks for the creation of a holistic, integrated security environment that spans the entire scientific CI ecosystem;
  2. Collaborative Security Response Center: This single award targets the development of a community resource to provide security monitoring, analysis, expertise, and the resources of a Research & Education (R&E) cyberinfrastructure staff, regardless of physical location or organization; and
  3. Research Data Protection: These awards provide solutions that both ensure the provenance of research data and reduce the complexity of protecting research data sets regardless of funding source.
Please Note: This is a limited submission opportunity. Interested applicants should contact Erin Hale at [email protected] prior to submitting a proposal.

NSFCISESAS
Smart and Autonomous Systems (S&AS)
OSP Deadline: July 24, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: July 31, 2018
Award Amount:  Foundational projects are anticipated to range from $300,000 to $600,000 in total costs for up to three years. Integrative projects are anticipated to range from $500,000 to $1,000,000 in total costs for up to four years.


The Smart and Autonomous Systems (S&AS) program focuses on Intelligent Physical Systems (IPS) that are capable of robust, long-term autonomy requiring minimal or no human operator intervention in the face of uncertain, unanticipated, and dynamically changing situations. IPS are systems that combine perception, cognition, communication, and actuation to operate in the physical world. Examples include, but are not limited to, robotic platforms, self-driving vehicles, underwater exploration vehicles, and smart grids. Most current IPS operate in pre-programmed ways and in a limited variety of contexts. They are largely incapable of handling novel situations, or of even understanding when they are outside their areas of expertise. To achieve robust, long-term autonomy, however, future IPS need to be aware of their capabilities and limitations and to adapt their behaviors to compensate for limitations and/or changing conditions.

To foster such intelligent systems, the S&AS program supports research in four main aspects of IPS: cognizant, taskable, adaptive, and ethical.  Cognizant IPS exhibit high-level awareness of their own capabilities and limitations, anticipating potential failures and re-planning accordingly.  Taskable IPS can interpret high-level, possibly vague, instructions, planning out and executing concrete actions that are dependent on the particular context in which the system is operating.  Adaptive IPS can change their behaviors over time, learning from their own experiences and those of other entities, such as other IPS or humans, and from instruction or observation.  Ethical IPS should adhere to a system of societal and legal rules, taking those rules into account when making decisions. Each of these research areas requires the IPS to be knowledge-rich, employing a variety of representation and reasoning mechanisms, such as semantic, probabilistic, commonsense, and meta-reasoning.

 
CISE_Initiative
Computer and Information Science and Engineering Research Initiation Initiative (CRII)
OSP Deadline: August 1, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: August 8, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $175,000 for up to 24 months 

With the goal of encouraging research independence immediately upon obtaining one's first academic position after receipt of the PhD, the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) will award grants to initiate the course of one's independent research. Understanding the critical role of establishing that independence early in one's career, it is expected that funds will be used to support untenured faculty or research scientists (or equivalent) in their first three years in a primary academic position after the PhD, but not more than a total of five years after completion of their PhD. One may not yet have received any other grants or contracts in the Principal Investigator (PI) role from any department, agency, or institution of the federal government, including from the CAREER program or any other program, post-PhD, regardless of the size of the grant or contract, with certain exceptions noted below. Serving as co-PI, Senior Personnel, Postdoctoral Fellow, or other Fellow does not count against this eligibility rule. Grants, contracts, or gifts from private companies or foundations; state, local, or tribal governments; or universities do not count against this eligibility rule. It is expected that these funds will allow the new CISE Research Initiation Initiative PI to support one or more graduate students for up to two years.

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences (NSF: MPS)
 MPS_RTG
NSF: MPS
Research Training Groups in the Mathematical Sciences (RTG)
OSP Deadline: May 29, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: June 5, 2018
Award Amount: Up to $500,000 per year for 3 to 5 years
 
The long-range goal of the Research Training Groups in the Mathematical Sciences (RTG) program is to strengthen the nation's scientific competitiveness by increasing the number of well-prepared U.S. citizens, nationals, and permanent residents who pursue careers in the mathematical sciences. The RTG program supports efforts to improve research training by involving undergraduate students, graduate students, postdoctoral associates, and faculty members in structured research groups centered on a common research theme. Research groups supported by RTG must include vertically-integrated activities that span the entire spectrum of educational levels from undergraduates through postdoctoral associates.

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Engineering (NSF: ENG)
 
ENG_ERC
NSF: ENG
Planning Grants for Engineering Research Centers (ERC) 
OSP Deadline: May 30, 2018 
Sponsor Deadline: June 6, 2018 
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 over one year
 
The Engineering Research Centers program is placing greater emphasis on research that leads to societal impact, including convergent approaches, engaging stakeholder communities, and strengthening team formation, in response to the NASEM study recommendations. The ERC program intends to support planning activities leading to convergent research team formation and capacity-building within the engineering community. This planning grant pilot initiative is designed to foster and facilitate the engineering community's thinking about how to form convergent research collaborations. To participate in the upcoming ERC competition, one is not required to submit a planning grant proposal nor to receive a planning grant.
 
Leading Engineering for America's Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure (LEAP HI)
OSP Deadline for Letters of Intent: July 9, 2018
Sponsor Deadline for Letters of Intent: July 16, 2018
OSP Deadline for Full Proposals: 5 business days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: September 1 - 17, 2018 (submission window)
Award Amount: $1,000,000 - $2,000,000 over up to 5 years 

The LEAP HI program challenges the engineering research community to take a leadership role in addressing demanding, urgent, and consequential challenges for advancing America's prosperity, health and infrastructure. LEAP HI proposals confront engineering problems that are too complex to yield to the efforts of a single investigator - problems that require sustained and coordinated effort from interdisciplinary research teams, with goals that are not achievable through a series of smaller, short-term projects. LEAP HI projects perform fundamental research that may lead to disruptive technologies and methods, lay the foundation for new and strengthened industries, enable notable improvements in quality of life, or re-imagine and revitalize the built environment.
  • LEAP HI supports fundamental research projects involving collaborating investigators, of duration up to five years, with total budget between $1 million and $2 million.
  • LEAP HI proposals must articulate a fundamental research problem with compelling intellectual challenge and significant societal impact, particularly on economic competitiveness, quality of life, public health, or essential infrastructure. One or more CMMI core topics must lie at the heart of the proposal, and integration of disciplinary expertise not typically engaged in CMMI-funded projects is encouraged.
  • LEAP HI proposals must highlight engineering research in a leadership role.
  • LEAP HI proposals must demonstrate the need for a sustained research effort by an integrated, interdisciplinary team, and should include a research integration plan and timeline for research activities, with convincing mechanisms for frequent and effective communication.
NSF:ENG
Other NSF: ENG Opportunities
National Science Foundation: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary

 CI_TRIPODS
NSF: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary
Partnerships between Science and Engineering Fields and the NSF TRIPODS Institutes (TRIPODS + X)
OSP Deadline: May 21, 2018
Sponsor Deadline: May 29, 2018
Award Amount: Proposers may request up to $600,000 total for Research Track awards; $200,000 total for Visioning Track awards; or $200,000 total for Education Track awards. For each track, the duration may be up to three years. Approximately 6-12 awards in each of three tracks are anticipated.

NSF's Directorates for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) and Mathematical & Physical Sciences (MPS) recently launched the Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science (TRIPODS) Phase I program with the goal of promoting long-term, interdisciplinary research and training activities that engage theoretical computer scientists, statisticians, and mathematicians in developing the theoretical foundations of data science.  Twelve TRIPODS Phase I Institutes were established in FY17. The Partnerships between Science and Engineering Fields and the NSF TRIPODS Institutes (TRIPODS + X) solicitation seeks to expand the scope of the TRIPODS program beyond the foundations community by engaging researchers across other NSF disciplines and the TRIPODS research teams in collaborative activities. TRIPODS + X projects will foster relationships between researchers in science & engineering domains and foundational data scientists by leveraging existing NSF investments in the TRIPODS organizations. Working in concert with a TRIPODS organization, a TRIPODS + X project would focus on data-driven research challenges motivated by applications in one or more science and engineering domains or other activities aimed at building robust data science communities. PIs are encouraged to submit proposals in response to three tracks: 1) Research Track: research activities motivated by applications in one or more science & engineering domains; 2) Visioning Track: workshops and conferences, innovation labs, and other community-building and direction-setting activities; and 3) Education Track: curriculum development and other education- and training-related activities.  

To be eligible, at least one PI or co-PI must represent a discipline other than mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science, and at least one PI or co-PI must be a PI, co-PI, or Senior Personnel of one of the 12 TRIPODS Phase I Institute projects initiated in FY 2017. Participation of PIs and co-PIs at institutions other than the TRIPODS awardee organizations is particularly encouraged and will receive priority consideration. Each TRIPODS Phase I organization may participate in at most five proposals. Each TRIPODS Phase I organization may participate in at most three proposals in any of the three tracks.

  NSF_CAREER
NSF: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary
Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER)
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: July 18, 2018 (BIO, CISE, EHR); July 19, 2018 (ENG); July 20, 2018 (GEO, MPS, SBE)
Award Amount: Details below
 
The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of early-career faculty who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advances in the mission of their department or organization. Activities pursued by early-career faculty should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from early-career faculty at all CAREER-eligible organizations and especially encourages women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities to apply.
 
The CAREER award, including indirect costs, is expected to total a minimum of $400,000 for the 5-year duration, with the following exceptions: Awards for proposals to the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), the Directorate for Engineering (ENG), or the Office of Polar Programs (OPP) are expected to total a minimum of $500,000 for the 5-year duration.
 
 
OtherNSFCross2 
Other NSF: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary Opportunities

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For assistance, please contact:

Erin Hale
Senior Research Development Officer
[email protected] | 617-496-5252

Jennifer Corby
Research Development Officer
[email protected] | 617-495-1590


Research Development | Research Administration Services | research.fas.harvard.edu