The National Science Foundation’s EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Track 4: EPSCoR Research Fellows provides awards to build research capacity at institutions and transform the career trajectories of investigators — both at the assistant and associate levels) by further developing their individual research potential through collaborations (often 3 summer months in two successive years — with investigators from the nation's premier private, governmental, or academic research centers.  Through these visits, fellowship awardees will be able to learn new techniques, develop new collaborations or advance existing partnerships, benefit from access to unique equipment and facilities, and/or shift their research toward potentially transformative new directions.

This is a limited submission program and K-State is allowed only four submissions. Thus, if you are interested in submitting to this program you must notify the Office of Research Development, or ORD, by 5 p.m., Jan. 16 via ordlimitedsubs@k-state.edu. Your notification should include a 2- to 3-sentence description of your project plus the names of your anticipated host and host institution. If ORD receives more than four notifications, an internal competition will be needed with preproposals due by 5 p.m. on Feb. 7. While specific instructions will be given to the notifiers for the preproposal, they will closely follow the instructions from last year which can be found at EPSCoR Track 4 Guidelines. The Track 4 proposal itself is due to NSF by 5 p.m. on April 9.

BioMADE is pleased to issue Project Call 4.0, Accelerating Biomanufacturing Innovation: Advancing Solutions for Greener Chemistry, Low-Resource Environments, and Process Intensification. White Paper submissions for projects that contribute to building a sustainable, domestic, end-to-end bioindustrial manufacturing ecosystem are now being accepted. 

Project Call 4.0 will follow a unique format, focusing on a set of cross-disciplinary solutions that advances biomanufacturing innovation. The focus areas are topic-specific and should advance bioindustrial manufacturing to support diverse applications, including alternative proteins, cultivated meat, feedstocks, additives, specialty chemicals, ingredients, and other product categories. The focus areas are: 

• Accelerate the transition to greener chemistry 
• Develop biomanufacturing solutions for low-resource environments 
• Process integration and process intensification  

Successful proposals will describe in detail how the project aligns with the focus area(s). Projects must also align to a minimum of one BioMADE program area: Technology and Innovation, Education and Workforce Development, and/or Safety, Security, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility. However, incorporating more than one program area into a project is highly encouraged and will be scored more favorably during the review process.  

Technology and Innovation

Projects that have a Technology and Innovation component should address at least one of the project call focus areas within Biomanufacturing Readiness Levels 4-7, as well as align with BioMADE’s Technical Roadmap. The Technical Roadmap is a strategic plan organized around a set of technical landmarks that, when reached, will strengthen the foundation of bioindustrial manufacturing in the United States. The Roadmap includes an in-depth explanation of BioMADE’s Technical Modules, a set of Representative Production Scenarios for biomanufacturing, and a prioritized list of technical needs by Innovation Area and Production Scenario.  

The Technical Roadmap is available to BioMADE members as a member benefit.

Education and Workforce Development

Successful Education & Workforce Development submissions will include innovative strategies to meet and exceed the challenge of preparing the future bioindustrial manufacturing workforce. All proposed work must demonstrate substantive industry investment in the proposed activities and clear pathways resulting in career employment. Proposals must align with BioMADE’s Education and Workforce Development Blueprint, Building National Capacity for Bioindustrial Manufacturing. The Blueprint serves as a strategic driver for sustainable, national, systems-level change for workforce development. 

The Education & Workforce Development Blueprint is available to BioMADE members as a member benefit.

Safety, Security, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility

Safety, Security, Sustainability, and Social Responsibility, or 4S, projects should address how the effort upholds related ethical principles and demonstrates how they advance one or more of these 4S components (see Appendix B in the full Project Call). This may include work or research which promotes the protection of workers, consumers, the public or environments from harm, manages potential threats of misuse, contributes to the long-term viability of our economy or environment, or improves societal welfare by creating positive outcomes for stakeholders, communities, or the public. 

More Information and Questions

Find answers to frequently asked questions about project funding here. For questions about the submission process or to set up an optional meeting with a Program Manager to discuss your idea, reach out to proposals@biomade.org. 

Read all Project Call details.

Last week, the Office of Management and Budget released a draft memorandum for federal agencies to implement President Biden’s executive order on artificial intelligence. The memorandum, applicable to federal agencies, puts forward requirements and guidance for AI governance, innovation, and risk management. 

The UIDP community — of which K-State is a part — has significant expertise in this technology area and is invited to respond to the call for public comment by Dec. 5, 2023.

Submit comments.

The Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention, or PIPP, Working Group at the National Science Foundation is seeking to identify possible panelists and their availability for the PIPP Phase II Centers competition. For that reason, we are conducting a short voluntary survey of those we believe may be valuable panelists and interested in participating. We would be grateful if you fill out the survey and consider being a panelist if you are not already taking part in the PIPP Phase II competition.

PIPP Phase II Panelist Survey

Panels will be held virtually on specific dates in February and March 2024. We expect each panel member to read and write reviews for approximately 6 full proposals. These reviews will be due about one week before the panel. Please hold the dates that you signed up for and assume you will be a panelist. You will be notified whether you have been selected for a panel no later than January 10th, 2024.   

In addition to finding panelists for PIPP Phase II, we would like to save your contact information and areas of expertise to help us find panelists and ad hoc reviewers in the future. For any questions or requests, please contact us at PIPP@nsf.gov.  

The National Institutes of Health Clinical and Translational Science Institute at the University of Kansas Medical Center, Frontiers Informatics is seeking presenters at their next professional development opportunity from 4-6 p.m., on Thursday, Dec. 14. This opportunity provides professional development, networking, and the chance to display the success of your projects to others in the research community. If you would like to give a presentation, please sign up here or if you would like to join this exciting opportunity to connect with each other and our Frontiers Informatics colleagues, please register for the zoom webinar.

All are invited to attend a professional development opportunity and it is not limited to informatics research. All are invited to join this listening session where we will give exciting presentations and discuss how Informatics has contributed to the success of research projects.

Save the Date! Join the National Science Foundation for the Fall 2023 NSF Virtual Grants Conference, to be held during the week of December 4-7, 2023.

Registration will be free of charge and opens on Wednesday, Nov. 8 at 11 a.m. Be on the lookout for the Registration is Open email, which will provide the registration links and details for this event.

In the meantime, please feel free to check nsfpolicyoutreach.com for the most up-to-date information and view recordings of sessions from previous conferences. You may also view the Spring 2023 Virtual Grants Conference recordings on our YouTube page. For those who cannot attend the live conference, all recorded conference sessions will be available on-demand shortly after the event and posted on our website and our YouTube page.

If you have any logistical questions about this virtual conference, please contact us at: grants_conference@nsf.gov

The IRES Program Team is hosting a series of Virtual Office Hours aimed at giving potential PIs an opportunity to ask questions.  Office Hours will be held on most Monday afternoons at noon starting November 27 and ending on January 29, during which any questions about the program can be asked and discussed.  

Please feel free to attend the session which best fits your schedule.

Learn more and attend a session.

Join this Partnerships for Innovation, or PFI, Q&A webinar to learn about the PFI program. During the webinar, you will have the opportunity to ask questions about the PFI program and what to expect for the submission deadline.

Register to attend.

ExpandAI Office hours are provided for your convenience. NSF Program Directors representing different categories of MSIs will be available on the days and times listed to answer your questions about the program. Feel free to join/leave at any point during the meeting.

Learn more and join a meeting.

Saturday January 13, 2024

Sunday January 14, 2024

Hilton Garden Inn, Manhattan, Kansas

The K-INBRE annual symposium is back once again, and we are excited to bring together students, faculty and staff from our 10 universities in Kansas and Oklahoma.

Register to attend by December 1.

Submit abstracts by December 1.

Symposium Schedule

Please contact Heiata Chapman or Clare Frantz with any questions.

Mapping science: How GIS transformed our view of the world

An NSF investment 35 years ago helped chart the course for geographic information sciences — defining a field of study that crosses disciplinary boundaries and has the potential to shape society's approach to building a sustainable future. NSF

The appearance of a “tropical” mosquito-borne illness in southeastern Australia has unsettled researchers

Construction supervisor Jack McCann started to feel “a bit crook”—that’s “sick,” in Australian slang—on the hot afternoon of 26 February 2022. He and some buddies had just finished laying a fireplace hearth in his backyard in Corowa, Australia, population 5500. His friends suggested a trip to the pub. McCann, then 30, told them he needed to beg off. “Usually, I would have been the first one there,” he says. Science

Hundreds of Dogs Across the U.S. Are Falling Ill With Unknown Respiratory Illness

Dogs in a handful of states across the country are coming down with an unknown respiratory illness that has been fatal in some instances, Today.com’s Maura Hohman reports. Cases have been reported officially or anecdotally in Oregon, Colorado, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, California, Indiana, Illinois, Washington, Idaho, Georgia and Florida. Veterinarians tell the New York Times’ Rebecca Carballo that they’ve seen more dogs with these symptoms in the past few months, although Stephen Kochis, chief medical officer for the Oregon Humane Society, says they are “not seeing an uptick in respiratory disease outside of the ordinary expectation for pets that would get respiratory disease.” Experts are unsure what is causing the illness. Smithsonian

How Many Microbes Does It Take to Make You Sick?

For a pathogen to make us sick, it must overcome a lot. First it has to enter the body, bypassing natural barriers such as skin, mucus, cilia, and stomach acid. Then it needs to reproduce; some bacteria and parasites can do this virtually anywhere in the body, while viruses and some other pathogens can only do so from within a cell. And all the while, it must parry attacks from the body’s immune system. Wired

k-state.edu/research

researchweekly@k-state.edu

785.532.5110