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or select your discipline:
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EPSCoR is an unlovely and perhaps unfamiliar acronym for those not steeped in funding opportunity jargon.
Originally the Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, it was designed to enhance the research competitiveness of targeted jurisdictions such as states, territories, and commonwealths by strengthening their research capacity and capability. The National Science Foundation (NSF), home of the first EPSCoR program, recently changed its program title to the
Established
Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, reflecting its ongoing mission.
Eligibility of jurisdictions to compete in the various federal agency EPSCoR programs is based on their levels of research funding from that agency.
Kansas is one of 25 jurisdictions currently eligible for the NSF EPSCoR program, which uses three major approaches to provide resources and achieve its goal:
- Four “tracks” of funding within the Research Infrastructure Improvement Program (more on these below);
- Co-funding with the NSF Directorates and Offices for supporting proposals to standard programs from investigators in EPSCoR jurisdictions; and
- Supporting workshops and outreach to familiarize research communities with NSF opportunities, priorities, programs, and policies.
The Research Infrastructure Improvement Program tracks provide awards that serve entire jurisdictions (Track 1), encourage collaboration across jurisdictions (Track 2), or foster the careers of untenured investigators (Track 4). Track 3 awards were offered only in 2013 and were intended to broaden participation of underrepresented groups in STEM.
Kansas has had significant success in recent years in the NSF EPSCoR program.
- K-State AMO Physics faculty collaborate with researchers from the University of Kansas and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln on the 2014–18 Track 2 award; University Distinguished Professor Itzhak Ben-Itzhak is the PI.
- K-State Division of Biology faculty member Jocelyn McDonald was awarded one of the new Track-4 grants, just announced today.
Congratulations to all of our EPSCoR investigators!
— Beth Montelone, senior associate vice president for research
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- The Kansas State University Research Foundation, or KSURF, is celebrating its 75th anniversary this month. Attend a reception to commemorate the occasion from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m. Thursday, September 21 in the K-State Alumni Center Tadtman Board Room. RSVP for the event.
- Celebrate National Research Administrator Day!
Research administrators across campus are invited to stop by the PreAward Services office in 2 Fairchild Hall from 8 a.m. to 10 a.m. on Monday, September 25, to celebrate with coffee and pastries! PreAward Services and Sponsored Programs Accounting would like to recognize and thank these professionals for all their work and support throughout the year.
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FY 2017 Research Awards Data
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A final report of research awards for fiscal year 2017 is posted on our
Research Awards page
. Report data indicate several successes that are worth highlighting.
- K-State faculty members submitted a record number of external funding proposals and requested an all-time record of $538,192,145.
- The 2,695 proposals marked a 30 percent increase over the previous year.
- We received a record number of awards — 1,486, or an 11 percent increase over the previous year — for a total of $139,316,722.
- The number of individuals engaged in awarded research increased by 5.9 percent over last fiscal year.
- The number of first-time awardees has increased 28.4 percent in the past five fiscal years.
- The number of multidisciplinary awards increased 2.4 percent since last fiscal year, with a 16.8 percent increase in the past five fiscal years.
K-State has also made significant progress in industry-funded projects. We realized a 19 percent increase in the number of projects funded by industry over the previous fiscal year, and we’ve seen that number grow by 80 percent in the last five years. We have successfully grown the number of
master research and service agreements from a total of seven five years ago to a high of 48 in the past five years, with 40 of those remaining active as of this report. These agreements indicate strategic, enduring alliances that have helped us build a nimble approach to project engagement.
K-State currently has active collaborations with more than 480 corporate sponsors.
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Agency news and trending topics
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In an effort to communicate program updates to the field, NSF Program Officers will lead a series of live webinars focused on topics specific to the AISL Program, new AISL program solicitation (
NSF #17-573
) and writing strong proposals. Parties interested in submitting a proposal to the AISL program are strongly encouraged to register and attend the webinars.
Researchers are at odds over when to dub a discovery 'significant'. In July, 72 researchers took aim at the
P
value, calling for a lower threshold for the popular but much-maligned statistic. In a response published on 18 September, a group of 88 researchers have responded, saying that a better solution would be to make academics justify their use of specific
P
values, rather than adopt another arbitrary threshold.
President Donald Trump has nominated Walter Copan, an expert in technology transfer, to be the director of the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which supports physical sciences research and operates labs in Gaithersburg, Maryland, and Boulder, Colorado. The 63-year-old Copan is a Ph.D. chemist and president and CEO of the Colorado-based Intellectual Property Engineering Group. He says his top priority for the agency is to implement the Cybersecurity Framework, a NIST-led effort to improve network security across federal agencies as well as industry.
ARPA-E will hold a workshop on "High Efficiency Hybrid Vehicles" on October 12-13, 2017 in the Southfield, Michigan area. The workshop will convene leading experts in hybrid electric vehicles, fuels, fuel cells, and combustion engines. These subject matter experts will identify innovative research necessary for the development of disruptive technologies that can significantly enhance the efficiency of a hybrid electric vehicle (HEV) relative to a conventional vehicle or today’s HEVs. Participants will lend their expertise in exploring possible technology research pathways, and to help set energy efficiency, performance and cost targets that can define a successful research program.
These are boom times for historians of the Vietnam War. One reason is resurgent public interest in a topic that had lost some of its salience in American life during the 1990s. At that time, the end of the Cold War and surging confidence about U.S. power seemed to diminish the relevance of long ago controversies and the need to draw lessons from America’s lost war. But then came the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq: grueling conflicts that, in key respects, resembled the war in Southeast Asia three decades earlier.
The
National Science Foundation and
18F are partnering to improve
NSF.gov for all visitors. Our goal is to make science-related information more accessible to the people who need it. To do that, we need to talk to people (like you!) who are interested in science news and recent advancements. Your insights will help us build a better site and increase awareness of scientific research and discovery.
Developing a personal work philosophy can help you allocate your most precious resource: time. “Work on important problems” is a good adage for starters. Beyond that, your research agenda may help you set limits. Maybe you are interested only in interdisciplinary research, or in projects that strike some balance between basic and applied research, or in pure research in a very narrow area. You can also use fun as a meter for accepting new projects or engaging in new collaborations, as I try to do. Regardless of your specific priorities, thinking through these types of questions early on can help you know when to say yes and when to politely decline.
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k-state.edu/research
researchweekly@k-state.edu
785.532.5011
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