Vice President for Research & Economic Development
Proposal Services & Faculty Support
November Funding Focus Newsletter #1
What is a Limited Submission?
A limited submission solicitation (RFA, RFP, etc.) places a cap on the number of proposals that Auburn may submit to a sponsor. Auburn coordinates limited submissions by sending out a notification via this newsletter and creating competitions in the Auburn University Competition Space (also known as InfoReady).To apply to any limited submission posted below, click on the above link and search for your competition reflected on the page. Please refer to the Limited Submission Procedures page for a list of requirements.
Limited Submission Announcements

SPECA-funded projects encourage academic institutions, in partnership with organizations and employers to identify and address challenges facing the food and agricultural sciences education and workforce community. As noted in the 2016 National Academies (NAS) Press Report, Barriers and Opportunities for 2-Year and 4- Year STEM Degrees and the 2016 NAS workshop on Creating the Future Workforce in Food, Agriculture, and Natural Resources, the talent pipeline for the agriculture workforce begins well before college admission and a focus on secondary programs holds tremendous potential to increase not only the number, but the diversity of students entering baccalaureate programs, a requisite for the innovation needed in the food and agricultural sciences.

Program Category. Your project must support academic instruction with a primary focus in at least one of the following three K-14 Grade Levels:
  • Agriculture in the K-12 Classroom (AITC): Projects specifically developed by or for the state AITC program. (Note: A letter of support from the relevant state AITC organization endorsing your project, clarifying the absence of duplication with existing materials or projects, and explaining its implementation process into the academic system must accompany applications submitted in this Program Category)
  • Secondary School: Projects with a specific focus on any of the academic grades 9 through 12
  • Junior or Community College: Projects with a specific focus on associate degree level (2-year postsecondary) activities

Institutional Limit: 1 Proposal
Internal Deadline: November 13, 2020 4:45 pm
IMPORTANT UPDATES

In order to provide resources for faculty and staff, Auburn University has partnered with Hanover Research for a number of grant development solutions including: Pre-proposal Support; Proposal Development; and Capacity Building. Their full-service grant development solutions are available to set goals, build strategies to achieve key grantseeking objectives, and develop grant proposals that are well-planned, researched, and written. For information regarding Hanover’s core capabilities and project time lines,   click here .

Contact Tony Ventimiglia for more information on 2021 openings starting in January.
We need your help!

Our Funding Focus newsletter is sent out to Auburn University faculty and researchers with the goal of providing an assortment of funding opportunity announcements and information designed to help you reach your research goals. Please help us continue to improve our services to you by filling out this brief survey:
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FUNDING OPPORTUNITIES

Supports mathematical research in areas of science where computation plays a central and essential role, emphasizing analysis, development and implementation of numerical methods and algorithms, and symbolic methods. The prominence of computation with analysis and ultimate implementation efficiency of the computational methods in the research is a hallmark of the program. Proposals ranging from single-investigator projects that develop and analyze innovative computational methods to interdisciplinary team projects that not only create and analyze new mathematical and computational techniques but also use/implement them to model, study, and solve important application problems are strongly encouraged.

Proposals Due: December 1, 2020

The Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) program of the NSF Directorate for Engineering (ENG) serves a critical role in helping ENG focus on important emerging areas in a timely manner. This solicitation is a funding opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of researchers to embark on rapidly advancing frontiers of fundamental engineering research. For this solicitation, the sponsor will consider proposals that aim to investigate emerging frontiers in one of the following two research areas:
  • Distributed Chemical Manufacturing (DCheM)
  • Engineering the Elimination of End-of-Life Plastics (E3P)

Letter of Intent Due: December 9, 2020
Preliminary Proposal Due: January 5, 2021

The SCH program:
  • takes a coordinated approach that balances theory with evidenced-based analysis and systematic advances with revolutionary breakthroughs;
  • seeks cross-disciplinary collaborative research that will lead to new fundamental insights; and
  • encourages empirical validation of new concepts through research prototypes, ranging from specific components to entire systems.

The purpose of this interagency program solicitation is to support the development of technologies, analytics and models supporting next generation health and medical research through high-risk, high-reward advances in computer and information science, engineering and technology, behavior and cognition. Collaborations between academic, industry, and other organizations are strongly encouraged to establish better linkages between fundamental science, medicine and healthcare practice and technology development, deployment and use. This solicitation is aligned with national reports calling for new partnerships to facilitate major changes in health and medicine, as well as healthcare delivery and is aimed at the fundamental research to enable these changes. Realizing the promise of disruptive transformation in health, medicine and/or healthcare will require well-coordinated, multi-disciplinary approaches that draw from the computer and information sciences, engineering, social, behavioral, cognitive and economic sciences, biomedical and health research. Only Integrative proposals (INT) spanning up to 4 years with multi-disciplinary teams will be considered in response to this solicitation. 

Proposals Due: December 11, 2020

This program calls for innovative, convergent, boundary-crossing proposals that can best capture those opportunities and map out new research frontiers. NSF seeks proposals that pursue high-value scientific and technical risks by transcending the perspectives and approaches typical of disciplinary research efforts. This cross-directorate program is one element of NSF’s participation in the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative (https://www.nsf.gov/brain/). NSF envisions a connected portfolio of transformative, integrative projects that create synergistic links across investigators and communities, yielding novel ways of tackling the challenges of understanding the brain in action and in context.

The program focuses on four aspects of neural and cognitive systems that are current targets of converging interdisciplinary interests. NCS projects must advance the foundations of one or more of these focus areas, as described further within the solicitation:

  1. Neuroengineering and Brain-Inspired Concepts and Designs
  2. Individuality and Variation
  3. Cognitive and Neural Processes in Realistic, Complex Environments
  4. Data-Intensive Neuroscience and Cognitive Science

Proposals must address both risk and reward: high-risk, high-payoff approaches are expected. Proposals must also go beyond the scope of any NSF core program, or they will not be considered responsive to this solicitation.

NCS will consider two classes of proposals. FOUNDATIONS awards will support high-risk, high-payoff projects that advance the foundations of one or more NCS focus areas. FRONTIERS awards (FY2021 and FY2023 competitions only) will support ambitious, highly integrative, interdisciplinary projects that advance and connect multiple integrative research threads to tackle challenges that would be intractable without a high level of collaboration and coordination.

Community-driven efforts such as workshops or synthesis papers are also encouraged, to map out new frontiers at the interface of neuroscience and other disciplines that could reshape brain research and its applications.

LOI Due for FRONTIERS Proposals: December 15, 2020
Full Proposals Due: February 15, 2021

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of its Science to Achieve Results (STAR) program, is seeking applications proposing research that will address behavioral, technical and practical aspects of interventions and communication strategies to reduce exposures and/or health risks of wildland fire smoke.

Proposals Due: December 15, 2020

The History of Art Grants program supports scholarly projects that will enhance the appreciation and understanding of European works of art and architecture from antiquity to the early 19th century. Grants are awarded to projects that create and disseminate specialized knowledge, including archival projects, development and dissemination of scholarly databases, documentation projects, museum exhibitions and publications, photographic campaigns, scholarly catalogues and publications, and technical and scientific studies.

Grants are also awarded for activities that permit art historians to share their expertise through international exchanges, professional meetings, conferences, symposia, consultations, the presentation of research, and other professional events.

Proposals Due: December 15, 2020

The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is seeking participants for a pilot program designed to utilize modern connectivity to rapidly develop promising basic research pathways leading to basic research proposals. DSO’s intent is to fund research proposals resulting from this pilot program. As with other recent DARPA/DSO opportunity announcements, the goal of this program is to deliver research proposals that seek to investigate innovative approaches to enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. In particular, this announcement is intended to support the DSO mission to anticipate scientific surprise.

Proposals Due: December 31, 2020

The Media Projects program supports the development, production, and distribution of radio, podcast, television, and long-form documentary film projects that engage general audiences with humanities ideas in creative and appealing ways. All projects must be grounded in humanities scholarship and demonstrate an approach that is thoughtful, balanced, and analytical. The approach to the subject matter must go beyond the mere presentation of factual information to explore its larger significance and stimulate reflection. Media Projects offers two levels of funding: Development and Production.

Proposals Due: January 6, 2021

The U.S. Forest Service (Forest Service) requests proposals for projects that will substantially expand and accelerate wood products and wood energy markets throughout the United States to support forest management needs on National Forest System and other forest lands.

This Request for Proposal focuses on the Wood Innovations program goals:

  1. Reduce hazardous fuels and improve forest health on National Forest System and other forest lands.
  2. Reduce the costs of forest management on all land types.
  3. Promote economic and environmental health of communities.

Proposals Due: January 20, 2021
Proposal Services & Faculty Support
844-5929 / clc0165@auburn.edu