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Critical infrastructures are the mainstay of our nation's economy, security and health. These infrastructures are interdependent. They are linked to individual preferences and community needs. For example, the electrical power system depends on the delivery of fuels to power generating stations through transportation services, the production of those fuels depends in turn on the use of electrical power, and those fuels are needed by the transportation services. Social networks, interactions, and policies can enable or hinder the successful creation of resilient complex adaptive systems. The goals of the Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) solicitation are to: (1) foster an interdisciplinary research community of engineers, computer and computational scientists and social and behavioral scientists, that creates new approaches and engineering solutions for the design and operation of infrastructures as processes and services; (2) enhance the understanding and design of interdependent critical infrastructure systems (ICIs) and processes that provide essential goods and services despite disruptions and failures from any cause, natural, technological, or malicious; (3) create the knowledge for innovation in ICIs so that they safely, securely, and effectively expand the range of goods and services they enable; and (4) improve the effectiveness and efficiency with which they deliver existing goods and services.

Critical infrastructures are the mainstay of our nation's economy, security and health. These infrastructures are interdependent. They are linked to individual preferences and community needs. For example, the electrical power system depends on the delivery of fuels to power generating stations through transportation services, the production of those fuels depends in turn on the use of electrical power, and those fuels are needed by the transportation services. Social networks, interactions, and policies can enable or hinder the successful creation of resilient complex adaptive systems. The goals of the Critical Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Systems and Processes (CRISP) solicitation are to: (1) foster an interdisciplinary research community of engineers, computer and computational scientists and social and behavioral scientists, that creates new approaches and engineering solutions for the design and operation of infrastructures as processes and services; (2) enhance the understanding and design of interdependent critical infrastructure systems (ICIs) and processes that provide essential goods and services despite disruptions and failures from any cause, natural, technological, or malicious; (3) create the knowledge for innovation in ICIs so that they safely, securely, and effectively expand the range of goods and services they enable; and (4) improve the effectiveness and efficiency with which they deliver existing goods and services.

As part of NSF's Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) activity, the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE), the Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), and the Office of Cyberinfrastructure seek to enable research communities to develop visions, teams, and capabilities dedicated to creating new, large-scale, next-generation data resources and relevant analytic techniques to advance fundamental research for the SBE and EHR areas of research.  Successful proposals will outline activities that will have significant impacts across multiple fields by enabling new types of data-intensive research.  Investigators should think broadly and create a vision that extends intellectually across multiple disciplines and that includes--but is not limited to--the SBE or EHR areas of research.

The Center for Cultural Diplomacy Studies (of the Academy for Cultural Diplomacy) offers educational and professional development opportunities for individuals interested in pursuing further education and careers in academia, diplomacy, government, and/or the private sector. The CCDS focuses in particular on exploring the  balance between hard and soft power, the process of globalization in an interdependent world, international economics & business multiculturalism, intercultural dialogue & exchange, human rights, religion, and the ability for culturally based initiatives to further mutual understanding and in turn to foster global peace and stability.

The U.S. Embassy in Amman is pleased to announce a call for proposals for the 2018 Ambassadors Fund for Cultural Preservation (AFCP). The Fund was established by the U.S. Department of State's Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in 2001, to help countries preserve their cultural heritage and to demonstrate U.S. respect for different cultures around the world. Floor on Amount of Individual Awards: US $10,000 per project. Ceiling on Amount of Individual Awards: $200,000 per project.

This BAA's primary objective is to attract outstanding researchers and scholars who will investigate topics of interest to the defense acquisition community. The program solicits innovative proposals for defense acquisition management and policy research to be conducted for approximately a 12-month period during the September 2013 through May 2015 timeframe. In this BAA, the phrase "defense acquisition management and policy research" refers to investigations in all disciplines, fields, and domains that (1) are involved in the acquisition of products and/or services for national defense, or (2) could potentially be brought to bear to improve defense acquisition. These include but are not limited to economics, finance, financial management, information systems, organization theory, operations management, human resources management, and marketing, as well as the "traditional" acquisition areas such as contracting, program/project management, logistics, and systems engineering management. The proposed research must provide through the dissemination of findings in a final Technical Report a public benefit beyond the potential to improve the efficiency, quality, innovation, and/or cost of DoD and DoN acquisition programs. Findings, for instance, should also be potentially applicable to improving private-sector competitiveness or effectiveness.

The Fellowship Program for Advanced Social Science Research on Japan is a joint activity of the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission (JUSFC) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Awards support research on modern Japanese society and political economy, Japan's international relations, and U.S.-Japan relations. The program encourages innovative research that puts these subjects in wider regional and global contexts and is comparative and contemporary in nature. Research should contribute to scholarly knowledge or to the general public's understanding of issues of concern to Japan and the United States. Appropriate disciplines for the research include anthropology, economics, geography, history, international relations, linguistics, political science, psychology, public administration, and sociology. Awards usually result in articles, monographs, books, digital materials, archaeological site reports, translations, editions, or other scholarly resources.

The U.S.-Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) seeks single-country proposals for its Local Grants program. The Local Grants program serves as MEPI's most direct means of supporting organizations and individuals in the Middle East and North Africa. These grants are designed to: * Promote positive change, advocacy, and civic activism; * Strengthen civil society; * Support citizen's efforts to achieve economic, social, and political empowerment; * Expand opportunities for women and youth; * Strengthen the rule of law; * Develop independent media; and * Help communities work alongside governments in shaping their own futures. MEPI's regional offices, located in the Middle East and North Africa, manage the program. For more information about MEPI's regional offices, or to contact them, visit: www.medregion.mepi.state.gov or www.arabianpeninsula.mepi.state.gov. A MEPI Committee at the U.S. Embassy or Consulate within each country of origin reviews all Local Grant proposals, and forwards only the most competitive proposals to one of MEPI's two regional offices to negotiate the awards. MEPI accepts proposals to this program on a rolling basis, but each U.S. Embassy or Consulate has a unique selection process for submissions. Applicants should ask the respective U.S. Embassies or Consulates about their selection processes before preparing their submissions.

AFOSR's Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) supports scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees no earlier than 01 January 2010 and showed exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering, enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators, and increase opportunities for the young investigators to recognize the Air Force mission and the related challenges in science and engineering. AFOSR is seeking unclassified proposals addressing the research areas of interest for the Air Force Research Laboratory. The basic research areas of current interest are available on-line in the current AFOSR BAA (BAA-AFRL-AFOSR-2015-0001): http://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=276388 For detailed information regarding technical goals, potential applicants are advised to refer to the announcement cited above and may contact AFOSR program managers listed therein to explore mutual interests before submitting proposals.

The Major Research Instrumentation Program (MRI) serves to increase access to shared scientific and engineering instruments for research and research training in our Nation's institutions of higher education, not-for-profit museums, science centers and scientific/engineering research organizations. The program provides organizations with opportunities to acquire major instrumentation that supports the research and research training goals of the organization and that may be used by other researchers regionally or nationally. Each MRI proposal may request support for the acquisition (Track 1) or development (Track 2) of a single research instrument for shared inter- and/or intra-organizational use. Development efforts that leverage the strengths of private sector partners to build instrument development capacity at MRI submission-eligible organizations are encouraged.

The U.S. Embassy in San Jose, Costa Rica announces a Notification of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to strengthen citizen security through economic and social opportunity. U.S. Embassy San Jose intends to issue five awards in an amount not to exceed $1,500,000 in total funding. The anticipated start date for this activity is September 30, 2016, and project periods should not exceed two years. This funding will support United States government objectives under the Central America Regional Security Initiative (CARSI). Within Central America (Belize, Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua, and Panama), the United States works with partner nations to strengthen institutions to counter the effects of organized crime, uphold the rule of law, and protect human rights. Institution building is coupled with prevention projects that dissuade at-risk youth from turning to crime and gangs and community policing projects that engage local communities on citizen security issues. U.S. Embassy San Jose invites qualified U.S. non-profit/non-governmental organizations (NGOs) having a 501(c)(3) status with the IRS or overseas-based NGOs, U.S. and overseas-based public and private institutions of higher education, and public international organizations to submit proposals that include an implementation strategy to address the following objective: Objective: Provide workforce development, education, or entrepreneurship opportunities designed to reduce poverty, particularly among youth and women, in historically marginalized and economically-disadvantaged communities. Proposals should help create safe streets by providing economic opportunities as attractive alternatives for at-risk populations that might otherwise turn to crime and illicit drugs for their livelihood. U.S. Embassy San Jose reserves the right to fund any or none of the applications submitted and will determine the resulting level of funding for the award.

The National Institute of Corrections (NIC) is seeking applications for funding under the Fiscal Year (FY) 2016. This program furthers NIC's mission by developing a curriculum for training staff within a local jurisdiction on responsivity issues for veterans that will build skills and improve outcomes for justice-involved veterans.

The American Educational Research Association is accepting applications for its AERA Minority Dissertation Fellowship in Education Research. The annual program provides support for doctoral dissertation research, to advance education research by outstanding minority graduate students, and to improve the quality and diversity of university faculties. The fellowship offers doctoral fellowships to enhance the competitiveness of outstanding minority scholars for academic appointments at major research universities. It supports fellows conducting education research and provides mentoring and guidance toward the completion of their doctoral studies. The dissertation study should focus on an education research topic such as high-stakes testing; ethnic studies/curriculum; tracking; STEM development; measurement of achievement and opportunity gaps; English-language learners; or bullying and restorative justice. Applicants can come from graduate programs and departments in education research, the humanities, or social or behavioral science disciplinary or interdisciplinary fields such as economics, political science, psychology, or sociology.

The purpose of the Mentored Quantitative Research Career Development Award (K25) is to attract to NIH-relevant research those investigators whose quantitative science and engineering research has thus far not been focused primarily on questions of health and disease. The K25 award will provide support and "protected time" for a period of supervised study and research for productive professionals with quantitative (e.g., mathematics, statistics, economics, computer science, imaging science, informatics, physics, chemistry) and engineering backgrounds to integrate their expertise with NIH-relevant research. This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is designed specifically for applicants proposing to lead basic science experimental studies involving humans, referred to in NOT-OD-18-212 as prospective basic science studies involving human participants. These studies fall within the NIH definition of a clinical trial and also meet the definition of basic research. Types of studies that should submit under this FOA include studies that prospectively assign human participants to conditions (i.e., experimentally manipulate independent variables) and that assess biomedical or behavioral outcomes in humans for the purpose of understanding the fundamental aspects of phenomena without specific application towards processes or products in mind. Studies conducted with specific applications toward processes or products in mind should submit under the companion PA-18-395.

The Institute for Research on Innovation and Science has issued a request for proposals to fund researchers who use IRIS data to address questions about the social and economic returns on investments in research. Grants of up to $30,000 will fund fundamental research on the results of public and private investments that support discovery, innovation, and education on U.S. university campuses.

The United States Department of State, Embassy in Brasília - Brazil, announces a notification of funding opportunity (NOFO) to support the development and implementation of an Afro entrepreneurship mentoring program in Sao Paulo with up to US$85,000 in FY2018 for a project period not to exceed two years. The preliminary start date for this activity is October 15, 2018, and one award is anticipated as a result of this NOFO. However, should both parties consider the results of this exchange to be positive - and also subject to availability of funds - we may agree to renew this NOFO for up to two additional years. We are seeking proposals for the development and implementation of an entrepreneurship mentoring program in Sao Paulo to connect Afro Brazilian and African American entrepreneurs and to promote capacity building activities to address strategies on market development, technology, and access to capital, job creation, and management

The American National Election Studies (ANES) produce high quality data from its own surveys on voting, public opinion, and political participation. The mission of the ANES is to inform explanations of election outcomes by providing data that support rich hypothesis testing, maximize methodological excellence, measure many variables, and promote comparisons across people, contexts, and time. The ANES serves this mission by providing researchers with a view of the political world through the eyes of ordinary citizens. The Political Science Program in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences expects to make two awards for the 2020 Presidential election cycle with the award to run from fiscal years 2018 to 2021. We anticipate that NSF will make two awards totaling no more than $11.5 million over four years. One will be for the traditional face-to-face survey. The second will be for a web-based survey. While these will be independent awards, the two awardees will be expected to work closely together. The expected start date is July 2018.

The landscape of jobs and work is changing at unprecedented speed, driven by the development of new technologies that have moved from the factory floor to an expanding array of knowledge and service occupations. These changes promise benefits to the Nation in the creation of new industries and occupations, increased productivity, opportunity for innovation, and sustained global leadership. But there are risks as well. Technological advances scale back the need for some workers, and in some cases, eliminate job sectors, with consequences to displaced workers who must adapt to emerging new technologies and the changing economy through retraining and reskilling. The Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier (FW-HTF) is one of 10 new and far-sighted Big Ideas for Future Investments announced by NSF in 2016. NSF aims to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the changing landscape of jobs and work by supporting convergent research to: understand and develop the human-technology partnership; design new technologies to augment human performance; illuminate the emerging socio-technological landscape and understand the risks and benefits of new technologies; and foster lifelong and pervasive learning with technology. In order to be nimble and responsive to new opportunities and challenges as they are recognized, focus areas for the FW-HTF solicitation, the centerpiece of the FW-HTF Big Idea, may change from year to year.

The National Institute for Health Care Management Foundation is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to improving the effectiveness, efficiency, and quality of the U.S. healthcare system. Since 2012, the foundation has awarded thirty grants totaling nearly $1.7 million to support innovative health services research in the areas of healthcare financing, delivery, management, and policy. To that end, the foundation is inviting Letters of Inquiry for its Investigator-Initiated Health Services Research Grants program. In this funding round, the foundation will award seven or eight grants totaling $400,000. Priority will be given to studies that address issues of broad significance for the U.S. healthcare system and that have high potential to produce timely results and reach key target audiences. Applications are accepted from individual researchers as well as from all types of organizations and institutions, including both nonprofit and for-profit entities. Multiple submissions are permitted from a single researcher, organization, or university department.

Family caregivers shoulder many emotional and economic burdens in the course of delivering care to loved ones. Their role however is essential. According to a 2018 report from bipartisan policy center the majority of long-term care services and supports comes from family caregivers with estimates reporting that family caregivers have provided $470 billion in care. Additionally, the same report cites a statistic that family caregivers aged 50 and over lose approximately $304,000 in income and benefits over the duration of their care. Consequently family caregivers are especially vulnerable to experiencing the devastating economic burdens of the provision of care. As such, the development and dissemination of training and information to improve and strengthen the financial literacy of family caregivers is paramount in efforts to help them maintain their caregiving duties while concurrently helping them better understand and prepare for the potential financial impacts associated with the provision of care. The target population to be served will be all eligible family caregivers as defined in Title III E of the Older Americans Act. The objectives for this new funding opportunity include:* Advance understanding of the need for and the available interventions to improve financial literacy among family caregivers, incluidng gaps found in existing interventions, and develop a stragety for addressing these needs

For this grant period, consideration will be given to project proposals focusing on the following themes: · Regional and Trans-Atlantic Cooperation · Entrepreneurship, Innovation, Economic Reform, Promotion of Trade, Women in STEAM · International Security, Counter Terrorism, and Defense Issues · Energy Security and Diversification · Digitalization, Cyber Security, and Artificial Intelligence · Countering Corruption, Good Governance, Strengthening Rule of Law, and Transparency · Independent Media and Investigative Journalism · Human Rights (to include tolerance, respect for diversity, and support for historically marginalized communities.) · Youth Engagement, Volunteerism, and Active Citizenship · Environmental Preservation and Sustainability What are we looking for in a proposal? · Programs that build and enhance relationships between Slovenia and the United States through bilateral cooperation, highlight shared values, and promote mutual understanding. · Sustainable projects with strong merit and clearly defined goals and outcomes. · Projects that include acknowledgement of U.S. Embassy support and a plan to amplify our cooperation via traditional or digital media.