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The NASA Science Mission Directorate (SMD) Earth Science Division's Earth Venture (EV) activity is an important component of the Earth System Science Pathfinder (ESSP) Program. Earth Venture consists of a series of regularly solicited, competitively selected Earth Science investigations as recommended by the National Research Council's first decadal survey in Earth science, Earth Science and Applications from Space: National Imperatives for the Next Decade and Beyond (The National Academies Press, 2007, available at https://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11820).

The goal of the National Robotics Initiative is to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside, or cooperatively with, people. Innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of such co-robots acting in direct support of and in a symbiotic relationship with human partners is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The purpose of this program is the development of this next generation of robotics, to advance the capability and usability of such systems and artifacts, and to encourage existing and new communities to focus on innovative application areas. It will address the entire life cycle from fundamental research and development to manufacturing and deployment. 

On September 13, WBI will be hosting its 3rd OEA Collider Event, this time on the topic of Human Performance Enhancement. Please block your calendars from 1:30 till 3:30 and plan to join us to learn more about the opportunities within this massive market space. For the purposes of this project, we're defining Human Performance Enhancement like this: As the world becomes more complex, the demands on human performance continue to increase. Athletic endeavors, military requirements, continuing independence into one's later years are all examples of market-driven needs for human performance enhancement. Strength, speed, endurance, vigilance, multi-tasking, mental-acuity, and recovery are all enhancement opportunities of interest. Formal evaluation of blue papers will begin on approximately 17 October 2016. Wright Brothers Institute continues to work diligently on our pilot project to refine a commercialization process for regional innovators. In March we had an OEA Collider event focused on the Precision Agriculture market which has resulted in 8 Blue Paper submissions and 2 on-going projects to commercialize several of the concepts explained in those blue papers. We're making significant progress toward providing real market solutions with a combination of several innovative technologies!

The Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity (PFI:BIC) program supports academe-industry partnerships which are led by an interdisciplinary academic research team collaborating with a least one industry partner. In this program, there is a heavy emphasis on the quality, composition, and participation of the partners, including their appropriate contributions. These partnerships focus on the integration of technologies into a specified human-centered service system with the potential to achieve transformational benefits, satisfying a real need by making an existing service system smart(er) or by spurring the creation of an entirely new smart service system. The selected service system should function as a test bed. PFI:BIC funds research partnerships working on projects that operate in the post-fundamental/translational space; the proposers must be mindful of the state of the art and the competitive landscape. However, a clear path to commercialization does not need to be a central part of this proposal. These projects require additional effort to integrate the technology into a real service system, incorporating human factors considerations to assure the system's efficacy. The research tasks in turn might spawn additional discoveries inspired by this interaction of humans with the technology.

The Engineered Living Materials (ELM) program will develop design tools and methods that enable the engineering of structural features into cellular systems that function as living materials, thereby opening up a new design space for building technology.

Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE) is potentially interested in projects that integrate with the NASA field program intellectually and provide substantive advances in the basic scientific understandings of the "biological pump" or any associated biological, chemical, physical, or geological processes. NSF supported a workshop in February 2016 on the "Biology of the Biological Pump" at which basic research topics that could complement EXPORTS science were identified. OCE will consider additional aspects of the export system as well.

The goal of the National Robotics Initiative is to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside, or cooperatively with, people. Innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of such co-robots acting in direct support of and in a symbiotic relationship with human partners is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). The purpose of this program is the development of this next generation of robotics, to advance the capability and usability of such systems and artifacts, and to encourage existing and new communities to focus on innovative application areas. It will address the entire life cycle from fundamental research and development to manufacturing and deployment. Methods for the establishment and infusion of robotics in educational curricula and research to gain a better understanding of the long term social, behavioral and economic implications of co-robots across all areas of human activity are important parts of this initiative. Collaboration between academic, industry, non-profit and other organizations is strongly encouraged to establish better linkages between fundamental science and technology development, deployment and use.

Funding research in the manufacturing space in focus areas identified as major challenges is one way Walmart can facilitate and accelerate U.S. manufacturing. The Fund will achieve this goal through grants that directly support applied research projects advancing innovative solutions to key challenges that, once addressed, can lower the cost of making consumer products in the U.S. The Fund looks primarily at the following criteria: (1) impact on consumer product manufacturing, (2) stage of development and commercial viability, (3) degree of innovation, and (4) ability of the organization and team to successfully carry out the proposed project. Specific eligibility requirements are as follows: 1.      Only U.S. 501(c)(3) organizations and public universities that are instrumentalities of a state government are eligible for funding at this time* 2.     At least 50% of project teams must be based in the U.S. 3.     Project teams should seek sponsorship from the mayor of a USCM mayor when submitting full project proposals 4.     Proposed projects should address a technological innovation that can advance U.S. manufacturing. For the current RFP, we are seeking to support projects reducing the cost of producing textiles and apparel in the U.S. More specifically, we are seeking projects that address: Weaving Fabric dyeing Cut and sew 5.     Projects must have a budget exceeding $100,000 per year 6.     Overhead costs must not exceed 10% of total project budget 7.     Prospective grantees should demonstrate an ability to conduct the proposed product via expertise and/or past experience The Fund is currently not awarding grants for building or capital projects, supplier agreements, or other non-research projects.

The purpose of this FOA is to competitively solicit and award R&D projects that will meet the following Objectives: (1) advancing Intelligent Monitoring Systems (IMS) for monitoring, controlling, and optimizing CO2 injection operations. The implementation of a CCS-specific IMS should result in more efficient use of pore space, but also reduce the potential risk and provide mitigation options in real-time for Carbon Storage. And (2) advance diagnostic tools and methods capable of characterizing borehole leakage pathways or fluid flow in existing wells, and advance next-generation materials and methods for mitigating wellbore leakage.

The Division of Physics (PHY) supports physics research and education in the nation's colleges and universities across a broad range of physics disciplines that span scales of space and time from the largest to the smallest and the oldest to the youngest.  The Division is comprised of disciplinary programs covering experimental and theoretical research in the following major subfields of physics: Accelerator Science; Atomic, Molecular, Optical and Plasma Physics; Computational Physics; Elementary Particle Physics; Gravitational Physics; Nuclear Physics; Particle Astrophysics; Physics of Living Systems; Quantum Information Science; Education and Interdisciplinary Research.

The Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) Program supports the generation of extended time series of data to address important questions in evolutionary biology, ecology, and ecosystem science. Research areas include, but are not limited to, the effects of natural selection or other evolutionary processes on populations, communities, or ecosystems; the effects of interspecific interactions that vary over time and space; population or community dynamics for organisms that have extended life spans and long turnover times; feedbacks between ecological and evolutionary processes; pools of materials such as nutrients in soils that turn over at intermediate to longer time scales; and external forcing functions such as climatic cycles that operate over long return intervals. The Program intends to support decadal projects. Funding for an initial, 5-year period requires submission of a preliminary proposal and, if invited, submission of a full proposal that includes a 15-page project description. Proposals for the second five years of support (renewal proposals) are limited to an eight-page project description and do not require a preliminary proposal. Continuation of an LTREB project beyond an initial ten year award will require submission of a new preliminary proposal that presents a new decadal research plan.?? Successful LTREB proposals address three essential components: A Decadal Research Plan that clearly articulates important questions that cannot be addressed with data that have already been collected, but could be answered if ten additional years of data were collected. This plan is not a research timeline or management plan. It is a concise justification for ten additional years of support in order to advance understanding of key concepts, questions, or theories in environmental biology.Core Data: LTREB proposals require that the author has studied a particular phenomenon or process for at least six years up to the present or for long enough to gene

The Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB) Program supports the generation of extended time series of data to address important questions in evolutionary biology, ecology, and ecosystem science. Research areas include, but are not limited to, the effects of natural selection or other evolutionary processes on populations, communities, or ecosystems; the effects of interspecific interactions that vary over time and space; population or community dynamics for organisms that have extended life spans and long turnover times; feedbacks between ecological and evolutionary processes; pools of materials such as nutrients in soils that turn over at intermediate to longer time scales; and external forcing functions such as climatic cycles that operate over long return intervals.

Through this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), Department of Energy (DOE) seeks to fund the scale-up of promising solutions to the market barriers that hinder the growth of energy efficiency in the small and medium commercial buildings and tenant spaces. The objective of this funding is to build a path for market-ready solutions to be used at scale across the United States (US) to improve commercial building energy efficiency. 

Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity (PFI:BIC) supports academe-industry partnerships, which are led by an interdisciplinary academic research team collaborating with at least one industry partner in order to carry out research to advance, adapt, and integrate technology(ies) into a specified, human-centered smart service system. The selected service system should function as a technology test bed. Partnership projects are unrestricted as to domain knowledge and application areas and should be in the translational, pre-commercialization space, building on fundamental research discoveries with the objective of creating or transforming a "smart(er)" service system that has the potential for significant social and economic impact.

CubeSat constellations and swarms have been identified as a new paradigm for space-based measurements to address high-priority science questions in multiple disciplines. However, the full potential of CubeSat constellations and swarms for scientific studies has not yet been realized because of: i) the limitations of some of the existing key CubeSat technology, ii) knowledge gaps in the design and optimization of CubeSat technology for swarms and constellations, and iii) the increasing cost of more sophisticated CubeSat technology. The technology challenges include high bandwidth communications in CubeSat-to-CubeSat and CubeSat-to-ground scenarios, circuits and sensors miniaturization, on-board signal processing, and power generation. The vision of a satellite mission consisting of 10-100 CubeSats will require focused investment and development in a myriad of CubeSat-related technologies to build a cost-effective constellation or swarm of CubeSats. This will require transformative approaches for designing and building CubeSat subsystems and sensors, and innovative production approaches that will reduce the cost of implementing large-scale constellation missions. Spectrum allocations for data transmission and possible electromagnetic interference between or within constellations of CubeSats are issues that also will need to be considered.

The Spencer Foundation is accepting proposals for its Conference Grants program, which provides support to scholars for small research conferences and focused symposia. The program intends to bring together researchers whose substantive knowledge, theoretical insight, and methodological expertise can be assembled in ways that build upon and advance best practices in education research. The foundation rotates the programs area of focus periodically to generate fresh ideas and perspectives on pressing educational challenges. Currently, it is seeking proposals from scholars whose interests are related to creating and sustaining equitable educational spaces. The program will support conference proposals with budgets of up to $50,000. Principal investigators and Co-PIs applying for a conference grant must have earned a doctorate degree in an academic discipline or professional field, or demonstrate appropriate experience in an education research-related profession. In addition, the PI must be affiliated with a college, university, school district, nonprofit research facility, or non-profit cultural institution that is willing to serve as the fiscal agent if the grant is awarded.

CubeSat constellations and swarms have been identified as a new paradigm for space-based measurements to address high-priority science questions in multiple disciplines. However, the full potential of CubeSat constellations and swarms for scientific studies has not yet been realized because of: i) the limitations of some of the existing key CubeSat technology, ii) knowledge gaps in the design and optimization of CubeSat technology for swarms and constellations, and iii) the increasing cost of more sophisticated CubeSat technology. The technology challenges include high bandwidth communications in CubeSat-to-CubeSat and CubeSat-to-ground scenarios, circuits and sensors miniaturization, on-board signal processing, and power generation. The vision of a satellite mission consisting of 10-100 CubeSats will require focused investment and development in a myriad of CubeSat-related technologies to build a cost-effective constellation or swarm of CubeSats. This will require transformative approaches for designing and building CubeSat subsystems and sensors, and innovative production approaches that will reduce the cost of implementing large-scale constellation missions. Spectrum allocations for data transmission and possible electromagnetic interference between or within constellations of CubeSats are issues that also will need to be considered.

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is issuing a Disruption Opportunity (DO) Special Notice (SN) inviting submissions of innovative basic or applied research concepts in the technical domain of molecular scaffold design. Molecular Scaffold Design Collective (MSDC) will test a new model for materials design that pairs synthesis and formulation experts from different areas, reduces barriers to apply new ideas to a particular application space and explicitly considers formulation as part of molecular scaffold design.

The High Energy Physics (HEP) program in the Office of Science (SC), U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), hereby announces its interest in receiving interdisciplinary applications for open scientific research on Quantum Information Science (QIS) Enabled Discovery (QuantISED), for public benefit within the Congressionally-authorized mission space of HEP to understand how the universe works at its most fundamental level [1]. The QIS thrust within HEP has been developed over the last few years [2-4] and is aligned with a broader SC initiative in QIS and coordinated with various national and interagency programs [5] in QIS, including quantum computing and QIS technology. Transcending the traditional frontiers and thrusts of the HEP program, the QIS thrust exploits the interdisciplinary nature of QIS and associated partnerships for exploratory, early stage research for high impact discovery along HEP science drivers, foundational QIS, and the national QIS enterprise.

The NRL's Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) issued under the provisions of paragraphs 35.016 and 6.102(d)(2) of the Federal Acquisition Regulations (FAR). Proposals may range from theoretical studies to proof-of-concept to include fabrication and delivery of a prototype. However, this is limited to research procurements for which it would be impossible to draft an adequate RFP in sufficient detail without restraining the technical response and thus hindering competition rather than expanding it. BAA topics include all NRL sites located in the Washington, DC area, the Stennis Space Center, MS, and Monterey, CA. Proposals submitted in response to a BAA announcement that are selected for award are considered to be the result of full and open competition and are in full compliance with the provisions of Public Law 98-369, "The Competition in Contracting Act of 1984." NRL is interested in receiving proposals for the research efforts described under this BAA. This announcement is an expression of interest only and does not commit the Government to make any award or to pay for any proposal preparation costs. The cost of proposal preparation for response to a BAA is not considered an allowable direct charge to any resultant contract or any other contract; however, it may be an allowable expense to the normal bid and proposal indirect cost specified in FAR 31.205-18.