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The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering (ENG), Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI)continually seeks to further the progress in EFRI topic areas while broadening participation of underrepresented groups in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) fields. This letter seeks to call your attention to an opportunity to pursue both of these goals through supplements to active EFRI research awards. Awardees with active EFRI research grants may apply for supplemental funding for this Research Experience and Mentoring (REM) program. REM funding will support costs associated with bringing Research Participants (RPs) into the laboratory over the summer to participate in research aligned with the EFRI-supported research goals. REM funds may also be used to extend the duration of structured mentoring into the academic year.

The objective of this program is to develop such tools with the broadest possible impact to the community of suppliers and end-users of CMCs. Specifically, modeling tools are sought that: (a) allow for optimization of microstructure and/or meso-structural properties relevant to quality and durability, (b) are capable of being integrated with models for assessing mechanical behavior, (c) are appropriately verified and validated with coupon or subcomponent/feature tests, and (d) have a clear transition path to impacting CMCs for US Air Force applications.

The Biomaterials program supports fundamental materials research related to (1) biological materials, (2) biomimetic, bioinspired, and bioenabled materials, (3) synthetic materials intended for applications in contact with biological systems, and (4) the processes through which nature produces biological materials.  Projects are typically interdisciplinary and may encompass scales from the nanoscopic to the bulk.  They may involve characterization, design, preparation, and modification; studies of structure-property relationships and interfacial behavior; and combinations of experiment, theory, and/or simulation.  The emphasis is on novel materials design and development and discovery of new phenomena.

The Sensors, Dynamics, and Control (SDC) program supports fundamental research on the analysis, measurement, monitoring and control of complex dynamical and structural systems, including development of new analytical, computational and experimental tools, and novel applications to engineered and natural systems. Program objectives are the discovery of new phenomena and the investigation of innovative methods and applications for dynamics, measurement, and control. Transformative research on complex networks, linear and nonlinear discrete or infinite dimensional systems spanning a multitude of time and length scales and physical domains are of interest, as are highly interdisciplinary projects and projects addressing security, resilience and sustainability. Basic research strongly motivated by industry needs or other real-life applications is welcome.The SDC program supports fundamental research on the theories of dynamical systems to uncover novel paradigms for modeling, control and analysis of dynamic phenomena and systems that undergo spatial and temporal evolution with applications crossing interdisciplinary boundaries, along with fundamental studies on stability, phase transitions, and wave propagation in complex and non-local media. Furthermore, the program supports fundamental research on monitoring, analysis, and decision-making processes for integrity monitoring, sensors reliability and safety of complex engineered systems, especially under conditions of uncertainty. Of interest is the investigation of big data (high-volume and high-speed) issues related to virtually-continuous streams of measurements from heterogeneous sensors for continuous systems monitoring. The SDC program also includes fundamental research on control theory and its applications. Topics of current interest include unconventional applications of control; the combined roles of feedback, feedforward and uncertainty; integrated feedback, communication and signal processing; and control conc

The nuclear theory program encompasses the structure and reactions of nuclei, and of hadrons in few-nucleon and nuclear environments, and the quark/gluon substructure expressed by QCD.  Supported research includes contributions to broad theoretical advances as well as model building and applications to experimental programs at facilities such as NSCL, RHIC and Jefferson Laboratory, and to astrophysical phenomena. This includes formulating new approaches for theoretical, computational, and experimental research that explore the fundamental laws of physics and the behavior of physical systems; formulating quantitative hypotheses; exploring and analyzing the implications of such hypotheses analytically and computationally; and, in some cases, interpreting the results of experiments. Some awards are co-funded with other programs in the Physics Division and in other divisions.

Through the CRCNS program, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF), the French National Research Agency (Agence Nationale de la Recherche, ANR), and the United States-Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF) support collaborative activities that will advance the understanding of nervous system structure and function, mechanisms underlying nervous system disorders, and computational strategies used by the nervous system.

The Energy, Power, and Adaptive Systems (EPAS) program invests in the design and analysis of intelligent and adaptive engineering networks, including sensing, imaging, controls, and computational technologies for a variety of application domains. EPAS places emphasis on electric power networks and grids, including generation, transmission and integration of renewable, sustainable and distributed energy systems; high power electronics and drives; and understanding of associated regulatory and economic structures. Topics of interest include alternate energy sources, the Smart Grid, and interdependencies of critical infrastructure in power and communications. The program also places emphasis on energy scavenging and alternative energy technologies, including solar cells, ocean waves, wind, and low-head hydro. In addition, the program supports innovative test beds, and laboratory and curriculum development to integrate research and education.  EPAS invests in adaptive dynamic programming, brain-like networked architectures performing real-time learning, neuromorphic engineering, telerobotics, and systems theory. The program supports distributed control of multi-agent systems with embedded computation for sensor and adaptive networks. EPAS provides additional emphasis on emerging areas, such as quantum systems engineering, quantum and molecular modeling and simulation of devices and systems.

The Biotechnology, Biochemical, and Biomass Engineering (BBBE) program supports fundamental engineering research that advances the understanding of cellular and biomolecular processes (in vivo, in vitro, and/or ex vivo) and eventually leads to the development of enabling technology and/or applications in support of the biopharmaceutical, biotechnology, and bioenergy industries, or with applications in health or the environment.  Quantitative assessments of bioprocesses are considered vital to successful research projects in the BBBE program.  Fundamental to many research projects in this area is the understanding of how biomolecules and cells interact in their environment, and how those molecular level interactions lead to changes in structure, function, phenotype, and/or behavior.  The program encourages proposals that address emerging research areas and technologies that effectively integrate knowledge and practices from different disciplines, and effectively incorporate ongoing research into educational activities. Research projects of particular interest in BBBE include, but are not limited to: Metabolic engineering and synthetic biology Quantitative systems biotechnology Tissue engineering and stem cell culture technologies Protein engineering/protein design Development of novel "omics" tools for biotechnology applications

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 purpose of this FOA is to encourage research that will advance our understanding of the temporomandibular joint (TMJ) in health and disease and to stimulate research that complements previous efforts and focuses on the biology of joint function and the tissues that make up the TMJ. A better understanding of total joint structure and mechanics including the interactions of the skeletal, muscular, nervous, immune, and circulatory systems using new in vivo and in vitro models is needed. An expected outcome of this FOA is new knowledge that will provide a basis for developing novel approaches to prevent, diagnose, assess risk, and treat temporomandibular joint disorder (TMD).

The competition for individual sites will be for consideration of large and small university-based user facilities, including those at minority-serving institutions, that are geographically distributed and with diverse and complementary capabilities to support current and anticipated future user needs across the broad spectrum of nanoscale science, engineering, and technology domains. The selected individual sites will have autonomy in their operation and management, but will be required to act in concert with a Coordinating Office that will be separately competed and chosen at a later stage. Some sites may choose to partner with facilities at regional or smaller institutions that would bring specific capabilities for users and benefits to student training. The overall collection of selected sites and their capabilities will provide users with cost-effective access both to the specialized tools, processes, and expertise to support complex multi-step fabrication at the nanoscale level for structures, materials, devices, and systems, as well as to the associated instrumentation for characterization, analysis, and probing at these dimensions. The program aims to make these capabilities broadly available to the nation's researchers in academe, industry, and government to help catalyze new discoveries in science and engineering and to stimulate technological innovation.

The goals of the Engineering for Natural Hazards (ENH) program are to prevent natural hazards from becoming disasters, and to broaden consideration of natural hazards independently to the consideration of the multi-hazard environment within which the constructed civil infrastructure exists. The ENH program, PD 15-7396, replaces the annual George E. Brown, Jr. Network for Earthquake Engineering Simulation (NEES) research (NEESR) program solicitations to enable proposal submissions during the two CMMI unsolicited proposal submission windows each year, with the due dates shown above, and to support fundamental research for a broader range of natural hazards, including earthquakes, windstorms (tornadoes and hurricanes), tsunamis and landslides. The ENH program also supports natural hazards engineering research that had been supported under the Hazard Mitigation and Structural Engineering Program (HMSE) (PD 13-1637) and the Geotechnical Engineering (GTE) Program (PD 12-1636). 

The Materials Engineering and Processing (MEP) program supports fundamental research addressing the processing and mechanical performance of engineering materials by investigating the interrelationship of materials processing, structure, properties and/or life-cycle performance for targeted applications. Materials processing proposals should focus on manufacturing processes that convert material into useful form as either intermediate or final composition. These include processes such as extrusion, molding, casting, deposition, sintering and printing.

The Defense Sciences Office at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals that will enable and demonstrate new design capabilities for complex adaptive systems. Proposed research should develop and/or exploit innovative approaches in mathematical abstraction and composition for the design of dynamic, adaptive and resilient systems with unified understanding of system structures, behaviors and interactions across multiple spatiotemporal scales.

The Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) Program is a Directorate-wide initiative dedicated to supporting the development of a diverse and well-prepared engineering workforce. Across every educational juncture (e.g., elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels), efforts to improve engineering interests, preparation, connections, experiences, and opportunities among underrepresented groups is of major importance to BPE. BPE is interested in funding projects that bring together multiple groups (e.g., school districts, community colleges, engineering schools, industry, philanthropy, government, etc.) and offer the greatest return on investment by producing outcomes that are scalable, sustainable, and applicable to various contexts, settings, and demographics within the engineering enterprise. For example, it is interested research projects thathelp us to analyze and understandthe problem of insufficient interest and poorly sustained participation in engineering across underrepresented demographic groups; insignificant preparation and scarce opportunities for members of underrepresented demographic groups to learn meaningful, relevant engineering and other STEM-related content; insufficient access to support systems and social networks that raises career awareness about different engineering pathways among underrepresented groups; and structural inequalities and biases within educational and workforce systems that may influence engineering persistence.

EarthCube is a community-driven activity to transform the conduct of geosciences research and education, sponsored through a partnership between the NSF Directorate of Geosciences and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering. EarthCube aims to accelerate the ability of the geosciences community to understand and predict the Earth system by enabling access to geosciences data. EarthCube will require a long-term dialog between NSF and the interested scientific communities to develop new modes for sharing data that is thoughtfully and systematically built to meet the current and future needs of geoscientists. This solicitation seeks the services of a qualified organization to act as the EarthCube Office. This organization will provide the services required to maintain and manage the community governance structures andto carry out activities consistent with EarthCube priorities as guided by community governance. The award, to be administered as a Cooperative Agreement, is intended to cover an initial 3-year period.

NineSigma, representing a Global Leader in medical devices, invites proposals for technologies that can create micron scale structures on metal surfaces. The challenge is to obtain a robust micropatterned surface with a high aspect ratio that can maintain the surface characteristics in a high pressure, high temperature environment.  The approach must be applicable to curved (non planar) metal surfaces. Microstructures on the surfaces of medical devices have many advantages for the various medical application. Surface patterning imparts critical functional features to the device, such as anti-fouling, hydrophobicity, adhesion, etc. The RFP sponsor is seeking innovations that allow creating precise microstructured patterns on non-planar metal surfaces.

Every organization that intends to submit a proposal in response to ROSES-2018 must be registered with NSPIRES; organizations that intend to submit proposals via Grants.gov must be registered with Grants.gov, in addition to being registered with NSPIRES. Such registration must identify the authorized organizational representative(s) (AOR) who will submit the electronic proposal. All Principal Investigators (PIs) and other participants e.g., Co-Investigators (Co-Is) must be registered in NSPIRES regardless of the submission system. Potential proposers and proposing organizations are urged to access the system(s) well in advance of the proposal due date(s) of interest to familiarize themselves with its structure and to enter the requested information.

The Common Fund Program - Accelerating Translation of Glycoscience: Integration and Accessibility - aims to develop accessible and affordable new tools and technologies for studying carbohydrates that will allow biomedical researchers to significantly advance our understanding of the roles of these complex molecules in health and disease. This program will enable investigators who might not otherwise conduct research in the glycosciences, to undertake the study of carbohydrate structure and function.

The HVSI funds and performs a range of hypersonic research tasks in support of the Department of Defense (DoD) High Performance Computing Modernization Program (HPCMP). HPCMP desires to improve computational simulations of hypersonic vehicles in support of DoD goals by accelerating the successful development of HPC software and hardware. The HVSI will be looking to improve computational simulation approaches including numerical methods, modeling approaches, and simulation of a variety of aerothermodynamic and propulsion aspects of hypersonic flight. Specific science and technology areas include turbulence, boundary layer transition, fluid-structure-thermal interactions, non-equilibrium chemistry, ablation, and combustion.