NIFA initiates a new challenge area to address critical water resources issues such as drought, excess soil moisture, flooding, quality and others in an agricultural context. Funding will be used to develop management practices, technologies, and tools for farmers, ranchers, forest owners and managers, public decision makers, public and private managers, and citizens to improve water resource quantity and quality. NIFA's approach will link social, economic, and behavioral sciences with traditional biophysical sciences and engineering to address regional-scale issues with shared hydrological processes and meteorological and basin characteristics.

The BioWatch Program is a cornerstone of the Department of Homeland Security's (DHS) comprehensive strategy for countering biological terrorism. The BioWatch Program is an early warning system that is designed to detect the intentional release of select aerosolized biological agents. The BioWatch Program's mission is to provide and maintain a continuous bio-terrorism air monitoring system in metropolitan areas and coordinate with state and local public health communities to prepare for and respond to a bioterrorist event. This mission is accomplished by serving as an early warning system which enhances the security of jurisdictions by providing the needed time to execute their comprehensive concept of operations plans to counter biological terrorism. The Biowatch Program is a critical part of an ongoing national effort to build and sustain preparedness which helps the United States to maintain momentum through targeted jurisdictional planning that highlights preventative actions necessary to allow for a proper and timely response and begin the process to recovery from a biological agent release.

The AAAS Early Career Award for Public Engagement with Science, established in 2010, recognizes early-career scientists and engineers who demonstrate excellence in their contribution to public engagement with science activities. A monetary prize of $5,000, a commemorative plaque, complimentary registration to the AAAS Annual Meeting, and reimbursement for reasonable hotel and travel expenses to attend the AAAS Annual Meeting to receive the prize are given to the recipient.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) will issue, on behalf of the Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO), a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled ?Bioenergy Technologies Incubator?. BETO?s mission is to engage in research and development (R&D) and demonstration at increasing scale activities to transform renewable biomass resources into commercially viable, high-performance biofuels, and bioproducts and biopower that enable biofuel production. To accomplish this mission, BETO develops a strategic plan, or multi-year program plan , to identify the technical challenges and barriers that need to be overcome. However, BETO recognizes that there may be novel and potentially disruptive ideas that do not necessarily align well with BETO?s current multi-year program plan yet still meet the goals and mission of BETO. The Bioenergy Incubator Program is intended to identify these potentially impactful technologies and solutions that are not meaningfully addressed in BETO?s strategic plan or project portfolio. It is NOT intended to fund projects that are incremental improvements to current products or processes or for established work in BETO?s strategic plan or cur rent portfolio.

The objective of this Funding Opportunity Announcement is to competitively award applied Research and Development projects to advance low cost solid oxide fuel cell technology

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) encourages bioengineering applications that will accelerate the development and adoption of promising tools and technologies that can address important biomedical research problems. The objectives are to establish these tools and technologies as robust, well-characterized solutions that fulfill an unmet need and are capable of enhancing our understanding of life science processes or the practice of medicine. Awards will focus on supporting multidisciplinary teams that apply an integrative, quantitative bioengineering approach to developing these technologies and engage biomedical researchers or clinicians throughout the project. The goal of the program is to support projects that can realize meaningful solutions within 5-10 years.

The Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) Program is a Directorate-wide activity to support the development of a diverse and well-prepared workforce of engineering graduates, particularly those with advanced degrees. The BPE Program supports projects to engage and develop diverse teams that can offer unique perspectives and insights to challenges in engineering research and education.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to encourage applications to the newly authorized Direct-to-Phase II SBIR grant mechanism.  Applications are invited from eligible United States small business concerns (SBCs) that have demonstrated the scientific and technical merit and feasibility of the prototype stage of developing a biomedical technology that has commercial potential, R&D that is characteristic of Phase-I (R43) SBIR projects.  The Direct-to-Phase II grant mechanism is intended to facilitate SBIR-type R&D, to expand R&D opportunities for applicant small business concerns (SBCs), and to enhance the pace of technology development and commercialization.   

This award is designed to support young scientists just embarking on their independent research careers.  The applicants' research interests should be consonant with those of the March of Dimes' mission: The  Mission of the March of Dimes is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects, premature birth and infant mortality. The March of Dimes defines a birth defect as any abnormality of structure or function, whether inherited, or acquired in utero and presenting in infancy or early childhood. Deviations from reproductive health of women and men as an underlying basis of birth defects, i.e. preconceptional events, perinatal course, and premature births, are appropriate subjects for research support. Relevance is interpreted broadly to include fundamental cell biology (embryogenesis, cell lineage, differentiation), genetics and genomics, fundamental cellular and clinical pathogenesis of disorders of importance to mothers and infants, biomedical engineering and imaging, and social and behavioral aspects. Each application should be accompanied by a Letter of Support from a Nominator (see below). The award is $150,000 for two years, including 10 percent indirect costs to sponsoring institutions.

Pathway supports innovative basic, clinical, translational, epidemiological, behavioral, or health services research relevant to any diabetes type, diabetes-related disease state, or diabetes complication. The Association seeks exceptional candidates from a broad range of disciplines, including medicine, biology, chemistry, computing, physics, mathematics and engineering.

In 2013, a new NSF-funded petascale computing system, Blue Waters, was deployed at the University of Illinois.  The goal of this project and system is to open up new possibilities in science and engineering by providing computational capability that makes it possible for investigators to tackle much larger and more complex research challenges across a wide spectrum of domains.  The purpose of this solicitation is to invite research groups to submit requests for allocations of resources on the Blue Waters system. Proposers must show a compelling science or engineering challenge that will require petascale computing resources. Proposers must also be prepared to demonstrate that they have a science or engineering research problem that requires and can effectively exploit the petascale computing  capabilities offered by Blue Waters.  Proposals from or including junior researchers are encouraged, as one of the goals of this solicitation is to build a community capable of using petascale computing.

This Title III project shall create a viable domestic source capable of efficiently and cost effectively manufacturing a high yielding, reliable and reproducible tungsten - 3% rhenium wire meeting DoD and commercial Microwave Tube (MWT) Industry standards for use in vacuum tube electronics.

CCOM's Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) program is designed to create research experiences for undergraduate students who are interested in pursuing graduate work. SURF is aimed primarily at students who are working toward a degree in science, engineering, or math and are completing their junior year.

The U.S. Department of the Interior, Bureau of Reclamation (Reclamation), is currently requesting pre-proposals for the Desalination and Water Purification Research and Development Program (DWPR) for research and pilot scale projects aimed at increasing usable water supplies in the United States. The Water Desalination Act of 1996 laid the foundation for the DWPR program. This and the current Continuing Resolution are the authorizing legislation for this program. The purpose of the pre-proposal process is to give proposers the opportunity to receive feedback on their proposal ideas such that full proposal submission are better aligned to meet the desired outcomes of the DWPR program.

While geothermal power is an attractive potential source for sustainable energy production, the high heat temperature requirements (typically >150?C) of most geothermal capture systems constrain geographic distribution and economic viability of geothermal energy production. Advancement of strategic material or mineral recovery aims to address this limitation. By partnering with geothermal and mineral industry stakeholders to develop additional revenue streams from brines, the economic viability of geothermal projects will increase while also allowing for increased geographic diversity of this clean, round-the-clock energy source. Rare earths and strategic minerals are essential for modern industry, especially clean-energy technologies, but are subject to supply risk in the face of ever-increasing demand. As an example, consumer uses of lithium batteries have soared over the last decade, powering everything from electric cars to tablets to cell phones. Global demand for lithium carbonate is expected to exceed 250,000 tons by 2017?a 60% increase over current usage. As demand grows in this burgeoning market, a reliable supply of critical materials for advanced manufacturing technologies is a growing concern. This program aims to help alleviate this type of supply bottleneck. The Energy Department seeks up to ten 1-2 year feasibility and/or applied R&D projects that will lead to commercialized technologies. Geothermal mining of rare earth and near-critical metals are the focus of this research, with the intent to effectively lower the cost of geothermal energy production while diversifying and stabilizing the supply of critical materials for domestic industries.

Reducing risk through improved drilling success rates is critical to securing financing and ultimately lowering overall costs for developing geothermal power projects. This success hinges on knowledge of the geological, geophysical, and geochemical characteristics that indicate geothermal favorability; along with improved coverage of data that are signatures of the key properties of temperature, permeability, and fluid. To this end, GTO is interested in projects that apply innovative exploration technologies to collect new data and/or apply new analysis methods to extract new value from data. Successful applications will focus on one of the regions identified in GTO?s Data Gap Analysis, and include a significant component of uncertainty analysis that directly demonstrates potential or real impact on success rates. Projects should lead to the development of a Geothermal Play Fairway, which details a specific region constrained through a favorabl e combination of structural and hydrological conditions.

An "Ideas Lab" is a new merit review strategy being used at the National Science Foundation to address grand challenges in STEM research and education. The Ideas Lab process is modeled on the "IDEAS Factory" program http://www.epsrc.ac.uk/funding/routes/network/ideas/Pages/experience.aspx developed by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) of the United Kingdom. The Ideas Lab process starts with submission of a brief application to participate in the Ideas Lab, indicating a Principal Investigator's interest in and preliminary ideas regarding the specific Ideas Lab topic. A diverse sub-set of participants from a range of disciplines and backgrounds will be selected from the submitted applications by NSF and will be brought together in an intensive, interactive and free-thinking environment, where participants immerse themselves in a collaborative dialog in order to construct bold and innovative approaches. In the IDEAS Factory model, the five-day Ideas Lab culminates with the development of multidisciplinary collaborative concepts by teams of participants; a sub-set of these teams are then invited to submit full proposals. This Dear Colleague Letter only invites applications to participate in Phase I of the IUSE Ideas Labs (i.e., the 5-day immersive activity). Full proposals will not be invited at the end of the three IUSE Phase I Ideas Labs.

Projects selected under this FOA will develop characterization tools, technologies, and or methodologies that improve the ability to predict geologic storage capacity within 30 percent, improve the utilization of the reservoir by understanding how faults and fractures in a reservoir affect the flow of CO2, and ensure storage permanence.

The Particulate and Multiphase Processes program supports fundamental and applied research on phenomena governing particulate and multiphase processes, including flows of suspensions of particles, drops or bubbles, granular and granular-fluid flows, flow behavior of micro or nano-structured fluids, aerosol science and technology, and self- and directed-assembly processes involving particulates.  Innovative research is sought that contributes to improving the basic understanding, design, predictability, efficiency, and control of particulate and multiphase processes with particular emphasis on: novel manufacturing techniques, multiphase systems of relevance to energy harvesting, multiphase transport in biological systems or biotechnology, and environmental sustainability.  Collaborative and interdisciplinary proposals are encouraged; proposals that include a combination of experimental and theoretical approaches are more likely to receive funding than solely experimentally oriented work.  Highly reviewed projects generally demonstrate a strong scientific basis together with clear practical applications.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) intends to issue, on behalf of the Geothermal Technologies Office (GTO), a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled "Low Temperature Mineral Recovery Program." EERE's objective in this FOA is to promote the advancement of thermal energy processes capable of converting geothermal heat sources into power, in conjunction with the development or exploitation of technologies capable of capturing, concentrating, and/or purifying valuable materials contained within geothermal brines to economically extract resources that can provide additional revenue streams to geothermal operators. This targeted initiative of the GTO focuses on strategic mineral extraction as a path to optimize the value stream of low-to-moderate temperature resources.