The Keck Futures Initiative - a program of the National Academy of Sciences, National Academy of Engineering, and Institute of Medicine, with the support of the W.M. Keck Foundation - will award four $20,000 prizes in 2013 to individuals or teams (up to four individuals associated with the creation of the work being nominated) who have developed creative, original works that address issues and advances in science, engineering and/or medicine for the general public. Nominations were accepted in four categories: Book; Film/Radio/TV; Magazine/Newspaper; and Online. The winners will be honored in the Fall 2013 at an awards ceremony in Washington, D.C and are expected to attend in person. Eligibility To be considered for a 2013 Communication Award, the work should: -be accessible and appeal to a broad, public audience; -demonstrate clarity, creativity, originality, and accuracy; -address issues and/or advances in science, engineering, and/or medicine; -cover topics that have an impact on society; and -have been published, broadcast, or released in 2012, in the United States and in English. Material primarily intended for children, reference books, and textbooks are not eligible for consideration. Candidates may be individuals or teams of not more than four people. National Academies' employees are not eligible and posthumous awards are not permitted.  This award is not for lifetime achievement; the work for which a candidate or team is nominated must have been published or broadcast in 2012.

The Ethics Education in Science and Engineering (EESE) program funds research and educational projects that improve ethics education in all fields of science and engineering that NSF supports, with priority consideration given to interdisciplinary, inter-institutional, and international contexts.  Although the primary focus is on improving ethics education for graduate students in NSF-funded fields, the proposed programs may benefit advanced undergraduates as well.

The Broadening Participation Research Initiation Grants in Engineering (BRIGE) solicitation is designed to promote the development of early career faculty who will become champions for diversity and broadening participation of underrepresented groups in engineering throughout their careers. BRIGE awards will enable early career faculty to integrate effective diversity and broadening participation strategies in their engineering research, education, and innovation activities. Throughout this solicitation, the term underrepresented groups will refer to and include the following: women, persons with disabilities, and ethnic/racial groups that are in the minority in engineering, which include African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans, Alaska Natives, and Native Pacific Islanders. Proposals from early career faculty who are members of underrepresented groups as well as from Minority Serving Institutions (including Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic Serving Institutions, Tribal Colleges and Universities, and Predominantly Black Institutions) are especially encouraged.

The Presidential Awards for Excellence in Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring (PAESMEM) is a Presidential award established by the White House in 1995. The purpose of the award is to recognize U.S. citizens or permanent residents and U.S. organizations that have demonstrated excellence in mentoring individuals from groups that are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and workforce. Groups that are underrepresented in STEM include women, people with disabilities, underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities, as well as individuals from low socio-economic backgrounds and some geographic regions such as urban and rural areas. The PAESMEM program is administered by the National Science Foundation (NSF) on behalf of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). Nominations, including self-nominations, are invited for Individual and Organizational PAESMEM awards. Individuals and organizations in all public and private sectors are eligible including industry, academia, primary and secondary education, military and government, non-profit organizations, and foundations. Nominations are encouraged from all geographical regions in the U.S., its territories or possessions, particularly jurisdictions designated by Congress under NSF's Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).

The lack of logistics systems capable of handling and delivering sufficiently high tonnage year-round volumes of high quality feedstocks to support the rapid escalation of cellulosic biofuels production has been identified as a significant barrier to the expansion of a sustainable domestic biofuels industry. In particular, biomass physical and chemical quality parameters have repeatedly been identified as significant challenges to the smooth operation and economic viability of biorefineries. This FOA will focus on developing and demonstrating strategies, equipment, and rapid analytical methods to manage feedstock quality within economic constraints throughout the feedstock supply chain. The main effort in Proposals must be directed toward full-scale demonstration of integrated feedstock supply chain systems that can deliver the volume of high quality, affordable, high impact feedstocks required by commercial biorefineries over a significant geographic area in the United States. DOE plans to support the increased production of high volumes of sustainably produced domestic biofuels from cellulosic feedstocks by seeking Proposals to design new systems or adapt existing systems to handle industrial scale volumes of cellulosic feedstocks from the harvest point to the throat of the biorefinery reactor.

The objective of this activity is to competitively solicit projects in novel technologies under the Crosscutting Research Program Area to support Department of Energy Strategic Goals. The United States Department of Energy National Energy Technology Laboratory is seeking innovative research and development of novel sensor and control systems for use in advanced power generation systems. New sensor and control technology will contribute the goals of high efficiency, near zero emission, and effective carbon capture for the next generation power generation technologies. These technologies include advanced combustion, gasification, turbines, fuel cells, gas cleaning and separation technologies, and carbon dioxide separation and capture technologies. The inclusion of transformational power generation and emission control technology will enable high process efficiency and integration to achieve performance goals at reasonable cost. Integration o f new technology will introduce unprecedented levels of complexity and process conditions that must be address by improved sensor and control technology. To manage complexity and achieve performance goals, advances in the capability and architecture of instrumentation, sensors, and process controls are vital in assuring integrated unit operations, predictive on-line maintenance, and continuous life cycle monitoring and real time process optimization. Innovations in these areas are being supported by the National Energy Technology Laboratorys Crosscutting Research Program which aims at bridging the gap between the basic sciences and applied research as it relates to Advanced Power Systems that utilize domestic resources. Long range transitional type research is needed to support the identification and growth of novel concepts that will to scientific breakthroughs and early adoption of innovative concepts into applications for power generation.

With this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA), the Department of Energy (DOE) SunShot Initiative is soliciting collaborative research teams to define and fabricate model systems that utilize a single p-n junction device structure and have the potential to approach Shockley-Queisser power conversion efficiency limits (for a chosen bandgap and absorber material). The emphasis of this FOA is assembling cohesive and highly diverse teams of experts within and outside the PV community who can achieve the goals of creating a model system concept and a subsequent device that can approach theoretical limits. DOE SunShot anticipates significant collaboration between experts in fundamental materials, characterization, device physics, ab-initio simulations, and PV device integration to adequately address these issues.

The Fluid Dynamics program supports fundamental research and education on mechanisms and phenomena governing fluid flow.  Proposed research should contribute to basic understanding; thus enabling the better design; predictability; efficiency; and control of systems that involve fluids.  Encouraged are proposals that address innovative uses of fluids in materials development; manufacturing; biotechnology; nanotechnology; clinical diagnostics and drug delivery; sensor development and integration; energy and the environment. While the research should focus on fundamentals, a clear connection to potential application should be outlined.

The Combustion, Fire, and Plasma Systems program supports fundamental research and education relevant to these subjects.  Among the broader societal impacts of the program are cleaner global and local environments, enhanced public safety, improved energy and homeland security, useful new materials, and more efficient manufacturing. This program is not an applied program, but rather it endeavors to provide basic knowledge that is needed to develop useful combustion and plasma applications and for mitigating the effects of fire.  Broad-based tools - experimental, diagnostic, and computational - that can be applied to a variety of problems in combustion, fires, and plasma systems are the major products of this program. 

The Thermal Transport Processes program supports engineering research aimed at gaining a basic understanding of the thermal transport phenomena at nano/micro and macro scales in (1) cooling and heating of equipment and devices, (2) energy conversion, power generation and thermal energy storage and conservation, (3) the synthesis and processing of materials including advanced manufacturing, (4) the propulsion of air and land-based vehicles, and (5) thermal phenomena in biological systems.  The program supports fundamental research and engineering education in transport processes that are driven by thermal gradients, and manipulation of these processes to achieve engineering goals.

The Environmental Engineering program supports fundamental research and educational activities across the broad field of environmental engineering.  The goal of this program is to encourage transformative research which applies scientific and engineering principles to avoid or minimize solid, liquid, and gaseous discharges, resulting from human activity, into land, inland and coastal waters, and air, while promoting resource and energy conservation and recovery.  The program also fosters cutting-edge scientific research for identifying, evaluating, and monitoring the waste assimilative capacity of the natural environment and for removing or reducing contaminants from polluted air, water, and soils.

The Environmental Sustainability program supports engineering research with the goal of promoting sustainable engineered systems that support human well-being and that are also compatible with sustaining natural (environmental) systems.  These systems provide ecological services vital for human survival.  The long-term viability of natural capital is critical for many areas of human endeavor.  Research in Environmental Sustainability typically considers long time horizons and may incorporate contributions from the social sciences and ethics. This program supports engineering research that seeks to balance society's need to provide ecological protection and maintain stable economic conditions.  There are four principal general research areas which are supported, but others can be proposed by contacting the program director by email at:  bhamilto@nsf.gov Industrial Ecology Green Engineering Ecological Engineering Earth Systems Engineering

This program supports fundamental research and education that will enable innovative processes for the sustainable production of electricity and transportation fuels.  Processes for sustainable energy production must be environmentally benign, reduce greenhouse gas production, and utilize renewable resources. 

This program supports innovative research on the theories of dynamical systems, including new analytical and computational tools, as well as the novel application of dynamical systems to engineered systems.  The program is especially interested in transformative research in the area of complex systems, uncertain or stochastic nonlinear dynamical systems, model order reduction of nonlinear or infinite dimensional dynamical systems, discrete nonlinear dynamical systems, and modeling, simulation, analysis and design of multi-scale multi-physics dynamical systems. 

Designed to help researchers with brilliant ideas see those ideas through to a finished product, the 2013 Sustainable Valley iGrant is a technology innovation grant to help researchers, entrepreneurs and engineers bring new technology or technology-based businesses to life. iGrant applications are open to researchers, engineers and entrepreneurs in the process of building technology start-up companies or designing new technology associated with the biotech or biomedical, MEMS and Nanotechnology fields.

The System Science (SYS) program funds fundamental research on engineered systems that will support the creation of a mathematically sound framework for systems engineering. The System Science program invites proposals that address fundamental systems issues including system performance prediction, uncertainty quantification in the systems context, theoretical foundations for aggregation in systems, decision-making in the systems context, and operation and maintenance in the systems context. 28 28

The IMEE program focuses on the impact of large-scale hazards on civil infrastructure and society and on related issues of preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery.  The program supports research to integrate multiple issues from engineering, social, behavioral, political, and economic sciences.  It supports fundamental research on the interdependence of civil infrastructure and society, development of sustainable infrastructures, and civil infrastructure vulnerability and risk reduction.

The Civil Infrastructure Systems (CIS) program supports research leading to the engineering of infrastructure systems for resilience and sustainability without excluding other key performance issues.  Areas of interest include intra- and inter-physical, information and behavioral dependencies of infrastructure systems, infrastructure management, construction engineering, and transportation systems.  Special emphasis is on the design, construction, operation, and improvement of infrastructure networks with a focus on systems engineering and design, performance management, risk analysis, life-cycle analysis, modeling and simulation, behavioral and social considerations not excluding other methodological areas or the integration of methods. This program does not encourage research proposals primarily focused on structural engineering, materials or sensors that support infrastructure system design, extreme event modeling, hydrological engineering, and climate modeling, since they do not fall within the scope of the CIS program.

The Design of Engineering Material Systems (DEMS) program supports fundamental research intended to lead to new paradigms of design, development, and insertion of advanced engineering material systems.  Fundamental research that develops and creatively integrates theory, processing/manufacturing, data/informatics, experimental, and/or computational approaches with rigorous engineering design principles, approaches, and tools to enable the accelerated design and development of materials is welcome.    Research proposals are sought that strive to develop systematic scientific methodologies to tailor the behavior of material systems in ways that are driven by performance metrics and incorporate processing/manufacturing.  While an emphasis on a specific material system may be appropriate to provide the necessary project focus, techniques developed should transcend materials systems.  Ultimately it is expected that research outcomes will be methodologies to enable the discovery of materials systems with new properties and behavior, and enable their rapid insertion into engineering systems. Proposals that focus on modeling, simulation, and prediction of material performance (even when research is coupled with experiments for validation or guidance) without an intellectual emphasis on design are not appropriate for this program and should be submitted to other disciplinary programs.

The Hazard Mitigation and Structural Engineering (HMSE) program supports fundamental research to mitigate impacts of natural and anthropogenic hazards on civil infrastructure and to advance the reliability, resiliency, and sustainability of buildings and other structures. Hazards considered within the program include earthquake, tsunami, hurricane, tornado and other loads, as well as explosive and impact loading. Resiliency of buildings and other structures include structural and non-structural systems that, in totality, permit continued occupation or operation in case of an impact by a hazard. Research is encouraged that integrates structural and architectural engineering advances with discoveries in other science and engineering fields, such as earth and atmospheric sciences, material science, mechanics of materials, sensor technology, high performance computational modeling and simulation, dynamic system and control, and economics. The program seeks to fund transformative and cost-effective innovations for hazard mitigation of both new and rehabilitated buildings and other structures. Research in structural and architectural engineering is encouraged that extends beyond mature or current construction materials into investigations of smart and sustainable materials and technologies, and considers the structures in their entirety. In addition, the program funds research on structural health monitoring that goes beyond data acquisition to include the holistic system, integrating condition assessment and decision making tools to improve structural performance.