OARS funding Engineering

The purpose of the NIAID Career Transition Award (CTA) program is to increase and maintain a strong cohort of new and talented NIH-supported independent investigators that will address the health needs of the Nation. The NIAID CTA is specifically designed to facilitate the transition from a postdoctoral research position to an independent research position. 

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. In support of these aims, this FOA seeks applications for a community-driven project to develop computational and informatics tools for the manipulation, analysis, interpretation, and integration of glycoscience data. The product of this research will be accessible resources for analysis of carbohydrate and glycoconjugate structural, analytical, and interaction data, and integration of that information within the context of comparable gene, protein, and lipid data and databases.

The Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) today announced a new program to recruit and retain early-career scientists who are from gender, racial, ethnic, and other groups underrepresented in the life sciences, including those from disadvantaged backgrounds. Through an open competition, HHMI plans to select scientists early in their training to become Hanna H. Gray Fellows. Each fellow will receive funding for up to eight years, with mentoring and active involvement within the HHMI community. In this two-phase program, fellows will be supported from early postdoctoral training through several years of a tenure-track faculty position. In the first competition cycle, HHMI will select up to 15 fellows and invest a total of up to $25 million for their support over eight years.

Most survey-based prevalence estimates of type 1 diabetes among adults have been based on self-reported information about a young age at diagnosis (e.g.,30 years and 40 years) and insulin use within a year of diagnosis. However, this estimation approach misses type 1 diabetes in adults with older age of onset and may misclassify some cases of type 2 diabetes as type 1 if insulin use begins soon after diagnosis. The major goal of this project is to evaluate the validity of survey questions (or algorithms based on them) to distinguish between adults (aged 18 years of age) with type 1 and type 2 diabetes in a representative sample of adult diabetic patients in a diabetes patient registry or database. Using a gold standard, validity will be assessed by examining the sensitivity, specificity, and positive predictive value of algorithms to identify type of diabetes across demographic strata such as age, sex, and race. A secondary goal is to validate definitions of type of diabetes using electronic health records.

RWJF is now looking for researchers to study the impact the program has had on the changing face of nursing. Up to four grants of $3,000 each will be awarded to individual researchers for the development of a manuscript in one of the following categories: supports and barriers for accelerated nursing students; characteristics of male nursing students; increasing diversity and cultural climate of nursing schools; student debt and accelerated nursing education: policy implications; and effective mentoring/necessary components.

The Centers of Excellence in Genomic Science (CEGS) program establishes academic Centers for advanced genome research.  Each CEGS grant supports a multi-investigator, interdisciplinary team to develop innovative genomic approaches to address a particular biomedical problem.  A CEGS project will address a critical issue in genomic science or genomic medicine, proposing a solution that would be a very substantial advance.  Thus, the research conducted at these Centers will entail substantial risk, balanced by outstanding scientific and management plans and very high potential payoff.  A CEGS will focus on the development of novel technological or computational methods for the production or analysis of comprehensive data sets, or on a particular genome-scale biomedical problem, or on other ways to develop and use genomic approaches for understanding biological systems and/or significantly furthering the application of genomic knowledge, data and methods towards clinical applications.  Exploiting its outstanding scientific plan and team, each CEGS will nurture genomic science at its institution by facilitating the interaction of investigators from different disciplines, and by providing training to new and experienced investigators, it will expand the pool of highly-qualified professional genomics scientists and engineers.

This FOA solicits development of innovative adaptations of existing technologies to enable their use for readily identifying, manipulating, or analyzing glycans and their biological binding partners. This may encompass the adaptation of commonly used laboratory-based or computational tools to enable their facile application to glycoscience for the first time, as well as the adaptation of tools presently used by specialists in glycoscience to make them significantly more straightforward and accessible for non-specialists. It is possible that a project might simplify a current specialized approach by migrating it to a more commonly used platform, developing automation for data acquisition and interpretation, or redesigning the present tool to make it easier to use. This announcement differs from the related FOA RFA- RM-16-022 which solicits new or more effective tools or technologies, thus representing an expansion of existing technologies.

An objective of the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Institute (CIRI) is to bring together capabilities of colleges, universities, federal laboratories, industry, and nonprofit organizations to assess and improve resilience in the ten critical infrastructures for which the Department of Homeland Security is the designated sector-specific agency: * Chemical * Commercial Facilities * Communications * Critical Manufacturing * Dams * Emergency Services * Government Facilities * Information Technology * Nuclear Reactors, Materials, and Waste * Transportation Systems CIRI activities are organized around four themes: 1. Understanding resilient critical infrastructure systems. 2. Application of critical infrastructure in the real world. 3. The business case for infrastructure resiliency. 4. The future of resiliency. With those objectives in mind, CIRI is seeking proposals for projects that will improve the nation's ability to * Understand vulnerabilities and risks * Quantitatively assess risks and resilience measures * Mitigate risks and improve resilience * Establish the business case for resiliency * Deploy resiliency measures

The Improving Teacher Quality State Grants Program is funded under the No Child Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2001 (Title II, Part A of Public Law 107-110). The purpose of the program is to increase the academic achievement of all students by helping schools and school districts improve teacher, instructional paraprofessional and principal quality. Ohio public and private colleges and universities are invited annually to submit proposals to support partnerships of institutions of higher education and high-need school districts to provide high quality professional development for elementary, middle and high school teachers of mathematics and science.

The Combating Antibiotic-Resistant Bacteria Biopharmaceutical Accelerator (CARB-X) is a global initiative dedicated to protecting humankind from the most serious bacterial threats to human health by accelerating antimicrobial therapeutics and diagnostics towards clinical development.

Selected applicants will perform research at their respective campuses and at NASA Centers. In addition to his or her faculty advisor, each Fellow will be matched with a technically relevant and community-engaged NASA researcher who will serve as the student's research collaborator. Through this collaboration, students will be able to take advantage of broader and/or deeper space technology research opportunities directly related to their educational and career objectives, acquire a more detailed understanding of the potential end applications of their space technology efforts, directly disseminate their research results within the NASA community, and enhance their understanding of the research process.

The objective of this research is to develop guidance (tools, procedures, and policies) for identifying, evaluating, and communicating multimodal transportation investment right-sizing scenarios.  Although agencies are generally equipped to assess investment strategies, sufficient guidance is not readily available on how to identify and assess right-sizing or disinvestment scenarios in ways that clearly explain decisions associated with resource tradeoffs and constraints and how these decisions impact overall system resilience and sustainability.  Outcomes of this research should enable agencies to answer questions such as, "Why are we spending more or less on (or eliminating) a given asset; and why is that a good decision given the functional requirements of the broader transportation system"? 

Developments in bridge design and analysis in recent years have created the need for improvements to cross-frame analysis and design for steel girder bridges. In the past, the configuration of cross-frame systems was generally based upon standard designs in which member sizes and layouts were dependent upon geometry and minimum member cross-section requirements. The opportunities for improvements to cross-frame analysis and design cover a variety of topics including: (1) improved definition of fatigue loading for cross frames in curved and/or severely skewed steel girder bridges analyzed using refined analysis methods; (2) implementation of stability bracing strength and stiffness requirements in the context of AASHTO Load and Resistance Factor Design (LRFD) bridge design; and (3) additional guidance for adjustment of the effective stiffness of cross-frame members in refined analysis models to reflect the influence of end connections on cross-frame member stiffness. Addressing these topics could result in a dramatic improvement in reliability and economy of cross frames for steel I-girder bridges.  

The High Performance Computing for Manufacturing ("HPC4Mfg") Program seeks qualified industry partners to participate in short-term, collaborative projects. Through support from the Advanced Manufacturing Office of the Department of Energy's (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE), selected projects partners will be granted access to High Performance Computing (HPC) facilities and experienced staff at DOE National Laboratories. The collaborations will address key challenges in U.S. manufacturing by apply modeling, simulation, and data analysis to the manufacturing of materials with the intent to improve energy efficiency, increase productivity, reduce cycle time, enable next-generation technologies, test control system algorithms, investigate intensified processes, lower energy cost, and accelerate innovation. Projects must demonstrate potential impact to energy efficiency in manufacturing and/or the development of new clean energy technologies with a potential for broad national impact. Eligibility for this Program is limited to entities that manufacture products in the U.S. for commercial applications and the organizations that support them. Selected projects will be awarded up to $300,000 to support compute cycles and work performed by the national lab partners. The industry partner must provide a participant contribution of at least 20% of the DOE funding for the project.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) invites scientists, engineers, technologists, and other qualified and interested individuals to apply for membership on the Investigation Team (IT) for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). This solicitation is for investigations to maximize the knowledge gain from the mission and provide overall expertise in support of mission operations and risk reduction.

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) invites scientists, engineers, technologists, and other qualified and interested individuals to apply for membership on the Investigation Team (IT) for the Asteroid Redirect Mission (ARM). This solicitation is for investigations to maximize the knowledge gain from the mission and provide overall expertise in support of mission operations and risk reduction.

The goal of the Energy for Sustainability program is to support fundamental engineering research that will enable innovative processes and solutionsfor the sustainable production of electricity and fuels, and energy storage. Processes for sustainable energy production must be environmentally benign, reduce greenhouse gas production, and utilize renewable resources. Current topics of interest include: Biomass Conversion, Biofuels & Bioenergy: Fundamental research on innovative approaches that lead to the intensification of biofuel and bioenergy processes is an emphasis area of this program.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is soliciting applications from eligible applicants as described in Section III.A to provide training and technical assistance for small public water systems to help such systems achieve and maintain compliance with the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA), and to provide training and technical assistance for small publicly owned wastewater systems, communities served by onsite/decentralized wastewater systems, and private well owners to improve water quality under the Clean Water Act (CWA). Training and technical assistance activities provided to these systems, communities and private well owners should be made available nationally in rural and urban communities and to personnel of tribally- owned and operated systems.

The goal of the Environmental Engineering program is tosupport transformative research which applies scientific and engineering principles to avoid or minimize solid, liquid, and gaseous discharges, resulting from human activities on 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. Any proposal investigating sensors, materials or devices that does not integrate these products with an environmental engineering activity or area of research may be returned without review. Major areas of interest include: Enhancing the availability of high quality water supplies: Development of innovative biological, chemical and physical treatment processes to meet the growing demand for water; investigation of processes that remove and degrade contaminants, remediate contaminated soil and groundwater, and convert wastewaters into water suitable for reuse; investigation of environmental engineering aspects of urban watersheds, reservoirs, estuaries and storm water management; investigation of biogeochemical and transport processes driving water quality in the aquatic and subsurface environment.

The Biotechnology and Biochemical Engineering (BBE) program supports fundamental engineering research that advances the understanding of cellular andbiomolecular processes in engineering biology and eventually leads to the development of enabling technology for advanced manufacturing and/or applications in support of the biopharmaceutical, biotechnology, and bioenergy industries, or with applications in health or the environment. A quantitative treatment of biological and engineering problems of biological processes is considered vital to successful research projects in the BBE program. Fundamental to many research projects in this area is the understanding of how biomolecules, cells and cell populations interact in their environment, and how those molecular level interactions lead to changes in structure, function, phenotype, and/or behavior. The program encourages highly innovative and potentially transformative engineering research leading to novel bioprocessing and manufacturing approaches, and proposals that address emerging research areas and technologies that effectively integrate knowledge and practices from different disciplines while incorporating ongoing research into educational activities. 

The CREATE Program aims to develop a coherent fundamental research program across the five TTCP nations (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand) that demonstrates enhanced mutual reliance (EMR) by leveraging unique research capabilities in the five international partner nations through collaboration. As such the other four other international partner nations and the US Air Force are issuing parallel calls for research at commensurate funding levels.

The CREATE Program aims to develop a coherent fundamental research program across the five TTCP nations (USA, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, and New Zealand) that demonstrates enhanced mutual reliance (EMR) by leveraging unique research capabilities in the five international partner nations through collaboration. As such the other four other international partner nations and the US Air Force are issuing parallel calls for research at commensurate funding levels.