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The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is interested in receiving proposals for research initiatives that offer potential for advancement and improvement in the NPS core mission of graduate education and research. Readers should note that this is an announcement to declare NPS's solicitation in competitive funding of meritorious research initiatives across a spectrum of science and engineering, business, politics and public/foreign policy, operational and information sciences, and interdisciplinary disciplines that are in-line with the NPS' graduate education and research mission.

Funds may be used to pay expenses associated with providing technical assistance and/or training (TAT) to identify and evaluate solutions to water problems relating to source, storage, treatment, and distribution, and to waste disposal problems relating to collection, treatment, and disposal; assist applicants that have filed a preapplication with RUS in the preparation of water and/or waste disposal loan and/or grant applications; and to provide training that will improve the management, operation and maintenance of water and waste disposal facilities. Grant funds may not be used to recruit applications, duplicate current services such as those performed by a consultant in developing a project, fund political activities, pay for capital assets, purchase real estate or vehicles, improve and renovate office space or repair and maintain privately owned property, pay construction or O&M costs, and pay costs incurred prior to the effective date of grants made.

Funds may be used to: Evaluate current landfill conditions to determine threats to water resources in rural areas; provide technical assistance and/or training to enhance operator skills in the maintenance and operation of active landfills in rural areas; provide technical assistance and/or training to help associations reduce the solid waste stream; and provide technical assistance and/or training for operators of landfills in rural areas which are closed or will be closed in the near future with the development/implementation of closure plans, future land use plans, safety and maintenance planning, and closure scheduling within permit requirements. Grant funds may not be used to: Recruit preapplications/applications for any loan and/or grant program including RUS Water and Waste Disposal Loan and/or Grant Program; duplication of current services, replacement or substitution of support previously provided such as those performed by an association's consultant in developing a project; fund political activities; pay for capital assets, the purchase of real estate or vehicles, improve and renovate office space, or repair and maintain privately-owned property; pay for construction or operation and maintenance costs of water and waste facilities; and pay costs incurred prior to the effective date of grants made under this subpart.

The goals of the Resilient Interdependent Infrastructure Processes and Systems (RIPS) solicitation are (1) to foster an interdisciplinary research community that discovers new knowledge for the design and operation of infrastructures as processes and services  (2) to enhance the understanding and design of interdependent critical infrastructure systems (ICIs) and processes that provide essential goods and services despite disruptions and failures from any cause, natural, technological, or malicious, and (3) to create the knowledge for innovation in ICIs to advance society with new goods and services. The objectives of this solicitation are: Create theoretical frameworks and multidisciplinary computational models of interdependent infrastructure systems, processes and services, capable of analytical prediction of complex behaviors, in response to system and policy changes. Synthesize new approaches to increase resilience, interoperations, performance, and readiness in ICIs. Understand organizational, social, psychological, legal, political and economic obstacles to improving ICI's, and identifying strategies for overcoming those obstacles. The RIPS solicitation seeks proposals with transformative ideas that will ensure ICIs services are effective, efficient, dependable, adaptable, resilient, safe, and secure.  Successful proposals are expected to study multiple infrastructures focusing on them as interdependent systems that deliver services, enabling a new interdisciplinary paradigm in infrastructure research.  Proposals that do not broadly integrate across the cyber-physical, engineering and social, behavioral and economic (SBE) sciences may be returned without review. 

Background: The BLM partners with the Cooperative Ecosystems Study Unit (CESU); State Agencies and political subdivisions thereof; private entities; and for profit and non-profit entities to study, monitor, protect, preserve, and conserve various species, to include Special Status species, throughout Oregon and Washington as well as restoring their habitat.

Funds may be used to pay expenses associated with providing technical assistance and/or training (TAT) to identify and evaluate solutions to water problems relating to source, storage, treatment, or distribution; to identify and evaluate solutions to waste problems relating to collection, treatment, or disposal; assist applicants that have filed a pre-application with RUS in the preparation of water and/or waste loan and/or grant applications; and to provide training that will improve the management, operation, and maintenance of water and waste disposal facilities. Grant funds may not be used to recruit applications, duplicate current services such as those performed by a consultant in developing a project, fund political activities, pay for capital assets, purchase real estate or vehicles, improve or renovate office space or repair and maintain privately owned property, pay for construction or O&M costs, and pay costs incurred prior to the effective date of grants made.

The CNH2 Program supports research projects that advance basic scientific understanding of integrated socio-environmental systems and the complex interactions (dynamics, processes, and feedbacks) within and among the environmental (biological, physical and chemical) and human ("socio") (economic, social, political, or behavioral) components of such a system. The program seeks proposals that emphasize the truly integrated nature of a socio-environmental system versus two discrete systems (a natural one and a human one) that are coupled.CNH2 projects must explore a connected and integrated socio-environmental system that includes explicit analysis of the processes and dynamics between the environmental and human components of the system. PIs are encouraged to develop proposals that push conceptual boundaries and build new theoretical framings of the understanding of socio-environmental systems.Additionally, we encourage the exploration of multi-scalar dynamics, processes and feedbacks between and within the socio-environmental system.

The Park Foundation is dedicated to the support of education, quality media, and the protection of the environment. The Foundation's national grantmaking addresses the following program interests: In the Media category, support is provided for public interest media that raises awareness of critical environmental, political, and social issues to promote a better informed citizenry in the United States. The Environment category considers efforts that work to ensure that the country's drinking water is clean, affordable, and accessible and is protected and managed as a public necessity. The Animal Welfare category focuses on nationally significant programs to ensure the humane treatment of domestic animals and the protection of endangered wildlife and wildlife in captivity. Both letters of inquiry and full proposals are reviewed quarterly; the upcoming proposal deadline is July 12, 2018. Visit the Foundation's website for application guidelines and forms.

The Environmental Studies Program (ESP) of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is offering a cooperative agreement to complete studies on the movements of low trophic level feeding elasmobranchs, such as Manta birostis.The purpose of this study is to understand movements, site fidelity and behavioral ecology of understudied highly migratory species, such as M. birostris, and the associated risk of interaction with BOEM permitted activities.Innovative methods will be used including, but not limited to: autonomous sensor platforms and improved animal bourne telemetry techniques which can relay data from neighboring animals, and/or which leverage the target species as mobile oceanographic platforms.Under the Use of Cooperative Agreements authority (43 U.S.C. §1457b), to enter into cooperative agreements with a state or political subdivision (including any agency thereof), or any not-for-profit organization.The general goals of this project is to understand movement drivers and site residency and fidelity of M. birostis, as it relates to sand shoals, particularly in the Canaveral Shoals, Florida Atlantic Coast region.Specifically, the objectives of this study are to understand the movement ecology of M. birostis in the US OCS and the impact fine scale behavior has on the risk of interaction with marine mineral activities, especially preventative trawling.

The Russell Sage Foundation (RSF) has long had the mission to improve social and living conditions in the United States. It pursues this goal by supporting outstanding research in the social sciences that explores how social, economic, and political factors affect the lives of Americans and their children. Support of such research remains the Foundation's core focus. RSF also has a long history of encouraging new scientific advances to strengthen the methods, data, and theoretical core of the social sciences. Two recent intellectual developments have prompted RSF to launch a special research initiative that integrates knowledge from the biological and social sciences. First, there has been a paradigm shift in the life sciences, spurred by the realization that many biological processes, rather than being fixed, immutable mechanisms that consign people to particular life outcomes, are instead fluid, dynamic responses to features of the social and physical environments humans inhabit. Second, this shift led researchers to launch interdisciplinary studies that seek to integrate approaches from the social and biological sciences, recognizing the potential for a deeper understanding of how social inequalities are initiated, maintained, and transmitted from one generation to the next.

In 2016, the National Science Foundation (NSF) unveiled a set of "Big Ideas," 10 bold, long-term research and process ideas that identify areas for future investment at the frontiers of science and engineering. The Big Ideas represent unique opportunities to position our Nation at the cutting edge of global science and engineering leadership by bringing together diverse disciplinary perspectives to support convergence research. As such, when responding to this solicitation, even though proposals must be submitted to the Directorate for Geosciences, once received, the proposals will be managed by a cross-Directorate team of NSF Program Directors. Arctic temperatures are warming faster than nearly everywhere else on Earth, with some models predicting that continued warming could produce an ice-free Arctic Ocean by mid-century. The rapid and wide-scale changes occurring in response to this warming portend new opportunities and unprecedented risks to natural systems; social and cultural systems; economic, political and legal systems; and built environments of the Arctic and across the globe. Gaps in scientific observations and the prevalence of interdependent social, natural, and built systems in the Arctic make it challenging to predict the region's future. Understanding and adapting to a changing Arctic will require creative new directions for Arctic-related research, education, workforce development, and leveraging of science, engineering, and technology advances from outside the Arctic. Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas, embodies the Foundation's forward-looking response to these profound challenges and opportunities.

The Hubert H. Humphrey Fellowship Program was established by presidential initiative in 1978. The goals of the Humphrey Program are to build mutual understanding and strengthen U.S. engagement with professionals from designated countries who are well placed to address their countries' development needs in key areas, including public health, education, sustainable development, and democratic institution-building. Each year the Humphrey Program brings accomplished professionals from approximately 100 countries in North Africa and the Middle East, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Asia and the Pacific, South Asia, Central Asia, Latin America, the Caribbean, Eastern Europe, and Eurasia to the United States for one academic year, preceded by U.S.-based pre-academic English instruction for participants who need it. The list of eligible U.S. embassies and Fulbright commissions (posts) that may nominate candidates for the Humphrey Program is determined each year by ECA in consultation with the Department of State's six regional bureaus. The academic-year program combines non-degree graduate study, leadership training, and opportunities for substantive professional collaboration with U.S. counterparts. U.S. embassies or binational Fulbright commissions nominate candidates for the Humphrey Program based on the candidates's professional backgrounds, academic qualifications, and leadership potential. The Humphrey Program provides these emerging leaders with an opportunity to understand U.S. society and culture and participate with U.S. colleagues in current approaches to the fields in which they work, providing a basis for on-going cooperation between U.S. citizens and their professional counterparts in other countries.

The MURI program supports basic research in science and engineering at U.S. institutions of higher education (hereafter referred to as "universities") that is of potential interest to DoD. The program is focused on multidisciplinary research efforts where more than one traditional discipline interacts to provide rapid advances in scientific areas of interest to the DoD. As defined in the DoD Financial Management Regulation:Basic research is systematic study directed toward greater knowledge or understanding of the fundamental aspects of phenomena and of observable facts without specific applications towards processes or products in mind. It includes all scientific study and experimentation directed toward increasing fundamental knowledge and understanding in those fields of the physical, engineering, environmental, and life sciences related to long-term national security needs.

U.S. Embassy Kyiv's Office of Assistance Coordinator announces an open competition for organizations to submit applications for the seventh round of the EDCP to continue building U.S. foreign assistance partnerships with 11 emerging donor governments (EDGs) in Central and Eastern Europe to share their transition and EU integration experiences with Ukraine. Please carefully follow all instructions below. Program Objectives: The U.S. Department of State Office of the Assistance Coordinator for Europe and Eurasia (EUR/ACE) has launched the seventh round of the EDCP to continue building U.S. foreign assistance partnerships with 11 emerging donor governments in Central and Eastern Europe: Bulgaria, Croatia, Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia. Through the EDCP initiative, the United States builds partnerships with these new donor countries by co-financing joint foreign assistance activities aimed at sharing the EDGs' transition and EU integration experiences with Ukraine.