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EPA-ORD seeks applications from eligible entities to enter into a cooperative agreement with EPA that will provide training opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students on-site at ORD's Ground Water and Ecosystems Research Division (GWERD) research facilities located in Ada, Oklahoma.  It is envisioned that the training program will increase both the effectiveness and number of future environmental scientists. The training received under the mentorship of EPA scientists will complement the trainees' academic coursework. The recipient will be responsible for ensuring that the training projects are supportive of the trainees' academic training.  Some appropriate fields of study for trainees include, but are not limited to, environmental science, water policy, chemistry, engineering, computer science, ecology, and physical and biological sciences.

The goal of the Biological and Environmental Interactions of Nanoscale Materials program is to support research to advance fundamental and quantitative understanding of the interactions of biological and environmental media with nanomaterials and nanosystems. Materials of interest include one- to three-dimensional nanostructures, heterogeneous nano-bio hybrid assemblies, and other nanoparticles. Such nanomaterials and systems frequently exhibit novel physical, chemical, and biological behavior in living systems and environmental matrices as compared to the bulk scale. This program supports research that explores the interaction of nanomaterials in biological and environmental media.    

The new National Ocean Policy calls for actions to improve understanding of and capacity to respond to ocean acidification, recognizing the potential adverse impacts of an acidifying sea upon marine ecosystems. The effects of ocean acidification could significantly affect strategies for developing practices towards the sustainability of ocean resources. Basic research concerning the nature, extent and impact of ocean acidification on oceanic environments in the past, present and future is required. Research challenges include: Understanding the geochemistry and biogeochemistry of ocean acidification; Understanding how ocean acidification interacts with biological, chemical and physical processes at the organismal level, and how such interactions impact the structure and function of ecosystems, e.g. through life histories, adaptive evolution, food webs, biogeochemical cycling, and interactions with other changes in the ocean (e.g., temperature, stratification, circulation patterns); and Understanding how the earth system history informs our understanding of the effects of ocean acidification on the present day and future ocean. The Ocean Acidification program is in its fifth and anticipated last year of competition. We expect this to be the last solicitation specifically targeting Ocean Acidification.

OER is seeking pre-proposals and, ultimately, full proposals to support its mission, consistent with NOAA's Next Generation Strategic Plan (http://www.ppi.noaa.gov/wp-acontent/uploads/noaa), to search, investigate, and document poorly-known and unknown ocean areas through interdisciplinary exploration, and to advance and disseminate knowledge of the ocean environment and its physical, chemical, archaeological, and biological resources. The office priorities for this opportunity support NOAA's mission goals of: Healthy Oceans, Climate Adaptation and Mitigation, and Resilient Coastal Communities and Economies, as well as many of the elements of the President's National Ocean Policy. Competitive ocean exploration proposals will be bold, innovative and interdisciplinary in their approach. NOAA OER anticipates a total of approximately $3,000,000 including costs for ship and submersible assets will be available through this announcement. Only exploration proposals will be considered for funding, any other type of proposed project will not be reviewed. 

The consequences of climate variability and change are becoming more immediate and profound than previously anticipated. Over recent decades, the world has witnessed the onset of prolonged droughts on several continents, increased frequency of floods, loss of agricultural and forest productivity, degraded ocean and permafrost ecosystems, global sea level rise and the rapid retreat of ice sheets and glaciers, loss of arctic sea ice, and changes in ocean currents. These important impacts highlight that climate variability and change can have significant effects on decadal and shorter time scales, with significant consequences for plant, animal, human, and physical systems. The EaSM funding opportunity enables interagency cooperation on one of the most pressing problems of the millennium: climate change and??how it is likely to affect our world. It allows the partner agencies -- National Science Foundation (NSF) and??U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) -- to combine resources to identify and fund the most meritorious and highest-impact projects that support their respective missions, while??avoiding duplication of effort and fostering collaboration between agencies and the investigators they support.This interdisciplinary scientific challenge calls for the development and application of next-generation Earth System Models that include coupled and interactive representations of such??components as ocean and atmospheric currents, agricultural working lands and forests,?? biogeochemistry, atmospheric chemistry,?? the water cycle and land ice.?? This solicitation seeks to attract scientists from the disciplines of geosciences, agricultural sciences, mathematics and statistics. Successful proposals will develop intellectual excitement in the participating disciplinary communities and engage diverse interdisciplinary teams with sufficient breadth to achieve the scientific objectives. 

Nanomanufacturing is the production of useful nano-scale materials, structures, devices and systems in an economically viable manner. The NSF Nanomanufacturing Program supports fundamental research in novel methods and techniques for batch and continuous processes, top-down (addition/subtraction) and bottom-up (directed self-assembly) processes leading to the formation of complex heterogeneous nanosystems. The program supports basic research in nanostructure and process design principles, integration across length-scales, and system-level integration. The Program leverages advances in the understanding of nano-scale phenomena and processes (physical, chemical, electrical, thermal, mechanical and biological), nanomaterials discovery, novel nanostructure architectures, and new nanodevice and nanosystem concepts. It seeks to address quality, efficiency, scalability, reliability, safety and affordability issues that are relevant to manufacturing. To address these issues, the Program encourages research on processes and production systems based on computation, modeling and simulation, use of process metrology, sensing, monitoring, and control, and assessment of product (nanomaterial, nanostructure, nanodevice or nanosystem) quality and performance.The Program seeks to explore transformative approaches to nanomanufacturing, including but not limited to: micro-reactor and micro-fluidics enabled nanosynthesis, bio-inspired nanomanufacturing, manufacturing by nanomachines, additive nanomanufacturing, hierarchical nanostructure assembly, continuous high-rate nanofabrication such as roll-to-roll processing or massively-parallel large-area processing, and modular manufacturing platforms for nanosystems. The Program encourages the fabrication of nanomaterials by design, three-dimensional nanostructures, multi-layer nanodevices, and multi-material and multi-functional nanosystems. Also of interest is the manufacture of dynamic nanosystems such as nanomotors, nanorobots, and nanom

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. 

The overall goal of EESLR is to facilitate informed adaptation planning and coastal management decisions through a multidisciplinary research program that results in integrated models and tools of dynamic physical and biological processes capable of evaluating vulnerability and resilience under multiple SLR, inundation, and coastal management scenarios.

DARPA seeks to transform the energy efficiency of unattended sensors through elimination or substantial reduction of the stand-by power consumed by the sensors while they await a signature of interest. The improved energy efficiency is expected to result in an increase in the sensor mission lifetime from months to years. The Near Zero Power RF and Sensor Operations (N-ZERO) program aims to create intelligent sensors that can process and detect RF and physical sensor signatures, consume less than 10 nW of power, and attain a low false alarm rate of 1 per hour or better in an urban environment. See the full DARPA-BAA-15-14 document attached.

The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) intends to issue, on behalf of the Solar Energy Technology Office, a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) entitled "Advanced Systems Integration for Solar Technologies". This FOA supports the mission of the Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) which is to support early-stage research and development to improve the performance and flexibility of solar technologies that contribute to a reliable and resilient U.S. electric grid. The office invests in innovative research efforts that securely integrate more solar energy into the grid, enhance the use, storage and dispatch of solar energy, and lower solar electricity costs. DOE is committed to improving the affordability of energy technologies and strengthening the Energy Sector's capability to withstand cyber and physical threats, including natural disasters. Improving the strategic location and situational awareness of solar systems can help ensure continuity of service in the face of widespread and coordinated threats. Developing innovative approaches to accelerate the transfer of solar system solutions that will improve Energy Sector resilience is also a priority.

The National Forest Foundation (NFF) Matching Awards Program (MAP) provides funding for results-oriented on-the-ground projects that enhance forest health and outdoor experiences on National Forests and Grasslands. MAP supports the implementation of on-the-ground conservation and restoration projects that have an immediate, quantifiable impact on the National Forest System. These projects provide a lasting impact to the lands, waters, and wildlife of the National Forest System through the alteration of the physical environment. The current NFF strategic plan focuses on the Program Areas of Outdoor Experiences and Forest Health. Organizations may self-select into one of the Program Areas defined below, or choose to submit a proposal that cohesively integrates the two Program Areas. Projects that strongly integrate the program areas are highly encouraged. The NFF does not have funding targets for the Program Areas, and strongly encourages applicants to integrate the programs areas cohesively in their proposals.

This solicitation represents a significant update of the CNH program, which will be known henceforth as CNH2: Dynamics of Integrated Socio-Environmental Systems. The CNH2 program acknowledges a continuum of environments from those with very limited human impacts (e.g. the extreme poles) to those in which human systems and processes fully dominate (e.g. densely populated megacities). There are integrated systems operating in all these spaces, and many can be considered as domains for CNH2 study. For the purposes of this solicitation, we define the "socio" or human component of the system as one predominantly governed by human decisions, actions, and behaviors, and we define the "environmental" component of the system as one predominantly governed by biological, physical, and chemical processes. CNH2 projects can include research that investigates integrated socio-environmental systems in agricultural as well as in urban settings.

The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) is announcing the continuation of the Superfund Hazardous Substance Research and Training Program, referred to as Superfund Research Program (SRP) Centers. SRP Center grants will support problem-based, solution-oriented research Centers that consist of multiple, integrated projects representing both the biomedical and environmental science and engineering disciplines; as well as cores tasked with administrative (which includes research translation), data management and analysis, community engagement, research experience and training coordination, and research support functions.  The scope of the SRP Centers is taken directly from the Superfund Amendments and Reauthorization Act of 1986, and includes: (1) advanced techniques for the detection, assessment, and evaluation of the effect on human health of hazardous substances; (2) methods to assess the risks to human health presented by hazardous substances; (3) methods and technologies to detect hazardous substances in the environment; and (4) basic biological, chemical, and physical methods to reduce the amount and toxicity of hazardous substances.

The US Fish and Wildlife Service, Region 7 intends to award a single source financial assistance agreement as authorized by 505 DM 2.14 (B) to the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. This notice is not a request for proposals and the Government does not intend to accept proposals. This financial assistance opportunity is being issued under the Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit (CESU) Network: (http://www.cesu.psu.edu/materials/partners.htm). The CESU network provides research, technical assistance, and education to federal land management, environmental, and research agencies and their partners. The partners serve the biological, physical, social, cultural, and engineering disciplines needed to address natural and cultural resource management issues at multiple scales and in an ecosystem context. The purpose of this agreement is to provide support and assistance to University of Alaska Fairbanks to conduct research on the history of land use and environmental conditions on Selawik Refuge in the early to mid 20th century. This will include information on traditional family settlements, historic resource distribution and abundance, muskrat hunting and trading, and other key subsistence activities. Both oral history interviews with northwest Alaska elders and archival materials research at University of Alaska Fairbanks and other repositories will be used in this project. Oral histories and archival materials can shed light on historic environmental conditions, critical habitat (locations of seasonal family settlements were in key resource areas), changes in land use and resource distribution, and important areas for cultural resources.

The Alaska Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) Region of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) is offering a cooperative agreement for the study of Landfast Ice Climatology within the Arctic OCS, covering the areas of the Beaufort, Chukchi and possibly Bering seas. This study will examine the changes in landfast ice extent and stability over time and the physical forces driving these changes. This study will also investigate how the changing state of landfast ice conditions impact the oil and gas industry and the coastal communities at present and into the future. Field experiments that document the thermodynamic growth and decay of landfast ice will support validation of results from coupled ice-ocean circulation models used to support trajectory analyses for Oil Spill Risk Analysis (OSRA). This announcement is specifically to announce intent to undertake the project: Landfast Ice Climatology within the Arctic Alaska OCS Region, that is open to the University of Alaska Fairbanks via the Alaska Cooperative Ecosystem Studies Unit. The award will be a cooperative agreement. This involves substantial involvement by BOEM scientists in various aspects of study development and/or study conduct. The award is premised on receipt of an acceptable proposal. This is not an open solicitation for proposals.

The Home Depot Foundation is accepting applications from nonprofit organizations using volunteers to address the physical needs of their communities. Through its Community Impact Grants program, the foundation will award grants of up to $5,000 (in the form of Home Depot gift cards that can be used to purchase tools, materials, and services) for projects aimed at repairing, modifying, weatherizing, or otherwise improving low-income and/or transitional housing or community facilities. Priority will be given to programs that use volunteers to serve veterans with home-improvement needs. Only IRS-registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit organizations and tax-exempt public service agencies (e.g., police/fire departments) in the United States are eligible to apply. In addition, grants must support work completed by community volunteers in the U.S., and projects must be completed within six months following notification that the grant has been awarded.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to encourage collaborations between the life and physical sciences that: 1) apply a multidisciplinary bioengineering approach to the solution of a biomedical problem; and 2) integrate, optimize, validate, translate or otherwise accelerate the adoption of promising tools, methods and techniques for a specific research or clinical problem in basic, translational, or clinical science and practice. An application may propose design-directed, developmental, discovery-driven, or hypothesis-driven research and is appropriate for small teams applying an integrative approach to increase our understanding of and solve problems in biological, clinical or translational science.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites cooperative agreement applications that will contribute to a higher resolution understanding of the physical and functional organization of the human islet tissue environment by describing the composition (cellular and molecular) and function of important components of the pancreatic islet and peri-islet tissue architecture, the cell-cell relationships and means of communications used by cell types and cell subtypes within the pancreatic tissue ecosystem, and/or the contribution of adjacent (including acinar, ductal, lymphatic) and neighboring (intestinal, mesenteric and adipose) tissues to islet cell function and dysfunction. Successful projects will integrate the Human Pancreas Analysis Consortium (HPAC), that will consist of the research teams funded in response to this FOA with the Human Pancreas Analysis Program (HPAP), a resource-generation program that was funded in 2016 in response to RFA-DK-15-027. HPAC will become the fifth consortium of the Human Islet Research Network (HIRN, https://hirnetwork.org/ ). HIRN's overall mission is to support innovative and collaborative translational research to understand how human beta cells are lost in T1D, and to find innovative strategies to protect and replace functional beta cell mass in humans. This FOA will only support studies with a primary focus on increasing our understanding of human tissue structure and function, and human disease biology (as opposed to rodent or other animal models). This FOA will not accept applications proposing a clinical trial.

Over the past three years, we have expanded our programming beyond its past focus on physical activity, urban farms, and local food. We're still committed to these areas, and they'll be considered under this RFP. But our program as a whole aims to have broader impact and reach more spaces in the community. That's why we are inviting projects that address issues in the following domains: Built Environment, Community Safety, Environmental Exposures, Healthy Behaviors, and Social/Economic Factors. We are especially interested in projects that advance resident- or youth-led initiatives, and projects that seek to influence and strengthen local policies that impact residents' health.

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.