Category Archives: External Funding

Resources for proposal writing

Proposal development is a regular facet of faculty life, but it is one that isn’t necessarily included in graduate training. Fortunately there are plenty of resources available to help. Below is a round up of some of the best online guides.

  • The Foundation Center has a short online course laying out the components of a typical grant application and provides tips for writer.
  • For NEH applicants, OSU posted slides and a video  of a workshop with Claudia Kinkela, NEH program officer.
  • The Social Science Research Council website includes a free publication On the Art of Writing Proposals.
  • Applicants should also begin by looking for specific advice from the foundation or federal agency to which they are applying.

All of these resources share some of the same specific advice: write for the educated generalist. Good luck!

Resources for developing NIH grant proposals

For faculty developing NIH grant proposals, there are number of resources to help. The NIH itself includes successful proposals with comments with from reviewers, tipsheets, as well as other guidance on their website.

Beyond the NIH, there are many useful web resources for general grant preparation. The Foundation Center has a “short course” for proposal preparation available for free. Social Science Research Council also has a pamphlet on proposal writing that is applicable to all disciplines.

If you’d like to join a writing group of faculty at Lehigh developing NIH proposals email us at vpresearch@lehigh.edu

 

2016 Charles E. Kaufman Foundation Research Grant Programs

The Charles E. Kaufman Foundation of The Pittsburgh Foundation will award annual research grants in 2016 to researchers at Pennsylvania universities to carry out fundamental research in the areas of biology, chemistry, and physics. Guidelines can be found on the website: http://kaufman.pittsburghfoundation.org/

Grant programs include:

  • New Investigator Research Grants – Up to six awards at a maximum of $150,000 for two years ($75,000 per year)
  • New Initiative Research Grants – Up to four awards at a maximum of $300,000 for two years ($150,000 per year)

Please contact Kathy Zimmerman at kaz309@lehigh.edu for more information if you are interested in pursuing these. Letters of intent are due on January 27, 2016.

Funding Opportunity: Energy-Efficient Computing: from Devices to Architectures (E2CDA) A Joint Initiative between NSF and SRC

This partnership between the National Science Foundation and the Semiconductor Research Corporation will support a new collaborative research program to minimize the energy impacts of processing, storing, and moving data within future computing systems, and will be synergistic with other research activities that address other aspects of this overarching energy-constrained computing performance challenge.

Continue reading Funding Opportunity: Energy-Efficient Computing: from Devices to Architectures (E2CDA) A Joint Initiative between NSF and SRC

New Interdisciplinary Program from NSF: Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS)

The overarching goal of INFEWS is to catalyze the well-integrated interdisciplinary research efforts to transform scientific understanding of the FEW nexus in order to improve system function and management, address system stress, increase resilience, and ensure sustainability. The NSF INFEWS initiative is designed specifically to attain the following goals:

  1. Significantly advance our understanding of the food-energy-water system through quantitative and computational modeling, including support for relevant cyberinfrastructure;
  2. Develop real-time, cyber-enabled interfaces that improve understanding of the behavior of FEW systems and increase decision support capability;
  3. Enable research that will lead to innovative system and technological solutions to critical FEW problems; and
  4. Grow the scientific workforce capable of studying and managing the FEW system through education and other professional development opportunities.

Continue reading New Interdisciplinary Program from NSF: Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS)

NSF Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity (NSF PFI: BIC)

The Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity (PFI: BIC) program supports university-industry partnerships which are led by an interdisciplinary academic research team collaborating with a least one industry partner. In this program, there is a heavy emphasis on the quality, composition, and participation of the partners, including the appropriate contributions for each role. These partnerships focus on the integration of technologies into a specified human-centered service system with the potential to achieve transformational change, satisfying a real need by making an existing service system smart(er) or by spurring the creation of an entirely new smart service system.

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NSF MRI and Lehigh CREF Instrumentation Programs and Idea Exchange

MRI/CREF Idea Exchange. To encourage discussion among those interested in either program, we will hold an MRI/CREF Idea Exchange on October 12, Noon – 1:30 pm, Williams Hall 070. Lunch will be provided.

The Idea Exchange provides an opportunity for those considering submission to identify colleagues who share instrumentation needs, to identify instruments and configurations that would serve the largest number of Lehigh investigators, and to obtain collegial feedback that may strengthen submissions to NSF. Please RSVP to Sujata Jagota at VPResearch@lehigh.edu no later than October 5 indicating interest in presenting, a provisional title and list of likely participants. Attendance is welcomed whether or not presenting.

For more information on the programs, click Continue Reading.

Continue reading NSF MRI and Lehigh CREF Instrumentation Programs and Idea Exchange

Department of Energy, Office of Energy Efficiency & Renewable Energy Funding Opportunities $50 Million in Funding Potential for Solar Energy Technology Research and Innovation

To accomplish the goals of the SunShot Initiative, the U.S. Department of Energy Solar Energy Technologies Office supports funding opportunities on photovoltaics, concentrating solar power, systems integration, technology to market, and soft costs projects. Following an open, competitive solicitation process, these funding opportunities encourage collaborative partnerships among industry, universities, national laboratories, federal, state, and local governments and non-government agencies and advocacy groups. Solicitations may include financial or technical assistance.

Broadly, these Energy Department investments support state-of-the-art products, solutions, and technology advancements that will increase solar energy system performance and efficiency and drive down costs. The Energy Department’s SunShot Initiative is a collaborative national effort that aggressively drives innovation to make solar energy fully cost-competitive with traditional energy sources by the end of the decade.

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Call for User Proposals: High-Impact Nanoscience Research

The Center for Nanophase Materials Sciences (CNMS) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is soliciting proposals for user-initiated nanoscience research that will make effective use of CNMS facilities and staff expertise. The CNMS nanoscience research program provides users with access to a broad range of capabilities for nanomaterials design, synthesis, characterization, and theory/modeling/simulation in order to carry out studies that will significantly advance our understanding of nanoscale phenomena and develop functional nanomaterials systems. Access is provided at no cost to users for research that is in the public domain and intended for publication in the open literature.

For more information on this solicitation and submission guidelines, please see the website. Submission deadline is October 21, 2015.

NSF Interdisciplinary Funding Opportunity:  Supporting Research Advances in Smart and Connected Communities

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), Geosciences (GEO), and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) wish to notify the community of their intention to support, foster, and accelerate fundamental research that addresses challenges in enabling Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC).

With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), NSF invites supplements to existing CISE, EHR, ENG, GEO, and SBE grants, or new EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals submitted to the CISE, EHR, ENG, GEO, and/or SBE directorates. Supplemental proposals must enhance existing projects by incorporating or exploring the concepts described in this DCL, while demonstrating how the proposed work is related to the active project and must describe how the research and activities fit within the Smart and Connected Communities vision.

For more information including examples of relevant projects and the list of program directors, please read the DCL.

Proposal deadline is March 1, 2016 or earlier.