Dear Colleagues,

Grants.gov subscriptions allow users to receive a daily email listing all new grant opportunities, notifications of new opportunities matching saved search criteria, and alerts and newsletters containing updates about system enhancements and training resources.

Grants.gov has redesigned its ‘Opportunity Subscription Management' feature, giving users more control over their email subscriptions. New features include:

• One-Click Access: Subscribe to a funding opportunity – including forecast, synopsis and package – with a single click. Tracking changes to a specific grant has never been easier. Subscribe from the View Grant Opportunity page or from the Subscribe to Opportunities page. Also, easily save your search from the Search Grants page.
  
• View & Manage Subscriptions: Review subscriptions to opportunities and update saved searches at any time. Unsubscribe from selected notifications without affecting other subscriptions to opportunities and/or saved searches.
  
• Get Updates on Specific Opportunities: Subscribe once and get notified of any change related to the opportunity. When a forecast or synopsis is modified or deleted, subscribers receive an email notification nightly. When a package is added, modified or deleted, subscribers receive an email notification immediately.
  
• Grants.gov Alerts & Newsletter: Receive timely updates about system enhancements and subscribe to a regular newsletter featuring news and resources for the federal grant community. Users can subscribe during registration or from the subscription page (when logged in).

These upcoming improvements to Grants.gov will impact active subscriptions that provide you with notice regarding new funding opportunities.

After November 18, a Grants.gov account will be required for anyone who wants to receive email notifications about funding opportunities. Please register today so that your ongoing subscriptions to new and/or specific opportunities will not expire. (If you have an inactive Grants.gov account, you can simply log in to reactivate it.) Any subscriptions to saved search criteria will need to be recreated on or after Monday, November 20, 2017.

For more information on the Grants.gov ‘Opportunity Subscription Management' feature, please see: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/outreach/grants-gov-notices/subscription-enhancements.html?utm_source=alerts&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=inactive&utm_content=subs

Thank you.

Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)

Dear Colleagues,

The California Strategic Growth Council (SGC) brings together State agencies and departments to coordinate activities that support sustainable communities, emphasizing strong economies, social equity and environmental stewardship.

In 2017, the Legislature passed Assembly Bill (AB) 109, which created a climate change research program within the SGC. The legislation allocates $11 million in Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund revenues to the SGC to develop a research program to support “research on reducing carbon emissions, including clean energy, adaptation, and resiliency, with an emphasis on California.”

Statutory language directs that the SGC Climate Change Research program will:

• Be guided by a Research Investment Plan that outlines research needs. The Research Investment Plan will be developed prior to awarding grants;
• Award grants on a competitive basis; and
• Be open to eligible institutions, including the University of California, California State University, federally-funded national laboratories, and private, non-profit colleges and universities.

The goal of the Climate Change Research program is to advance research to support low-income and disadvantaged communities, including equitable outcomes in the implementation of the State's climate change policies and investments.

The Research Investment Plan will guide the development and implementation of this program. The draft Research Investment Plan for the Climate Change Research Program is available for public comment at the following link: http://sgc.ca.gov/pdf/Climate_Change_Research_Program_Workshops-2017-11-14.pdf

The SGC will convene a webinar and three workshops to gather public input on this plan.

• Online Webinar - Register Here

Friday, November 17th | 11:00 am until noon

• Oakland Workshop - Register Here

Monday, November 27th | 2:00 to 3:00 pm

• Fresno Workshop - Register Here

Tuesday, November 28th | 2:00 to 3:00 pm

•  Los Angeles Workshop - Register Here

Wednesday, November 29th | 2:00 to 3:00 pm

This request for information/ comment period provides ANR academics with an opportunity to influence the SGC Climate Change Research program agenda. It also gives academics an opportunity to learn about the program and engage the sponsor as potential applicants to the funding program.

The SGC will also accept written public comments through Friday, December 15, 2017. Revisions will be made to provide greater clarity on the SGC's vision for the program and to reflect public comments that are received. Please submit comments via email to: research@sgc.ca.gov

Thank you.

Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)

Dear Colleagues,

The Pew Charitable Trust's antibiotic resistance project works to promote antibiotic stewardship in both human medicine and animal agriculture. Pew seeks to support research studies that can help inform strategies and efforts to reduce the use of antibiotics without harm to animal health, and guide future scientific studies.

Through two forthcoming Request for Proposals, Pew is committed to supporting research that will survey the existing scientific literature and address three key questions.

Is Antibiotic Use Effective to Prevent Disease in Food-Producing Animals?

• First, what scientific evidence is available to show the impact of different practices on disease prevalence and the need to use medically important antibiotics in food animals? The research should focus on one or more of the major food-producing animal species in the U.S.
• Second, what key data gaps exist in the scientific evidence, and how do they impede the ability to make animal management decisions that are grounded in science?
• And third, what research is needed to fill those gaps?

What Practices Reduce Antibiotic Use in Food Animals?

• First, what scientific evidence is available to show a demonstrated animal health benefit from different preventive uses of medically important antibiotics?
• Second, what key data gaps exist in the scientific evidence, and how do they impede the ability to make a determination about the efficacy of preventive uses of antibiotics?
• And third, what research is needed to fill those gaps?

UC ANR has expressed interest in the Pew Charitable Trust's antibiotic resistance funding opportunity. In response, the Pew will distribute the full RFP with additional details on timing, evaluation and proposal criteria, terms and conditions. Upon receipt, the full RFP will be made available on the OCG Calendar of Funding Opportunities.

Thank you.

Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)

Dear Colleagues,

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting innovative research proposals to enable the development of advanced plant technologies (APT) for the detection of environmental threats.

The goal of the APT program is to control and direct plant physiology to detect chemical, biological, radiological, and/or nuclear threats, as well as electromagnetic signals. Plant sensors developed under the program will sense specific stimuli and report these signals with a remotely recognized phenotype (e.g., modified reflectance, morphology, phenology, etc.). These stimuli should be related to human activities (e.g., intentional or accidental chemical or biological release) and not be a natural function of the plant. Classes of DoD-relevant stimuli include: biological agents (e.g., spores, virus, bacteria, toxins), chemicals (e.g., organic, inorganic), and radiative signals (e.g., EM, RF, particle decay). Substitute stimuli that are similar to but less toxic/dangerous than existing national security threats, and that are equally difficult to detect, are preferred.

To accomplish the above program goals, proposers will leverage state-of-the-art plant gene alteration techniques towards three specific and complementary technical objectives:

1. Identify, test, and integrate genetic components for plant sensing and reporting.

2. Tailor plant resource collection and allocation to support sense-and-report traits.

3. Ensure long-term sense-and-report capability by engineering plants to be robust in intended environments.

Meeting both the sensor and survivability technical goals of the APT program will require a combination of plant genomics emerging technologies, precision gene editing tools, and novel methods for engineering new sensing capabilities and physiological responses. Proposing teams should include experts in diverse fields including plant physiology, gene editing, biochemistry, modelling, phenotyping, remote sensing, and plant ecology. It is expected that proposals will involve multidisciplinary teams that include expertise from multiple complementary disciplines (e.g., synthetic biology, sensor technology, plant genomics and ecology).

Proposers are strongly encouraged to submit an abstract in advance of a proposal to minimize effort and reduce the potential expense of preparing an out of scope proposal. The deadline for submitting a pre-proposal is January 11, 2018, 1:00 PM PST. Full proposals may be submitted irrespective of comments or feedback received in response to the abstract. The full proposal due date is February 21, 2018, 1:00 PM PST. Questions about this opportunity may be directed to APT@darpa.mil, DARPA/BTO, ATTN: HR001118S0005.

Thank you.

Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)