- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
NIFA's Smith-Lever Special Needs Competitive Grants Program (SLSNCGP) has announced $462,000 in available funding to decrease the impact of disasters through cooperative extension programming.
According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), “In 2017, there were 16 weather and climate disaster events with losses exceeding $1 billion each across the United States. These events included 1 drought event, 2 flooding events, 1 freeze event, 8 severe storm events, 3 tropical cyclone events, and 1 wildfire event.” The aftermath is impact on food, agriculture, natural resources, and humans. The purpose of the SLSNCGP is to support innovative, education-based approaches to addressing emergency preparedness and specific responses related to natural and human-made disasters. The SLSNCGP supports quality of life in communities across the United States by addressing disaster preparedness, response, mitigation, and recovery in the context of food, agriculture, natural resources, and human sciences. The SLSNCGP provides information and tools to USDA, stakeholders, and collaborators to improve decision-making in handling disasters.
NIFA intends to fund SLSNCGP projects to implement applied programs that serve public needs in preparation for, during, and after disaster. Funds will support innovative extension education initiatives that address risks, hazards, and disasters. The SLSNCGP sponsors targeted projects that enable Cooperative Extension System (CES) to assist in preparing for, providing an educational response to, and recovering from disasters. Some types of hazards and disaster-related events funded in previous years include uncertainties caused by losses of economic infrastructure, severe weather or other natural disasters, security breaches, human disease, or high consequence animal diseases and plant pests. The SLSNCGP increases awareness and capacity building of urban/rural communities' response to disasters by increasing individuals, families, farms and small businesses disaster preparedness through education and collaborations with other agencies/volunteer organizations.
To be considered for funding, projects must support extension activities through at least one of the following strategies:
1. Enhance national, regional, multi-state or state networks that support official information by ensuring the content is:
• In a format appropriate to the situation and intended audience;
• Delivered in a timely fashion; and
• Science-based.
2. Provide national, regional, multi-state, or state education and communications leadership to develop or add value to current educational materials regarding disaster issues, utilizing distribution mix of the EDEN website, eXtension, related social media, and/or other outlets. This strategy could include materials targeted to underserved audiences (such as people who speak English as a second language, and individuals with low literacy).
3. Improve national, regional, multi-state, or state stakeholder partnerships (which might include the public, governments at all levels, non-profit and/or volunteer organizations, academia, and/or industry) to prepare for and respond to disasters through extension education.
4. Deliver extension education to affected citizens and communities, in one or more states, to address effects of a major declared disaster that occurred no more than 12 months prior to June 19, 2018.
Though national, regional, and/or multi-state efforts are a priority for strategies 1-3 given above, highly replicable single-state projects may be considered if they have a strong plan for transferring successful methods to other states. The SLSNCGP will also fund the development of educational programs and demonstration activities focusing on disaster preparedness, mitigation, response, and recovery. The most competitive proposals will provide educational and communication leadership across an optimized mix of these and other resources. Only applications that address one or more of the following five key target areas will be considered for funding: Education and technical assistance; Collaboration; Long range family, farm, community and planning projects; Communication delivery; and/or Dissemination of credible, science-based information.
Project funding ranges from $15,000 to $180,000. Typical project periods range from one to three years.
For additional information, please review the full solicitation available on the program's website: https://nifa.usda.gov/sites/default/files/rfa/FY-18-SLSNCGP-RFA_0.pdf
The deadline for applications is June 19, 2018.
Please contact the Office of Contracts and Grants should you have questions regarding this funding opportunity.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The National Science Foundation, Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) program is accepting applications with a proposal deadline of 9/26/2018.
The INFEWS program seeks to support research that conceptualizes FEW systems broadly and inclusively, incorporating social and behavioral processes (such as decision making and governance), physical processes (such as built infrastructure and new technologies for more efficient resource utilization), natural processes (such as biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles), biological processes (such as agroecosystem structure and productivity), and cyber-components (such as sensing, networking, computation and visualization for decision-making and assessment). Investigations of these complex systems may produce discoveries that cannot emerge from research on food or energy or water systems alone. It is the synergy among these components in the context of sustainability that will open innovative science and engineering pathways to produce new knowledge, novel technologies, and innovative predictive capabilities.
The overarching goal of the INFEWS program is to catalyze well-integrated, convergent research to transform understanding of the FEW Nexus as integrated social, engineering, physical, and natural systems in order to improve system function and management, address system stress, increase resilience, and ensure sustainability. The NSF INFEWS activity is designed specifically to attain the following goals:
1. Significantly advance our understanding of the food-energy-water system of systems through quantitative, predictive 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 and integrated social, engineering, physical, and natural systems solutions to critical FEW systems problems;
4. Grow the scientific workforce capable of studying and managing the FEW system of systems, through education and other professional development opportunities.
INFEWS NETWORKING/ INFORMATION SESSION:If you are interested in learning more about this program, you are already planning to apply, or are looking for proposal partners and collaborators, we are inviting you to join us for an Information Session on Friday, May 11th. The session will be hosted by the UC Davis, Office of Research in Room 129 Office of Research, located at 1850 Research Park Drive.
We will be joined via remote conferencing by program officers from NSF and USDA/NIFA:
- Rachel Melnick, National Program Leader, USDA/NIFA
- Brandi Schottel, Associate Program Director, NSF
Lunch will be provided. Please register for the information session here: https://ucdinfewsinfo.eventbrite.com
Additional information regarding this funding opportunity can be found at the program's website, https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2018/nsf18545/nsf18545.pdf
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The Ray C. Anderson Foundation seeks proposals for currently existing or new programs that would measurably reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, measured by metric tons (or “tonnes”) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), either by preventing the emission of those gases or by sequestering gases presently in the atmosphere. The NextGen program will award a single grant of $90,000 to fund work in the 2019 calendar year.
The program will primarily judge proposals on the amount of estimated offset carbon, the quality of the calculations, and the likelihood of success at achieving the estimated carbon reductions. The program will secondarily consider the collateral environmental and social benefits of the project. According to an Ecosystem Marketplace report, the average price per metric ton of CO2e offsets in voluntary markets in 2016 was $3 (though with wide variability ranging from less than $1 to more than $50 per metric ton).
At $3 per metric ton, $90,000 would purchase 30,000 metric tons of CO2e offsets. Proposals should be competitive with or exceed this amount of projected offset carbon. Strong proposals must also demonstrate high-quality estimations of CO2e reductions.
Additional information regarding this opportunity can be found at the program's website, http://www.raycandersonfoundation.org/nextgen-2018-grant-call-for-proposals
Applications are due by June 11, 2018.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The application window is now open for the 2018 CREDITS Team Science Retreat.
Academics, researchers, and post-doctoral scholars from UC are invited to apply to attend The Center for Research, Excellence and Diversity in Team Science (CREDITS) retreat, to be held September 28-30, 2018 at the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center in Lake Arrowhead, CA.
Collaborative, interdisciplinary team science-based research has become increasingly central in scientific discovery. Team science garners more funding, and more impactful research and publications. Having a strong network of collaborators and mentors is critical to a productive and successful academic career. CREDITS is an integrated research and training program to increase and enhance Team Science (TS) and collective intelligence capacity, effectiveness, and excellence in California. Diversity on teams is known to have positive effects on creativity, innovation, and productivity. Apart from its contribution to scientific breakthroughs and grand challenge problems, TS has beneficial impacts on individual research careers. Diverse TS projects garner more funding, and yield greater publication productivity, and higher impact publications.
In a small group environment, the CREDITS Team Science Retreat will promote team science competencies and leadership capacity across the campuses of the University of California and Cal State University systems. The three interrelated core activities are: 1) Annual TS Leadership and Team Formation Retreats; 2) TS and Institutional Change Training/Seminar for UC and CSU Administrative Leaders – Provosts, Deans, Chairs, etc.; and 3) Research and Evaluation that will increase our knowledge about TS and diversity and inform CREDITS programming.
Who Should Apply?
- Your research or programmatic interests should be in a Science, Engineering, or Math (STEM) field, including Social Science.
- CREDITS is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching and service.
DEADLINE to apply is Friday, May 25, 2018 at midnight. If you have questions about your eligibility or application procedures, please contact John Crockett, Senior Director, Research Project Development at San Diego State University, jcrockett@foundation.sdsu.edu, (619) 594-3176.
More information and the link to the application is here: https://oru.research.ucsb.edu/teamscience/
This program is funded by the NSF, the Elsevier Foundation, and the UC Office of the President.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The University of California, Davis is hosting Interdisciplinary Research Catalyst: Conversations in Community & Citizen Science, a workshop dedicated to a full day of learning, discussion, and networking activities amongst faculty members and researchers, sponsored by the UC Davis Office of Research, Strategic Initiatives Group. The event will take place on Monday, May 7th at the Manetti Shrem Museum.
Confirmed keynote speaker is Dr. Raj Pandya. Pandya is the Program Director of Thriving Earth Exchange, an initiative of the American Geophysical Union, focused on helping volunteer scientists and community leaders work together to use science, and a Founding Board Member of the Citizen Science Association.
Attendees will also learn about funding opportunities, build collaborations, and explore how you can incorporate citizen and community science into your research as a powerful tool for science, outreach, and engagement.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop, you may register to attend as well as receive additional updates about the agenda: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/irc-conversations-in-community-and-citizen-science-tickets-43941303622
Register today as space is limited.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)