Featured Opportunities

September 18, 2024

• The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Foundational Research in Robotics (FRR) program, jointly led by the CISE and ENG Directorates, supports research on robotic systems that exhibit significant levels of both computational capability and physical complexity. For the purposes of this program, a robot is defined as intelligence embodied in an engineered construct, with the ability to process information, sense, plan, and move within or substantially alter its working environment. Here intelligence includes a broad class of methods that enable a robot to solve problems or to make contextually appropriate decisions and act upon them. The program welcomes research that considers inextricably interwoven questions of intelligence, computation, and embodiment. Projects may also focus on a distinct aspect of intelligence, computation, or embodiment, as long as the proposed research is clearly justified in the context of a class of robots. To be responsive to the FRR program, each proposal should clearly articulate the following three points: 1) The focus of the research project should be a robot or a class of robots, as defined above. [Is there a robot?]; 2) The goal of the project should be to endow a robot or a class of robots with new and useful capabilities or to significantly enhance existing capabilities. [Will a robot gain a new or significantly improved capability?]; and 3)The intellectual contribution of the proposed work should address fundamental gaps in robotics. [Is robotics essential to the intellectual merit of the proposal?].
• The Department of Agriculture, North Central Region SARE Partnership Grant program is intended to foster cooperation between agriculture professionals and small groups of farmers and ranchers to catalyze on-farm research, demonstration, and education activities related to sustainable agriculture. Examples of appropriate projects include: developing a curriculum about food storage for farmers and processors, on-farm testing of cropping system strategies or grazing systems, cooperative efforts to develop new marketing approaches, or investigations into new approaches to processing and/or adding value to sustainably produced farm products.
• The National Gallery of Art’s Senior Fellowships provide scholars with the opportunity to conduct full-time research in residence at the Center for Advanced Study in the Visual Arts. Fellows receive an office in the National Gallery’s East Building as well as housing, subject to availability. They have access to the notable resources of the National Gallery, including its library and art collection, as well as those of greater Washington. Fellows participate in lectures, colloquia, and discussions with the Center’s vibrant community of scholars. The Center will award one Paul Mellon Fellowship and four to six Ailsa Mellon Bruce, Samuel H. Kress, and William C. Seitz Senior Fellowships each academic year. We also consider applications for a single academic term.
• Getty Library Research Grants support a wide range of research pursuits through an open call for applications. They provide partial, short-term support for researchers requiring the use of specific collections housed in the Getty Library. Library Research Grants are intended for researchers of all nationalities and at any level—unless otherwise specified in the grant description—who demonstrate a compelling need to use materials housed in the Getty Library and whose place of residence is more than 80 miles from the Getty Center. Projects must relate to specific items in the library’s collections (consult the Getty Library Catalog). Projects focused solely on materials in the Getty Museum collections are not eligible. Projects that rely heavily on materials that are digitized require a compelling reason for viewing the original items, which can be explained in the application project proposal. See Frequently Asked Questions for how to check if an object is digitized.
• The Department of Health and Human Services, NIH’s Ethical, Legal, and Social Implications Research invites Exploratory/Developmental Research Grant (R21) applications that propose to study the ethical, legal and social implications (ELSI) of human genetic or genomic research. Applications may propose studies using either single or mixed methods, that break new ground, extend previous discoveries in new directions, or develop preliminary data in preparation for larger studies. Approaches may include but are not limited to empirical qualitative and quantitative methods, and conceptual, legal, and normative analyses. Applied research designed to address ELSI issues in genetics and genomics will also be considered responsive. Direct engagement with communities and other stakeholders is encouraged, but not required. Opportunities also available in the R01 and R03 programs
• The Department of Energy’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DOE EPSCoR) announces its interest in receiving new and renewal applications from applicants within eligible jurisdictions for Implementation Grants. Grants awarded under this program are intended to improve research capability through the support of a group of scientists and engineers, including undergraduate students, graduate students and post-doctoral fellows, working on a common scientific theme in one or more EPSCoR jurisdictions. These awards are not appropriate mechanisms to provide support for individual faculty science and technology research projects. Applications must identify the topical research area or areas with respect to the relevant DOE program office or offices (listed below) and the office’s specific program goals. The relevant program Office(s) and the associated scientific/technical point(s) of contact on the DOE (and not National Laboratory) staff must be identified on the cover page of both the pre-application and the application. This is a limited submission. If you are interested in applying to this program, you must first notify the Office of Research Development by 5 pm on September 23, 2024 via ordlimitedsubs@ksu.edu.
• The Department of Defense, DARPA, Biological Technologies Office (BTO) Biological Technologies Broad Agency Announcement solicits research that develops capabilities that leverage the unique properties of biology –adaption, replication, resilience and complexity, to revolutionize how the United States defends the homeland and prepares and protects its warfighters. Research in BTO creates biotechnological capabilities that provide tactical care and restore function to injured warfighters, increase operational resilience, develop novel functional materials, and detect and protect against threats to maintain force readiness. This announcement seeks revolutionary research ideas for topics not being addressed by ongoing BTO programs or other published solicitations. Specific areas of interest include: Biological technology topic areas that fit the national security scope of BTO’s mission; Research into market opportunities, constraints, and communities affecting financing and commercialization of bio-industrial and biomedical technologies; Machine learning and artificial intelligence; Human performance; Materials, sensors, and processing; Ecosystem and Environmental listed topic areas; Biosecurity and biosafety; and Biomedical and biodefense.
• NSF’s Cyberinfrastructure for Public Access and Open Science (CI PAOS) program within the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) aims to catalyze new and transformative socio-technical partnerships supporting research data infrastructure ecosystems across domains through early-stage collaborative activities between cyberinfrastructure researchers, scientists, research computing experts, data management experts, research labs, university libraries, and other communities of practice. The CI PAOS program supports the NSF Public Access Initiative by encouraging innovation across the CI ecosystem to address accessibility, discoverability, reliability, reproducibility, sustainability, and utility of data products in alignment with NSF and national goals for public access and open science.
• NSF’s Mind, Machine and Motor Nexus (M3X) program supports fundamental research that explores embodied reasoningas mediated by bidirectional sensorimotor interaction between human and synthetic actors. For the purposes of this program, embodiment is defined as the capacity to interact with physics-based environments. Interaction between human and synthetic actors is expanding in scale and scope across numerous fields and endeavors. Among these are areas where safety and performance are paramount, but also where ingenuity and risk-taking are essential to success. The M3X Program seeks to spur innovative and path-breaking work that can improve understanding of interaction between human and synthetic actors in a broad range of settings, while also exploring implications for the advancement of fundamental theory, foundational technologies, and meaningful applications. Successful submissions to the M3X program will therefore advance knowledge by exploring the convergence of human and synthetic actors’ capabilities and actions during the performance of tasks situated within physics-based environments.
• The Institute for Citizens and Scholars Career Enhancement Fellows are exceptional scholars whose work broadens the range of perspectives and understandings offered on college campuses and creates opportunities for crucial new scholarly voices to be heard in disciplines and institutions. Fellows are outstanding junior faculty committed to campus diversity and innovative research in the humanities and humanistic social sciences. Through the program, Fellows build a diverse academic community and system of support as they pursue careers as university faculty and administrators. The program is funded by the Mellon Foundation and supports scholars working in the arts and humanities. Fellows receive stipends up to $35,000, funding for travel and research, and attend a retreat to connect with other scholars and mentors.