Math & Science Partnerships (NSF)

The Math and Science Partnership (MSP) program is a major research and development effort that supports innovative partnerships to improve K-12 student achievement in mathematics and science. MSP projects are expected to raise the achievement levels of all students and significantly reduce achievement gaps in the STEM performance of diverse student populations. MSP projects contribute to what is known in K-12 STEM education. All STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) fields supported by NSF may be involved in this work, with special encouragement to areas that are gaining increased traction at the K-12 level, such as computer science and engineering, in addition to mathematics and science. MSP projects also serve as models that have a sufficiently strong evidence/research base to improve STEM education outcomes for all students.

Through this solicitation, NSF seeks to support two levels of Targeted Partnership awards, Implementation and Prototype. Implementation awards are intended to develop and put into practice innovative approaches and strategies in education. Prototype awards explore potentially innovative approaches and strategies in education. Both types of Partnerships incorporate significant new innovations to STEM education, linked to a strong educational research agenda, in one of four focal areas: Community Enterprise for STEM Learning; Current Issues Related to STEM Content; Identifying and Cultivating Exceptional Talent; and K-12 STEM Teacher Preparation. In addition, there are three types of Research, Evaluation and Technical Assistance (RETA) project opportunities in this solicitation: research related to sustainability, or policies, or state plans for STEM education; technical assistance for evaluators of MSP projects; and the STEM Education Resource Collaboratory.

Amount: $500,000 - $1.5m (yearly for 3 - 5 years)

Date due: March 5, 2012

For more information, click here.

Young Faculty Award

The Department of Defense solicits ground-breaking single-investigator proposals from junior faculty for research and development in the areas of Physical Sciences, Engineering, Mathematics, Medicine, Biology, Information and Social Sciences of interest to DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), Microsystems Technology Office (MTO), and Information Innovation Office (I2O).

Amount: $300,000

Date due: January 19, 2012

For more information, click here.

Clean Oceans Depend on Everyone (CODE)

The Coastal CODE (Clean Oceans Depend on Everyone) Fund, developed in partnership with the Ocean Foundation, supports nonprofit organizations that are working to protect the western waters and coastline of the United States. Grants are primarily provided for projects and activities that promote beach cleanup activities. Additional focus areas include water quality improvement, sustainable fisheries, ocean conservation education, and ocean and coastal preservation.

Amount: $10,000

Date due: December 1, 2011

For more information, click here.

Long Term Research in Environmental Biology

Through the LTREB program, the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) and the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) encourage the submission of proposals that generate extended time series of biological and environmental data to address ecological and evolutionary processes and resolve important issues in organismal and environmental biology. Researchers must have collected at least six years of previous data to qualify for funding, and these data must motivate the proposed research. The proposal also must present a cohesive conceptual rationale or framework for ten years of research. Questions or hypotheses outlined in this conceptual framework must guide an initial 5-year proposal as well as a subsequent, abbreviated renewal. Together, these will constitute a decadal research plan appropriate to begin to address critical and novel long-term questions in organismal and environmental biology. As part of the requirements for funding, projects must show how collected data will be shared broadly with the scientific community and the interested public.

Amount: $450,000

Date due: January 10, 2012 (Pre-proposal)

For more information, click here.

Turner Foundation grants focusing on nature

The F. Allen and Louise K. Turner foundation promotes nature and land conservacy and provides support to experiences that foster the individuals' and society's attachment to nature and land. Past grants have been given in support of education, the arts, nature, conservation, historic preservation, and curriculum development. The F. Allen and Louise K. Turner Foundation's Board of Directors is pleased to announce an open call for funding proposals.

The F. Allen and Louise K. Turner Foundation seeks to fund thoughtful and diverse projects that both fulfill and build on its desire to connect human kind to the science and beauty of our natural surroundings.

Amount: $5,000

Date due: October 31, 2011

For more information, click here.

People, Prosperity and the Planet

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), as part of the P3-People, Prosperity and the Planet Award Program, is seeking applications proposing to research, develop, and design solutions to real world challenges involving the overall sustainability of human society. The P3 competition highlights the use of scientific principles in creating innovative projects focused on sustainability. The P3 Awards program was developed to foster progress toward sustainability by achieving the mutual goals of economic prosperity, protection of the planet, and improved quality of life for its people-- people, prosperity, and the planet – the three pillars of sustainability. The EPA offers the P3 competition in order to respond to the technical needs of the world while moving towards the goal of sustainability.

Amount: $15,000 - $90,000

Date due: December 22, 2011

For more information, click here.

Partnerships for International Research (PIRE)

Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) is an NSF-wide program that supports international activities across all NSF supported disciplines. The primary goal of PIRE is to support high quality projects in which advances in research and education could not occur without international collaboration. PIRE seeks to catalyze a higher level of international engagement in the U.S. science and engineering community. International partnerships are essential to addressing critical science and engineering problems. In the global context, U.S. researchers and educators must be able to operate effectively in teams with partners from different nations and cultural backgrounds. PIRE promotes excellence in science and engineering through international collaboration and facilitates development of a diverse, globally-engaged, U.S. science and engineering workforce. This PIRE competition will focus exclusively on the NSF-wide investment area of Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES). The SEES effort focuses on interdisciplinary topics that will advance sustainability science, engineering and education as an integrative approach to the challenges of adapting to environmental, social and cultural changes associated with growth and development of human populations, and attaining a sustainable energy future.

Amount: $4 million across 5 years
Date due: Preliminary proposals due October 19, 2011

For more information, click here.

Cottrell College Science Awards Single Investigator Awards

Support of significant research that contributes to the advancement of science and to the professional and scholarly development of faculty at undergraduate institutions along with their students

Eligibility

The principal investigator must have a faculty appointment at a US college or university in a department of astronomy, chemistry or physics, or, if from another department, propose research that significantly overlaps with research in astronomy, chemistry or physics. Faculty who have had a previous CCSA award or whose appointment is in a department or school of engineering or medicine are not eligible. The applicant’s home department must offer at least baccalaureate, but not doctoral, degrees. At the time of application the applicant must be within the first three years of her/his first tenure track appointment.

Criteria

The potential of a proposed research project to add to fundamental scientific knowledge is a prime criterion in its evaluation, as is its potential for developing into a long term viable program capable of attracting future support from other agencies. Other factors considered are the environment for research at the institution, student participation, and the contribution the research will make to the college's science programs.

Funding

Cottrell College Science Awards provide direct expenses for support of the proposed research. The total funding from Research Corporation for Science Advancement must be $35,000. An institutional match of $10,000 is required for all applicants. Expenses are limited to five budget categories: equipment, supplies, student stipends, faculty stipends, and travel away from the home institution to conduct research. Requests for Research Corporation for Science Advancement funds have the following limits: supplies up to $6,000 per year, student summer stipends up to $3,500 for 10 weeks, faculty summer stipends up to $7,500 for 8 weeks, travel costs to conduct research and reasonable fees for instrument use off campus up to $2,500 per year. No indirect costs or fringe benefits (other than FICA at 7.65%) are allowed from RC funds.

Applications

The target date for completed applications is November 15. All potential applicants begin the submission process by completing the Eligibility Quiz. If you meet the basic eligibility guidelines you will be directed to submit a brief pre-proposal that is due on September 15. All eligible applicants must complete the pre-proposal. See the complete program guidelines for further details. For questions regarding eligibility and application processes, contact us at ccsa@rescorp.org

Environmental Education Regional Grant Program

The purpose of the Environmental Education Regional Grant Program is to increase public awareness and knowledge about environmental issues and provide the skills that participants in its funded projects need to make informed environmental decisions and take responsible actions toward the environment.

Amount: $100,000

Date due: May 2, 2011

For more information, click here.

FY2011 Oregon Conservation Innovation Grant

The purpose of CIG is to stimulate the development and adoption of innovative conservation approaches and technologies while leveraging the Federal investment in environmental enhancement and protection, in conjunction with agricultural and forestry production. CIG projects are expected to lead to the transfer of conservation technologies, management systems, and innovative approaches (such as market-based systems) into NRCS technical manuals, guides, and references or to the private sector. CIG does not fund research projects. It is a vehicle to stimulate the development and adoption of conservation approaches or technologies that have been studied sufficiently to indicate a likelihood of success, and to be candidates for eventual technology transfer or institutionalization. CIG funds projects targeting innovative on-the ground conservation, including pilot projects and field demonstrations.

Subcategories include energy, climate change, water quality, water quantity, plant health/vigor, grazing, crops, and wildlife habitat.

Amount: $75,000

Date due: March 31, 2011

For more information, click here.

National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Invites Applications for Sea Turtle Conservation Projects

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation has announced the availability of matching grant funding for sea turtle conservation projects in the Western Hemisphere. Projects of interest will focus on research, assessment, and bycatch reduction.

Conservation grant proposals are invited in the following sea turtle research and conservation priority areas: increase effective usage of Turtle Excluder Devices (TEDs) both domestic and abroad, and implementation of other bycatch reduction methods in areas of high bycatch in the Western Hemisphere that will benefit priority sea turtle populations (targeted grant range is up to $100,000 per year); determine and assess potential bycatch and/or unsustainably managed legal harvest hotspots for the North American loggerhead population and the Caribbean hawksbill population (targeted grant range is up to $50,000 per year); and strategies on priority nesting beaches to reduce adult harvest to zero and nest mortally to less than 10 percent of nests laid for index beaches of priority sea turtle populations (targeted grant range is up to $25,000 each per year.

Date due: April 1, 2011 (Pre-proposals)

For more information, click here.

Oregon Sea Grants

The Oregon Sea Grant Program invites preliminary proposals for research on important marine and coastal issues from researchers who are affiliated with any institution of higher education. Proposals will be entered into a highly competitive review and selection process. Proposed work may begin on either February 1, 2012, or February 1, 2013.

An ideal Sea Grant proposal would apply the best science and an innovative approach to a well-defined coastal or marine problem or opportunity that is important to Oregon, the Pacific Northwest Region, and the nation. The two primary criteria for evaluating proposals are 1) scientific excellence and 2) societal relevance. All proposals must state how they match up with the Oregon Sea Grant Strategic Plan (click here).

Amount: $90,000/year for two years

Date due: February 4, 2011 (Preliminary proposals); May 6, 2011 (Full proposals)

For more information, click here.

Social Science Research coordination with Sea Grants

The California, University of Southern California, Oregon, and Washington Sea Grant programs are jointly interested in coordinated research efforts that bring together researchers from across the region to address specific social science issues of regional priority. Encompassing the shorelines, estuaries and offshore ocean environments from Washington to California, West Coast marine and coastal ecosystems are diverse and rapidly changing. Expanding pressures from population growth, changing land use and large-scale environmental shifts are affecting the natural resources and biogeochemical processes that sustain coastal regions and the communities, businesses and people that rely upon them.

The four West Coast programs are interested in regional proposals that address social science questions related to national Sea Grant goals for healthy coastal ecosystems, sustainable coastal development, safe sustainable seafood supply and hazard resilient coastal communities. Alignment is encouraged with state, regional and national research priorities (see .pdf for links). The range of potential marine and coastal research topics includes, but is not limited to:

• Coastal and marine spatial planning and its application to emerging issues like marine renewable energy
• Use and valuation of coastal and marine resources, including fisheries, and implications for
  management
• Relationships among social, economic and ecological sustainability and resilience of coastal regions
• Patterns, processes and social institutions that underlie changing coastal demographics and economies
• Human roles and responses to regional climate and environmental changes such as severe storms, coastal inundation, ocean acidification, sea level rise and shifting circulation and marine population distributions
• Community and stakeholder engagement, visioning, social learning and other methods to support coastal sustainability and environmental protection

Amount: Varies

Date due: February 22, 2011 (Letter of Intent); May 15, 2011 (Full proposal)

For more information, click here.