UCR Research and Economic Development Newsletter:  December 3, 2014

Michael Pazzani

Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development

http://research.ucr.edu

Back Issues of Newsletter: http://research.ucr.edu/vcr/newsletters.aspx

Grant Opportunity Search: http://pivot.cos.com  

 


 

·         NSF and NIH SBIR/STTR Workshop at UCR: Dec 5

·         Rauschenberg Foundation: ART + ENVIRONMENT

·         USDA/AGRICULTURE AND FOOD RESEARCH INITIATIVE (AFRI) 2012 SYNOPSIS and Change in Matching Policy

·         NSF Acceptance Rates: 2014

·         NSF Awards to UCR in FY 2014

·         Lunch Meetings: Network & Applications and Big Data

·         New NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide

·         California Birds are Happy Birds


NSF and NIH SBIR Workshop at UCR: Dec 5

 

UCR will host a workshop on the NSF and NIH Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs on Dec 5 from 1-3PM at the Alumni and Visitors Center.   It will feature talks by a NSF program director, a local entrepreneur involved with the SBIR program, and a panel of UCR faculty who have been involved in these grants.  

 

Steven Konsek: Overview of SBIR/STTR at National Science Foundation

Molly Schmid: Overview of NIH SBIR/STTR programs

Panel: Xin Ge (Chemical and Environmental Engineering), Ilhem Messaoudi (School of Medicine) Frank Vahid (Computer Science and Engineering)

 

To encourage participation in these grant programs, UCR waives overhead on SBIR and STTR Phase I grants (when permitted by the agency).  See http://research.ucr.edu/About/News.aspx?K=323 

 

Presenter Bios

·         Steven Konsek is the Program Director, SBIR/STTR National Science Foundation: Steven Konsek joined the National Science Foundation in September 2012 as a SBIR/STTR Program Director. Prior to joining NSF, he was the Chief Technology Officer at Illumitex, a venture-backed company developing light emitting diode chips, packages and fixtures for general illumination. He previously served as Chief of Technical Staff at Glo, recognized as one of Europe's top LED startups. Prior to Glo Steven was the Director of Device R&D at Nantero, a memory startup. Throughout his career Steven has developed innovative, game-changing technologies across a range of semiconductor applications. He has a PhD in Physics from the University of Washington and a BS in Mathematics from Purdue University. He holds numerous patents and publications in LEDs, memory, process integration and nanoscale devices.

 

·         Molly Schmid has a distinguished career in both academia and in the biotechnology industry. She was an Assistant Professor, Molecular Biology at Princeton University, part of executive teams (Microcide Pharmaceuticals, Affinium Pharmaceuticals) that raised over $100M in funding through venture capital, corporate partnerships, public markets, and research grants. She has served on grant review panels for NIH, NSF, DoD and DoE, and has chaired SBIR/STTR review panels for NIH. Currently, she is Vice President, Life and Health Technologies, for ieCrowd, Inc. in Riverside CA. She is also a Senior Counselor for TriTech Small Business Development Center, former President of the Tech Coast Angels Inland Empire network, and a member of the TCA Board of Directors.

 

 

Please RSVP to VCREDadmin@ucr.edu so we know how many cookies to order.

 

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Rauschenberg Foundation: ART + ENVIRONMENT

The goal of the Art + Environment program is to support effective methods for addressing climate change that leverage creativity and broad-based civic engagement.
 
The fund, launched in the fall of 2014, expands the foundation’s current efforts in its Arts + Environment program, which focuses on arts-led projects to deepen public awareness of climate change. Now, the fund will broaden the strategy to foreground work of organizations tackling root cases of global warming in ways that engage the public and recognize the catalytic roles culture and creativity play in these endeavors.

UCR may only submit one application to this program.  If interested, please see http://research.ucr.edu/ord/SearchOr.aspx?k=2126965685&ae=A
Grants range from $25,000 to $150,000 for 1 – 2 years.  See http://www.rauschenbergfoundation.org/grants/art-grants/art-environment

 

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USDA/AGRICULTURE AND FOOD RESEARCH INITIATIVE (AFRI) 2012 SYNOPSIS and Change in Matching Policy

 

Due to recent legislation, UCR, as a land-grant, is exempt from matching on all NIFA grant programs EXCEPT a small number of programs below. (Thanks to Kaitlin Chell for working with USDA and compiling this info).  This is good news for UCR because I have heard that the need to find a match had inhibited UCR’s faculty ambitions on these awards). The following awards still require a match but UCR is committed to matching all grants that require matching. 

 

Program Title

Percent Match Required

Beginning Farmer and Rancher Development Program

25

Biomass Research and Development Initiative

20 (R&D grants)

50 (demonstration or commercial projects)

Community Food Projects Program

100

Food Insecurity Nutrition Incentives Program

100

Higher Education Challenge Grants

25

Sun Grants

20 (subawards from Sun Grant center or Subcenter)

 

USDA AFRI has issued a summary of the 2012 programs with information on acceptance rates and average award sizes.  The full report is available at http://www.nifa.usda.gov/funding/afri/pdfs/afri_synop_2012.pdf. A summary is below.

 

Program

Awards

Acceptance

Average Award

PLANT HEALTH AND PRODUCTION AND PLANT PRODUCTS

Biology of Agricultural Plants

27

17.4%

$318,390

Controlling Weedy and Invasive Plants

1

14.3%

$499,679

Insects and Nematodes

10

10.4%

$290,585

Understanding Plant-Associated Microorganisms

21

10.8%

$434,210

Plant Breeding for Agricultural Production

4

16.7%

$195,146

FOOD SAFETY, NUTRITION, AND HEALTH

Physical and Molecular Mechanisms of Food Contamination

9

23.7%

$321,985

RENEWABLE ENERGY, NATURAL RESOURCES, AND ENVIRONMENT

Microbial Communities in Soil

2

25.0%

$227,864

AGRICULTURE SYSTEMS AND TECHNOLOGY

Nanotechnology for Agricultural and Food Systems

10

13.0%

$439,491

Engineering Products and Processes

4

8.3%

$319,682

Metabolic Engineering

2

100.0%

$747,984

National Robotics Initiative

2

100.0%

$660,552

SUSTAINABLE BIOENERGY

Policy Options for and Impacts on Regional Biofuels Production Systems

7

33.3%

$324,731

Environmental Implications of Direct and Indirect Land Use Change

5

11.4%

$497,827

Socioeconomic Impacts of Biofuels on Rural Communities

7

43.8%

$349,180

Stimulating a New Era of Students and Faculty in Bioenergy

2

100.0%

$974,367

Plant Feedstock Genomics for Bioenergy

2

100.0%

$1,000,000

Regional Approaches to Climate Change

5

16.7%

$3,199,700

Climate Change Mitigation and Adaptation in Agriculture

12

100.0%

$913,120

Climate Adaptation and Mitigation in Agroecosystems

16

15.4%

$529,147

Interagency Climate Change

8

80.0%

$1,250,000

FOOD SAFETY

Addressing Critical and Emerging Food Safety Issues

14

16.5%

$384,360

Food Processing Technologies to Destroy Food-Borne Pathogens

3

100.0%

$999,388

Effective Mitigation Strategies for Antimicrobial Resistance

3

8.8%

$549,943

Improving the Safety of Fresh and Fresh-Cut Produce

4

6.3%

$341,018

GLOBAL FOOD SECURITY

Improved Sustainable Food Systems to Reduce Hunger and Food Insecurity, Domestically and Globally

13

21.0%

$862,179

Oomycete Pathosystems in Crop Plants to Minimize Disease

2

100.0%

$1,852,500

Minimizing Diseases Due to Fungal Pathosystems

3

37.5%

$1,080,555

Management of Arthropod- or Nematode-Vectored Plant Pathogens

2

16.7%

$712,500

Program Delivery and Implementation of Wide-Area Pest Monitoring

1

50.0%

$1,170,000

Enhanced Implementation of Integrated Pest Management  for Vectored Pathogens

4

57.1%

$416,667

CHILDHOOD OBESITY PREVENTION

Integrated Research, Education, and Extension  to Prevent Childhood Obesity

4

11.8%

$1,248,918

NIFA FELLOWSHIPS

NIFA Postdoctoral Fellowships

32

40.5%

$123,982

NIFA Pre-Doctoral Fellowships

3

3.7%

$71,685

 

 

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NSF acceptance rates: 2014

 

NSF has released data on the acceptance rates of its programs for the fiscal year ending Sept 30, 2014.  The data is available at http://dellweb.bfa.nsf.gov/starth.asp.  NSF received 48,074 proposals and made 10,981 awards for an overall acceptance rate of 23%.  The median annual award size was $120,000. 

Some additional information is below for specific divisions and programs.

 

Area

Awards

Acceptance

Annual

BIO

1,276

27%

$150,000

 CSE

1,682

23%

$150,000

 EHR

701

17%

$199,998

 ENG

2,152

18%

$121,385

 GEO

1,491

26%

$131,210

 MPS

2,344

26%

$102,169

 SBE

995

22%

$76,709

 

Here are the acceptance rates and awards of programs in SBE, EHR and BIO.  Future newsletters will report on the data for the rest of NSF.

 

SBE

Awards

Acceptance

Annual

ARCHAEOLOGY

88

33%

$25,190

ARCHAEOMETRY

5

33%

$89,609

Biological Anthropology

35

21%

$71,351

COGNEURO

26

19%

$161,991

CULTURAL ANTHROPOLOGY

72

19%

$15,638

Documenting Endangered Languages

17

31%

$78,042

DEVELOP& LEARNING SCIENCES/CRI

21

17%

$129,078

GEOGRAPHY AND SPATIAL SCIENCES

59

16%

$11,387

LINGUISTICS

59

39%

$11,483

PERCEPTION, ACTION & COGNITION

29

23%

$149,617

SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY

22

17%

$133,365

DECISION RISK & MANAGEMENT SCI

31

19%

$80,445

ECONOMICS

90

23%

$92,811

ETHICS EDU FOR SCI & ENG PROG

10

19%

$120,928

LAW AND SOCIAL SCIENCES

49

20%

$65,024

METHOD, MEASURE & STATS

16

16%

$92,854

POLITICAL SCIENCE

63

24%

$21,280

Science of Organizations

11

19%

$104,780

SCIENCE, TECH & SOCIETY

61

24%

$23,309

Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace

22

42%

$116,387

SOCIOLOGY

89

28%

$11,999

 

EHR

Awards

Acceptance

Annual

FED CYBER SERV: SCHLAR FOR SER

22

25%

$309,255

PROGRAM EVALUATION

30

48%

$149,971

Secure &Trustworthy Cyberspace

12

29%

$149,952

DISCOVERY RESEARCH K-12

66

12%

$279,480

Research on Education and Learning

59

17%

$243,941

RES ON GENDER IN SCI & ENGINE

10

100%

$233,922

STEM - Computing Partnerships

8

10%

$433,320

ADVANCED TECH EDUCATION PROG

63

26%

$237,999

IUSE

176

17%

$158,490

ROBERT NOYCE SCHOLARSHIP PGM

60

35%

$199,911

Widening Impl & Dem of Evidence-based Reforms

5

7%

$143,619

 

BIO

Awards

Acceptance

Annual

ACTIVATION

20

41%

$170,000

ADVANCES IN BIO INFORMATICS

63

28%

$222,237

ANIMAL BEHAVIOR

51

35%

$81,574

ANIMAL DEVELOPMENTAL MECHANSMS

17

38%

$196,000

Biodiversity: Discov &Analysis

20

51%

$128,102

BIOLOGICAL RESEARCH COLLECTION

22

29%

$150,000

Cellular Dynamics and Function

46

15%

$200,000

Digitization

32

26%

$101,929

Dimensions of Biodiversity

31

16%

$399,695

ECOSYSTEM STUDIES

74

32%

$73,292

EVOLUTION OF DEVELOP MECHANISM

9

24%

$200,000

EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY

36

20%

$19,955

EVOLUTIONARY GENETICS

48

26%

$18,418

FIELD STATIONS

22

42%

$139,073

Genetic Mechanisms

55

16%

$170,000

Global Systems Science

8

100%

$302,321

GoLife

13

25%

$623,486

INSTRUMENTAT & INSTRUMENT DEVP

41

28%

$174,922

LONG TERM ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH

4

100%

$161,270

LONG-TERM RSCH IN ENVIR BIO

11

79%

$90,000

MACROSYSTEM BIOLOGY

27

17%

$431,296

MINORITY POSTDOC RSRCH FLW-NEW

12

39%

$69,000

MODULATION

24

35%

$150,000

Molecular Biophysics

39

16%

$180,824

ORGANISM-ENVIRO INTERACTIONS

37

33%

$171,147

ORGANIZATION

20

38%

$167,692

PHYLOGENETIC SYSTEMATICS

52

39%

$49,931

PLANT FUNGAL & MICROB DEV MECH

8

30%

$148,611

PLANT GENOME RESEARCH PROJECT

22

88%

$549,791

PLANT GENOME RESEARCH RESOURCE

14

100%

$266,410

POP & COMMUNITY ECOL PROG

87

28%

$74,922

PROCESSES STRUCS & INTEGRITY

61

46%

$181,064

RSCH EXPER FOR UNDERGRAD SITES

34

29%

$106,320

SYMBIOSIS DEF & SELF RECOG

40

33%

$199,989

Systems and Synthetic Biology

51

26%

$154,823

 

The award rates above may be misleading for several reasons.  First, they include workshops and RAPID grants that have a very high acceptance rate since most people don’t submit unless there is a verbal commitment to fund.  However, there are only few per program and the impact on acceptance rates is minimal.  Second, they include Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grants, which have a relatively high acceptance rate.  These primarily increase the acceptance rates of SBE programs from the NSF averages in the low to mid twenties to a higher number.  Third, they include only full proposals.  Some BIO programs require preproposals and only invite 25-30% to submit a full proposal.  Of course, one reaction is to submit more workshop, RAPID, DDIG grants and put effort into polishing preproposals.

 

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NSF awards to UCR in 2014

UCR had a 29% acceptance rate at NSF in 2014, 6 points above the NSF average. UCR’s acceptance rate has been increasing recently when many others have been relatively flat or declining. 

 

cid:image002.png@01D00F22.4B591B60

 

With the increase in acceptance rate comes an increase in awards to UCR. The table below shows the new awards made to various universities in California in 2010 and 2014.

 

University

New Awards

2010

New Awards

2014

Change

Stanford University

127

100

-27

U of Cal  Merced

12

20

8

U of Cal Berkeley

185

154

-31

U of Cal Davis

116

104

-12

U of Cal Irvine

94

67

-27

U of Cal Los Angeles

135

117

-18

U of Cal Riverside

51

69

18

U of Cal San Diego

111

104

-7

U of Cal Santa Barbara

97

82

-15

U of Cal Santa Cruz

75

47

-28

U of Southern California

82

97

15

 

Here are the 10 largest awards from NSF to UCR last fiscal year.

·         Balandin-  EFRI 2-DARE: Novel Switching Phenomena in Atomic Heterostructures for Multifunctional Applications- $1,678,265

·         Childers- Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)- $1,399,668

·         Bailey-Serres-Integrative Analysis of Plasticity in Cell Fate Determination in Plants- $1,190,544

·         Wessler- Genome-wide Impact of mPing Transposition on Rice Phenotypic Diversity- $975,114

·         Stajich- Collaborative Research: The Zygomycetes Genealogy of Life (ZyGoLife)- the conundrum of Kingdom Fungi- $715,674

·         Tsotras- BIGDATA: F: DKM: Collaborative Research: Making Big Data Active: From Petabytes to Megafolks in Milliseconds- $715,620

·         Tang- CAREER: Tuning optical responses in artificial molecules of monovalent gold nanocrystals- $649,964

·         Girke- MRI: Acquisition of a Big Data Compute Cluster for Interdisciplinary Research- $548,476

·         Pazzani- CC*IIE Networking Infrastructure: University of California Riverside's Science DMZ- $499,893

·         Bhuyan-:Small: Efficient CPU-GPU Communication for Heterogeneous Architectures- $498,976

 

This only lists the amount of funds obligated by NSF to UCR last year. Many awards are multi-year awards and will obligate additional funds in the future.

 

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Lunch Meetings: High Speed Networking & Applications and Big Data

 

In the next few weeks, I’m going to hold catered lunch time meetings for UCR faculty. The goal is to have an informal discussion on research topics that cross departments and schools and to allow faculty to meet potential collaborators. The lunches will be held in UOB 210 and consist of Thai food from a nearby restaurant. A vegetarian and a gluten-free option will be available.  Lunch will be served promptly at 12:00 and the meetings will last until 1:30. I welcome suggestions for topics for next year, particularly those that cross schools.  Collaborations between STEM fields and humanities, arts, public policy, education, medicine and agriculture are welcome.

 

 

The remaining schedule for this year is below.  Click on a link to add yourself to the lunch list for a particular date and topic.

 

Friday 12/12, High Speed Networking & Applications:  http://www.jooners.com/guest?l=ecea823a-3614-4b29-a754-f5d78ad5b8f8.  UCR received a $500K grant to up upgrade its computer network to provide faster connectivity between some buildings internal to UCR and to the external internet. Faculty that have large data sets or need to access large data sets are encouraged to attend. This will inform the design of the network and services to be rolled out in the spring.

 

Monday 12/22, Big Data:  http://www.jooners.com/guest?l=b21d90ef-0c19-4919-b567-992d5e0bfde2. This meeting will focus on research whose goal is to derive knowledge from data.

 

 

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New NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide

 

 

NSF recently released its latest revision of the Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide, document 15-1, at http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf15001&org=NSF. There are a few changes regarding how proposals are to be prepared, which are listed below. This should be used for awards due after Dec 26, 2014

 

Significant Changes to the PAPPG Part I: Grant Proposal Guide (GPG)

Chapter II.C.2.g(vi)(a), Materials and Supplies, includes coverage on costs of computing devices. Clarification on when a computing device is considered a supply is provided. The charging of computing devices as a direct cost is allowable for devices that are essential and allocable, but not solely dedicated, to the performance of the NSF award.  This is good news, it relaxes an overly restrictive

 

Other Significant Changes to the GPG

Chapter II.C.2.d, Project Description, has been updated to reflect that the project description must now contain, as a separate section within the narrative, a section labeled "Broader Impacts of the Proposed Work".

 

Chapter II.C.2.d(iii), Results from Prior NSF Support, has been clarified If the PI and/or any Co-PI has had NSF support in the past five years, it needs to be reported on in this section.  The format is quite important to NSF  and proposals that deviate from the format have been returned without review. List

(a) the NSF award number, amount and period of support;

(b) the title of the project;

(c) a summary of the results of the completed work, including accomplishments, supported by the award. The results must be separately described under two distinct headings, Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts;

(d) a listing of the publications resulting from the NSF award (a complete bibliographic citation for each publication must be provided either in this section or in the References Cited section of the proposal); if none, state "No publications were produced under this award."

(e) evidence of research products and their availability, including, but not limited to: data, publications, samples, physical collections, software, and models, as described in any Data Management Plan; and

(f) if the proposal is for renewed support, a description of the relation of the completed work to the proposed work.

 

Chapter II.D.3, Ideas Lab, is an entirely new section which details the four-stage process used with a new funding mechanism, which is designed to support the development and implementation of creative and innovative project ideas that have the potential to transform research paradigms and/or solve intractable problems. Note that, in addition to Ideas Lab, NSF has another funding mechanism titled Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE).

Clarifications and Other Changes to the GPG

Chapter II.C.2.f, Biographical Sketch(es ),makes clear that including personal information in the biographical sketch is not appropriate nor is it relevant to the merits of the proposal. New information is being requested in Section II.C.2.f(i)(a), Professional Preparation. The location of the individual's undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral institution(s) must be provided in a particular format. In your Professional Preparation section, give the location of each institution you attended.  The requirements for the conflict-of-interest lists at the end of the bio sketch have changed. NSF can be very petty. Pay attention to the format:

 

·         For Collaborators and Co-Editors: This should be an alphabetical list of all collaborators and co-authors over the past 48 months and co-editors over the past 24 months. At the start or end of this list, give the total number of collaborators and co-editors.

·         For your own advisors and sponsors, give the total number at the start or the end of the list.

·         For your advisees, list all over the past five years, and give the total number of advisees at the start or end of the list.

 

Chapter II.C.2.j, Special Information and Supplementary Documentation, clarifies the use of letters of collaboration (formerly referred to as letters of commitment). Such letters should be limited to stating the intent to collaborate and should not contain endorsements or evaluation of the proposed project. Proposals that are not consistent with the instructions in this section will be returned without review.

 

Chapter II.D.6, Proposals for Equipment, has been revised to remove the requirement to include a References Cited section for equipment proposals submitted in response to the GPG. Additionally, the Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources section needs to include a brief description of other support services available.

 

Chapter II.D.9, Proposals for Conferences, has been modified to specify that NSF funds are not to be spent for meals and coffee breaks for intramural meetings of an organization or any of its components as a direct cost. Budgets and budget justifications for conferences should be prepared in accordance with GPG Chapter II.C.2.g. A reference to the appropriate AAG section has been added to address program income generated by conferences. In addition, Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources information is now required for conference proposals.

 

Chapter IV.B, Proposal Not Accepted or Returned Without Review, informs proposers that a proposal will not be accepted or will be returned without review by NSF for the reasons listed in that section. Previously the language used was "may" not be accepted or "may" be returned without review.

 

Significant Changes to the PAPPG Part II, Award and Administration Guide (AAG) to Implement the Uniform Guidance

Chapter II.B.2, Changes in PI/PD, co-PI/co-PD, or Person-Months Devoted to the Project, has been revised to remove the requirement to notify NSF of the short-term absence of the PI/PD or co-PI/co-PD. This requirement has been eliminated as it goes beyond what is stipulated in the Uniform Guidance, which addresses PI disengagements of 90 days or longer.

 

Other Significant Changes to the AAG

Chapter I.E.4, Supplemental Support, now includes guidance on submission of mentoring plans post-award. If supplemental funding is requested to support a postdoctoral researcher and the original proposal did not include a mentoring plan, then the supplemental funding request must include the requisite mentoring plan.

 

Chapter V.A.3, Prior Written Approvals, has been updated to show that if a grantee rebudgets funds to support a postdoctoral researcher and the original proposal included a mentoring plan, no further documentation is necessary. If the original proposal did not include a mentoring plan, then the grantee should send the cognizant NSF Program Officer the requisite mentoring plan. In addition, the list of situations when written prior approval from the cognizant NSF Grants and Agreements Officer is required has been revised. Two new prior approval requirements, for salaries of administrative or clerical staff and additional categories of participant support costs other than those described in 2 CFR § 200.75, have been added.

 


 

California Birds are Happy Birds

 

The photos on the left are of birds that spend their winters in cold climates: (from top to bottom, house wren, downy woodpecker, cormorant and mute swan).  Those on the right are happy birds that stay in Southern California in the winter. (Orange-crowned warbler, vermilion flycatcher, hooded oriole and American Avocet).

 

UCR is recruiting approximately 75 faculty this year. Now may be a good time to suggest that colleagues from Buffalo, Minnesota, Cornell, etc., apply for an open position here.

cid:image003.png@01D00F22.15100320

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Michael Pazzani

Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development 

Professor, Computer Science & Engineering

University of California, Riverside

200 University Office Building

Riverside, CA 92521

pazzani@ucr.edu

 

Assistant:  Linda Bejenaru

Email: VCREDadmin@ucr.edu

951-827-4800