UCR Research and Economic Development Newsletter: October 8, 2017
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

· OSTP: FY 2019 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities

· NSF Biological Sciences: Elimination of Deadlines and Preliminary Proposals

· UAV Lunch: Oct 23

· Cannabis Potluck: Oct 11

· Black Swan and Cygnets

Federal Research Funding 2016-17

The federal fiscal year ended on sept 30. below is a table of federal funding each of the last four federal fiscal years.

UNIT	2014	2015	2016	2017
Bourns College of Engineering	$20,610,973	$24,336,493	$28,820,042	$27,323,682
Business & Administrative Serv	$619	$593,938	$366,732	$113,717
Coll of Hum, Arts & Social Sci	$2,130,918	$6,340,847	$6,152,524	$4,591,877
College of Nat & Agr Sciences	$46,731,794	$55,903,888	$54,387,706	$59,152,976
Graduate Division	$1,427,706	$1,987,983	$2,663,166	$42,755
Graduate School of Education	$744,754	$424,617	$2,682,354	$1,400,921
School of Business Administrat	-$216,896
School of Medicine	$5,171,681	$7,732,563	$4,623,813	$4,551,193
School of Public Policy	$508,679	$938,910	$1,105,721	$150,000
Undergraduate Education	$75,000		$118,114	$257,611
University Library		$10,000
Vice Chancellor - Research	$509,693	$215,546	$897,976	$7,642,159
Vice Chancellor Student Affairs	$1,061,898	$1,714,078	$1,533,989	$1,723,595
Grand Total	$78,756,819	$100,198,863	$103,352,137	$106,950,486

Total Research Funding

UC compiles funding statistics of each campus. UCR has grown by the largest percentage in funding from all sources. The graph below compares UCR to our closets UC peers in funding. We have surpassed Santa Cruz and are closing in on Santa Barbara.

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Top PIs in Federal Funding 2017

The table below shows the funding of PIs whose total federal funding exceed $750,000 last year and the number of awards contributing to this total. Grants awarded to these 34 faculty and their collaborators account for a little more than half of UCRs federal funding. Of particular note are the assistant professors in the list who are off to a great start.

Of course, the importance of all research and its impact can’t simply be measured in dollars. A $5000 grant to support an undergraduate conducting research can have a life changing impact. The “long tail” is as important as the top to being a comprehensive research university. A total of 255 faculty are PIs of federal grants. As is apparent from the next section, the federal government doesn’t value all research areas as much as UCR does.

PI	College	Count	Total
Roper, Caroline	CNAS	4	$5,566,963
Akbari, Omar	CNAS	4	$4,551,754
Atkinson, Peter	CNAS	2	$3,839,536
Shi, Jing	CNAS	2	$3,130,000
Barth, Matthew J	BCOE	5	$3,097,396
Mohsenian-Rad, Amir Hamed	BCOE	4	$2,737,309
Reynolds, Chandra A	CHASS	7	$1,655,378
Velazquez, Alicia	Student Affairs	11	$1,653,733
Kisailus, David	BCOE	5	$1,580,520
Lyons, Timothy W	CNAS	4	$1,492,900
Vidalakis, Georgios	CNAS	4	$1,443,656
Close, Timothy J	CNAS	3	$1,323,699
Mobasher, Bahram	CNAS	9	$1,301,711
Brisk, Philip	BCOE	10	$1,293,319
Roy Chowdhury, Amit K	BCOE	4	$1,190,000
Pazzani, Michael	RED	3	$1,179,393
Cybart, Shane	BCOE	7	$1,178,062
Rasmussen, Carolyn	CNAS	2	$1,120,309
Talbot, Prue	CNAS	3	$1,006,877
Zhong, Wenwan	CNAS	7	$997,635
Wang, Yinsheng	CNAS	4	$980,071
Bailey-Serres, Julia	CNAS	4	$961,808
Wheeldon, Ian	BCOE	6	$938,790
Seitz, Aaron	CHASS	4	$916,203
Tsutsui, Hideaki	BCOE	3	$907,104
Gill, Sarjeet S	CNAS	2	$897,154
Sachs, Joel Lawrence	CNAS	1	$892,835
Wimpenny, Stephen	CNAS	2	$870,000
Nelson, David	CNAS	6	$805,410
Yin, Heng	BCOE	6	$798,495
Jenerette, Darrel	CNAS	7	$790,879
Christopher, Phillip	BCOE	4	$775,000
Roberts, Philip A	CNAS	6	$757,533
Abdulrazak, Khaleel	CHASS	3	$750,991

OSTP: FY 2019 Administration Research and Development Budget Priorities

The Office of Science and Technology Policy is part of the executive branch of government. Most years, they release priorities for federal research agencies. Although there is currently lack of agreement between congress and the president on many matters, at the highest level of abstraction, there is strong rhetorical support for R&D funding. Of note, there is priority for early stage and basic research over applied research. Nonetheless, R&D in support of Military and Security are called out in addition to health. STEM education and Research Infrastructure area called out.

The full report is available at https://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/whitehouse.gov/files/ostp/fy2019-administration-research-development-budget-priorities.pdf

Some excerpts are below:

American Military Superiority

The American warfighter requires state-of-the-art tools and technologies to defeat a growing number of emerging threats. Agencies should invest· in R&D that can support the military of the future, including in technologies related to the development of missile defense capabilities, a modern strategic deterrent, hypersonic weapons and defenses, autonomous and space-based systems, trusted microelectronics, and future computing capabilities. …

American Security

The security of Americans at home and abroad is paramount. Emerging threats against the American homeland compel the Federal Government to develop the technologies necessary to prevent terrorist attacks, mitigate the effects of both natural and adversarial threats and hazards, and secure American borders. Agencies should invest in R&D to increase the security and resilience of the Nation’s critical infrastructure from both physical threats and cyber-attacks, which have increased rapidly in number and complexity in recent years. …. Special attention should be paid to R&D that can support the safe and secure integration into society of new technologies that have the potential to contribute significantly to American economic and technological leadership.

American Energy Dominance

A consistent, long-term supply of lower-cost American energy will provide security through energy independence and help create a stable supply of high-paying jobs, while lower prices for electricity and fuel will spur American prosperity. Development of domestic energy sources should be the basis for a clean energy portfolio composed of fossil, nuclear, and renewable energy sources. Agencies should invest in early-stage, innovative technologies that show promise in harnessing American energy resources safely and efficiently. As initiated in the FY 2018 budget, Federally-funded energy R&D should continue to reflect an increased reliance on the private sector to fund later-stage research, development, and commercialization of energy technologies.

American Health

R&D investments in health-related fields both lengthen and improve the quality of American lives. As part of the Administration’s commitment to improving health outcomes while lowering healthcare costs, agencies should give priority to biomedical programs that encourage innovation to prevent, treat, and defeat diseases, and maintain America’s standing as a world leader in medicine. Agencies should prioritize R&D focused on solutions for an aging population, as well as on combating drug addiction and other public health crises. Alongside foundational biological research, agencies should support investments that develop tools and technologies with the potential to open new areas of discovery. In particular, agencies should prioritize R&D efforts that will lead to more efficient and effective healthcare.

Supporting Innovative Early-Stage

Research Basic and early-stage applied research are critical components of the American research enterprise and the basis of new technological development and commercialization. However, in the development of high-payoff technology, early-stage research often involves greater uncertainty and may not provide the economic incentive needed to attract private sector investment. Therefore, agencies should give priority to funding basic and early-stage applied research that, supplemented by private sector financing of later-stage R&D, can result in the development of transformative commercial products and services.

Developing a Future-Focused Workforce

The Administration is committed to improving the technical training of the American workforce through Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math (STEM) education and apprenticeships. Emerging technologies will present tremendous opportunities for new job creation, but will also require a technically skilled and capable workforce to meet demand. In order to maintain American competitiveness and help ensure that the domestic workforce is available and qualified for the jobs of the future, agencies should incorporate STEM education, including computer science education, and workforce training opportunities into their programs.

Modernizing and Managing Research Infrastructure

State-of-the-art research infrastructure provides the United States with unique capabilities, ensuring that the American science and technology workforce has the capabilities it needs to conduct world-leading research. Maintaining and modernizing research infrastructure is critical to getting the best value out of R&D investments. Innovative partnership models involving other agencies, state and local governments, the private sector, academia, and international partners can help maximize utilization of underused facilities and lead to sharing the costs of new R&D facilities

NSF Biological Sciences: Elimination of Deadlines and Preliminary Proposals

The Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) is notifying members of the research communities of important changes to the core program solicitations as noted below, effective in calendar year 2018.

In order to promote interdisciplinary research that crosses biological scales and traverses current divisional boundaries, BIO will implement a "no-deadline," full-proposal mechanism for receiving and reviewing proposals submitted to core programs in the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB), the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS), the Division of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences (MCB), and to the programs in the Research Resources Cluster of the Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI).

By accepting proposals at any time, investigators will have greater opportunities to prepare their proposals, build strong collaborations, and think more creatively, thereby resulting in more complex, interdisciplinary projects that have the potential to dramatically advance biological science. We anticipate that the elimination of deadlines will reduce the burden on institutions and the community by expanding the submission period over the course of the year, in contrast to the previous fixed yearly deadlines.

For these changes to take effect, the core programs in DEB and IOS are discontinuing use of the preliminary proposal mechanism in 2018. There will be no call for preliminary proposals in January 2018.

More details are available at

https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2018/nsf18011/nsf18011.jsp?WT.mc_id=USNSF_25&WT.mc_ev=click

UAV Lunch: Oct 23

Research and Economic Development hosts lunches to get together faculty from different colleges working on related problems.

We'll host a lunch on Oct 23 starting at noon in UOB 210 with the topic of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs or drones) in research and education. If interested, please sign up at. https://www.eventbrite.com/e/research-lunch-tickets-37958335403

The lunches are catered by a local Thai restaurant and include vegetarian and gluten-free options.

If you have an idea for a topic, please notify me. (We are planning a lunch for autism researchers and another for computational modeling and simulation)

Cannabis Potluck: Oct 11

We'll host a lunch on Oct 11 starting at noon in UOB 210 with the topic of Cannabis Research.

https://www.eventbrite.com/e/research-lunch-on-cannibis-tickets-38440409299

The goal is to connect researchers who are conducting academic research on cannabis and users of cannabis. Topics may include but are not limited to

· Agricultural Research: Plan Breeding, Horticulture, Plant Pathology, Pesticides, etc.

· Research on purity and chemical composition of cannabis products available to consumers

· Biomedical research on cannabis and related compounds.

· Social Science and public policy research on cannabis and its users

See https://www.drugabuse.gov/drugs-abuse/marijuana for some info on NIH and cannibis

There is likely to be a UC completive grant program funded by a tax on cannabis next year.

It’s not really a potluck. It will be catered by a local Thai restaurant and include vegetarian and gluten-free options. However, you may bring dessert. I’ll be baking brownies.

Black Swan and Cygnets

I recently attended a workshop in Melbourne on Explainable Artificial Intelligence. I had some free time to find nearby bird life. Here’s a photo of a black swan with a baby swan on its back. I’ve never seen a baby bird hitching a ride, although in the US grebes and loons do this.

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