UCR Research and Economic Development Newsletter
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Gillian Wilson
Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Research and Economic Development
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- Welcome to New Faculty
- Google Faculty Research Awards
- R'Water Website and Upcoming Workshop
- NSF Documenting Endangered Languages
- NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES)
- Dear Colleague Letter: Planning for New Signals in the Soils (SitS)-Themed NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRCs)
- DARPA Young Faculty Award
- Limited: WiSTEM²D J&J Scholars
- Limited: NSF Enabling Quantum Leap
- Perseid Meteor Shower
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This newsletter is sent out by the Office of Research and Economic Development (RED) with the goal of informing faculty about trends in research, funding, and internal funding opportunities and encouraging collaborations across the university.
Research and Economic Development Website:
https://research.ucr.edu
contains information on Sponsored Projects (for submitting all grant proposals), Research Integrity (For research involving human subjects, animals, etc), Technology Commercialization (for assistance with patenting, licensing, and new company formation), and Research Development (for assistance with proposal strategy)
Here are a few resources of particular interest:
Research Funding
Here are a few resources at UCR that new faculty may wish to explore:
- Identifying Funding Opportunities. We use COS Pivot, http://pivot.cos.com a service that collects grant opportunities from the federal government. If you have a UCR email address, you can create an account on Pivot. It is easy to do, but if you like instruction, they are available at. http://research.ucr.edu/ord/funding/search-engines/pivot.aspx. In addition to searching for funding opportunities, Pivot allows one to save a search and emails you with new opportunities
- Electronic Campus Approval Form: http://cnc.ucr.edu/ecaf/quick_start.html UCR submits over 1500 proposals a year and has a streamlines electronic approval process for proposal submission.
- Cayuse: http://research.ucr.edu/spa/electronic-research-administration/cayuse.aspx Cayuse is an electric system that facilitates creations, submission and collaboration on proposals. UCR uses it for all federal proposals that are submitted through grants.gov, including NIH proposals. While Cayuse and grants.gov can submit NSF proposals, most NSF proposals will be submitted through research.gov
Research Integrity:
- Institutional review boards (IRBs) UCR has two IRBs. A social-behavioral IRB and a clinical IRB. The IRBs are required by federal regulations to review all human subjects research conducted on behalf of the institution. IRB review is required for both funded and non-funded human subject research.
- Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC) which oversees all research and care involving vertebrate animals.
- Institutional Biosafety Committee (IBC) functions as the local review body responsible for oversight of research activities, including teaching laboratories, involving the use, storage and handling of biohazardous materials
- Promoting Research Objectivity (PRO) is charged with reviewing investigator statements of financial interest related to their sponsored research activities and determining whether a conflict of interest management plan is warranted after review of all the facts and circumstances.
- Stem Cell Research Oversight (SCRO) Committee reviews activities involving human stem cell research, regardless of the type of stem cells or whether the stem cells are adult or embryonic.
Technology Commercialization
The Office of Technology Partnerships assists faculty and students with patenting inventions, licensing technology and forming companies. See
https://www.ucreduotp.net/
for me information and details.
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Google Faculty Research Awards
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Google is inviting proposals to its Faculty Research Award program. Although not a requirement, previous UCR experience has shown that in order to be successful you must find a Google employee to champion your proposal. The Google champion or sponsor should be
considered an expert in your area of research, and familiar with your work.
The PI must be “permanent faculty” at a degree-granting institution. A PI may submit only one proposal per year; there is no other limit on the number of proposals per institution. The award will come as an unrestricted gift and will be enough to cover one graduate student plus some travel money for one year. No faculty salaries or overhead are allowed.
Areas of interest to Google are:
Algorithms and optimization
Computational neuroscience
Cooling and power
Digital media processing
Geo/maps
Human-AI interaction
Human-computer interaction
Information retrieval and real time content
Machine learning and data mining
Machine perception
Machine translation
Mobile
Natural language processing
Networking
Physical interfaces
Privacy
Recommendation systems
Security
Social signal processing
Software engineering and programming languages
Speech
Structured data, extraction, semantic graph, and database management
Systems (hardware and software)
Virtual/Augmented reality
Proposals are due September 30, 2018 and Google expects the award rate to be about 15%.
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R'Water Website and October Workshop
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Some UCR "water" faculty and I are organizing a half day workshop on Wednesday October 10th.
The goal of the workshop is to foster multidisciplinary research in water resources management and engineering to address water security challenges across local, regional and global scales.
We're calling the initiative
R'water
The plan for the workshop includes a series of lightning talks, followed by discussion about next steps and funding opportunities. Some thrust areas:
- Water, Energy, and Society: Management of Coupled Human-Natural Systems
- Water for Food: Enhancing Food Security by Improving Agricultural Water Management
- Water-Soil-Vegetation Dynamics: Nexuses and Equilibriums in Changing Climate
- Water Quality and Treatment: From Scientific Innovations to Actions
Organizers:
- Hoori Ajami, Department of Environmental Sciences
- David Biggs, Department of History
- Amir Haghverdi, Department Environmental Sciences
- Haizhou Liu, Chemical and Environmental Engineering
- David Lo, School of Medicine
- Kurt Schwabe, School of Public Policy
- Gillian Wilson, Research and Economic Development
Refreshments and lunch will be provided. Hope to see you there!
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NSF Documenting Endangered Languages
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Full Proposal Deadline: November 19, 2018
This funding partnership between the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) supports projects to develop and advance knowledge concerning endangered human languages. Made urgent by the imminent death of roughly half of the approximately 7000 currently used languages, this effort aims to exploit advances in information technology to build computational infrastructure for endangered language research. The program supports projects that contribute to data management and archiving, and to the development of the next generation of researchers. Funding can support fieldwork and other activities relevant to the digital recording, documenting, and archiving of endangered languages, including the preparation of lexicons, grammars, text samples, and databases. Funding will be available in the form of one- to three-year senior research grants, fellowships from six to twelve months, and conference proposals. Note: a conference proposal should generally be submitted at least a year in advance of the scheduled date of the conference.
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NSF International Research Experiences for Students (IRES)
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Agency Deadline: September 11, 2018
The International Research Experiences for Students (IRES) program supports international research and research-related activities for U.S. science and engineering students. The IRES program contributes to development of a diverse, globally-engaged workforce with world-class skills. IRES focuses on active research participation by undergraduate or graduate students in high quality international research, education and professional development experiences in NSF-funded research areas.
The overarching, long-term goal of the IRES program is to enhance U.S. leadership in research and education and to strengthen economic competitiveness through training the next generation of research leaders.
This solicitation features three mechanisms; proposers are required to select one of the following tracks to submit their proposal.
Track I focuses on the development of world-class research skills in international cohort experiences. Track II is dedicated to targeted, intensive learning and training opportunities that leverage international knowledge at the frontiers of research. Track III calls for U.S. institutional partnerships and coalitions to develop and evaluate innovative models for high-impact, large-scale international research and professional development experiences for graduate students, as individuals or groups.
(1) IRES - Track I: IRES Sites (IS) projects engage a group of undergraduate and/or graduate students in active high quality collaborative research at an international site with mentorship from researchers at a host lab. IRES Sites must be organized around a coherent intellectual theme that may involve a single discipline or multiple disciplines funded by NSF.
(2) IRES - Track II: Advanced Studies Institutes (ASI) are intensive short courses with related activities that engage advanced graduate students in active learning and research at the frontiers of knowledge. ASIs typically range in length from ten to twenty-one days and must be held outside the United States. ASIs must have a compelling rationale for their international location and should involve distinguished active researchers in the target field from the U.S. and abroad. ASIs should enable students to develop skills and broaden professional networks, leveraging international participation and complementary resources (expertise, facilities, data, field site, etc.) for mutual benefit.
(3) IRES - Track III: New Concepts in International Graduate Experience (IGE) projects propose, implement, and evaluate creative ideas for catalyzing the development of globally engaged U.S. scientists and engineers at the graduate student level. The IGE IRES track invites professional societies and organizations in the U.S. directly associated with science and engineering education or research activities to propose innovative large-scale programs to provide high-quality international research and/or research-related professional development experiences for U.S. graduate students as individuals or groups. The proposed experiences should enhance transferable skills and expand professional networks. Graduate students recruited from a broad, diverse applicant pool should travel to non-U.S. locations for periods of several weeks to a semester for immersive experiences under the mentorship of appropriate collaborators in the U.S. and foreign locations. The proposed international professional development model may focus on research or research-related activities in any NSF-funded area(s). Proposals that utilize, leverage and potentially expand existing global networks and infrastructure are encouraged.
Student participants supported by IRES funds must be citizens, nationals, or permanent residents of the United States.
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Dear Colleague Letter: Planning for New Signals in the Soils (SitS)-Themed NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRCs)
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The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Engineering (ENG), in collaboration with its Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and Geosciences (GEO) Directorates, aims to encourage convergent research that transforms existing capabilities in understanding dynamic near-surface processes through advances in sensor systems and dynamic models. Specifically, the goal of this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) is to encourage planning of one or more Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC).
The Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (NSF IUCRC program
(
https://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/iucrc/home.jsp
) strives to develop long-term partnerships among industry, academe, and government to promote convergent research programs of mutual interest, contribute to the nation's research infrastructure base, enhance the intellectual capacity of the engineering or science workforce through the integration of research and education, and facilitate knowledge and technology transfer. The IUCRC program seeks to achieve these goals by:
- Leveraging NSF funds with industry to support graduate students performing industrially-relevant pre-competitive research;
- Expanding the innovation capacity of our nation's competitive workforce through partnerships between industries and universities; and
- Encouraging the nation's research enterprise to remain competitive through active engagement with academic and industrial leaders throughout the world.
Preliminary proposals for IUCRC planning grants addressing SitS-themed precompetitive research areas are welcome and will be fully considered.
Faculty are encouraged to collaborate within their institutions as well as with other institutions to bring together a multi-institution partnership towards planning a prospective center per the requirements of the IUCRC program. If the institutions planning the IUCRC can obtain letters of strong support from industry, each university may submit a planning grant proposal to NSF following the guidance in the IUCRC program solicitation (
https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf17516
). Preliminary Proposals are required as a pre-requisite to a full Planning Grant Proposal submission. Please refer to the
IUCRC solicitation
for details and applicable submission dates. SitS topic questions about this DCL should be directed to:
SitSquestions@nsf.gov
.
SitS planning grant preliminary proposals considered under this DCL must be received by the IUCRC solicitation deadlines of October 17, 2018, for the first round of consideration, or by April 17, 2019, for the second round of consideration. Proposals need to be submitted per the guidance in the IUCRC program solicitation NSF 17-516.
The title of the planning grant preliminary proposal submission must start with "SitS:" to allow IUCRC Program Officers a way to identify submission aligned with this DCL. Questions concerning this opportunity may be emailed to SitSquestions@nsf.gov.
If you are interested in applying, RED may be able to help with industry contacts. Contact us through
Bri Cates,
VCREDadmin@ucr.edu
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DARPA Young Faculty Award
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The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Young Faculty Award (YFA) program aims to identify and engage rising stars in junior faculty positions in academia and equivalent positions at non-profit research institutions and expose them to Department of Defense (DoD) and National Security challenges and needs. In particular, this YFA will provide high-impact funding to elite researchers early in their careers to develop innovative new research directions in the context of enabling transformative DoD capabilities. The long-term goal of the program is to develop the next generation of scientists and engineers in the research community who will focus a significant portion of their future careers on DoD and National Security issues.
Dates (All times are Eastern Time)
o Posting Date: August 9, 2018
o Executive Summary Due Date: September 10, 2018, 4:00 p.m.
o FAQ Submission Deadline: November 8, 2018, 4:00 p.m. See Section VIII.A.
o Full Proposal Due Date: November 13, 2018, 4:00 p.m.
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Limited: WiSTEM²D J&J Scholars
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Internal Deadline: 8/29/18
Agency Deadline: 9/25/18
Number of Submissions Allowed: 6 (one per discipline)
APPLICANTS MUST INDICATE WHICH DISCIPLINE THEY ARE APPLYING TO IN THEIR SUBMISSION.
As a part of Johnson & Johnson‘s commitment to building a diverse WiSTEM2D Community, we are pleased to launch the Johnson & Johnson WiSTEM2D Scholars Program, an award to support women pursuing research in STEM2D.
WHO CAN PARTICIPATE: Female non-tenured assistant professors or faculty members in equivalent positions at a University or Academic Institute (collectively, “University”) in one of the STEM²D disciplines are eligible to apply to participate in the Scholars Program. The eligible STEM²D disciplines are: Science, Technology, Engineering, Math, Manufacturing and Design.
Applications are limited; each University and/or Academic Institute can support and recommend one applicant per each STEM²D discipline. Therefore, each University and/or Academic Institute can support a total of 6 applicant submissions (one for Science, one for Technology, one for Engineering, etc.)
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Limited: NSF Enabling Quantum Leap
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Internal Deadline: 8/28/18
Letter of Intent Deadline: 09/17/18
Agency Deadline: 11/5/18
Number of Submissions Allowed: 1
The Division of Materials Research (DMR), the Division of Mathematical Sciences (DMS), the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS), and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) seek to rapidly accelerate quantum materials design, synthesis, characterization, and translation of fundamental materials engineering and information research for quantum devices, systems, and networks. The new program of Enabling Quantum Leap: Convergent Accelerated Discovery Foundries for Quantum Materials Science, Engineering, and Information (Q-AMASE-i) aims to support these goals by establishing Foundries with mid-scale infrastructure for rapid prototyping and development of quantum materials and devices. The new materials, devices, tools and methods developed by Q-AMASE-i will be shared with the science and engineering communities through a Foundry-operated network. Technology transfer of Foundry activities will be enabled by close cooperation with industrial partners.
Six-year awards totaling $20,000,000 to $25,000,000 for the award period are anticipated. Q-AMASE-i Foundries will be awarded as cooperative agreements with an initial commitment of six years, with the possibility of one six-year renewal, subsequent to a rigorous and favorable review by NSF. The annual performance review includes NSF's evaluation of the annual report after the first year, an annual site visit after the second and fourth year of Foundry activities, and a reverse or program management site visit after the third and fifth year. Funding after the second year will depend on the quality of progress and performance documented during the site visits
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Perseid meteor shower (3 meteors) over Price Lake, North Carolina.
The Perseid meteor shower happens every August when the Earth plows into debris left behind from Comet Swift-Tuttle. 2018 was an exceptionally good year.
Image Credit: Becky Gillum
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