NSF Dear Colleague Letter: Supporting Research Advances in Smart and Connected Communities

Colleagues, I know this program rather well, and would be very happy to work with anyone looking to pursue funding from this program.

September 14, 2015

Dear Colleagues:

The National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Education and Human Resources (EHR), Engineering (ENG), Geosciences (GEO), and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) wish to notify the community of their intention to support, foster, and accelerate fundamental research that addresses challenges in enabling Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC).

Apply for support through the Proposal Preparation Program (PPP)

Is your research proposal almost ready to submit, but you need to do some work to complete it? Do you need support to resubmit a promising but so-far unfunded proposal?

To facilitate the timely completion of proposals for external funding, the College’s Research Office may be able to offer up to $3000 in funding for a range of activities that would help to strengthen a grant or fellowship proposal. Such activities include supporting pilot studies, travel to archives or other facilities, funding grad students for data entry for a pilot study, visits to a program officer or other funding official, or engaging a consultant to evaluate the proposal, manuscript, data analysis, and the like.

You may apply for support by filling in a form found at http://www.chass.ncsu.edu/research/ppp/index.php, or visit http://go.ncsu.edu/hss-ppp for updated information.

Submission Guidelines

Applications are accepted and evaluated on an on-going basis. The applications will be reviewed by the Associate Dean for Research, who may call upon members of the research committee for advice and input.

Please be sure to submit your PPP application to the research office no later than 7 months before your grant proposal deadline. This is a firm deadline.

Q&A

Are these funds available only for projects supporting grant and fellowship proposals?  Yes.

Are these funds available only for projects that, if funded, would return large overhead (F&A) revenues?
 No. We will consider proposals to support projects that would yield smaller grants, as well as high-prestige fellowship applications.

Is this program designed just for big-money social science researchers?  No. This funding will also support preliminary work for applications for fellowships, applications to work as a visiting scholar, and similar programs. Any T/TT faculty member may apply.

Does this program support conference travel?  No.

Can I budget summer salary or academic year salary?  No.  You can budget hourly wages for a student employee.

Are these funds available to NTT faculty?  No. This program, because it funds grant proposals, is for T/TT faculty. However, teams that consist of both T/TT and NTT faculty may apply, but the lead PI must be a T/TT faculty member.

Join the UGPN Meeting in Australia

NC State faculty are invited to attend the University Global Partnership Network (UGPN) meeting February 29th -March 3 in Australia. The meeting will be hosted by the network's newest member, the University of Wollongong.

The annual meeting brings together researchers, academics, administrators and staff from the member institutions: University of Surrey, University of Sao Paulo, NC State University and the University of Wollongong.  The program will consist of campus/facility tours, workshops, round table discussions about research and exchange opportunities.

Applications Open for Scholarship of Community Engagement Institute

Are you interested in exploring how to connect your scholarship to the community or to design effective projects in collaboration with community partners? Do you want to study how integrating service learning into your course can improve student learning outcomes? Are you interested to learn about research methods useful to conduct engaged scholarship? These are just a few of the topics that you could explore by attending the Office of Faculty Development’s Scholarship of Community Engagement Institute. 

Postdoctoral Fellows: UN University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability

The United Nations University Institute for the Advanced Study of Sustainability (UNU-IAS) has several openings for postdoctoral fellows, including a position in its “Governance for Sustainable Development” project.

Two Funding Opportunities: Critical Infrastructure and Food

These are NSF funding opportunities that may be of interest to faculty. 

Pre-Announcement of Large-Scale Seed-Funding Program

Dr. Alan Rebar, Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development, is pleased to announce a new, large-scale seed-funding program to stimulate the growth of interdisciplinary research at NC State.  This initiative, the Game-Changing Research Incentive Program (GRIP), will allocate approximately $1,500,000 over three years to fund exceptional research teams and projects that span NC State colleges.  GRIP is intended to incentivize and support visionary research ideas that will result in large-scale extramural funding, award-winning research impacts, and first-class interdisciplinary graduate education and training.   

Data Science Initiative Winter Symposium

Colleagues, I received this from Trey Overman, the Data Science Initiative program manager--many of you may be interested in this symposium.

Symposium on Friday, February 5th in the Duke Energy Hall (Room C) at Hunt Library on Centennial Campus.  This event is free and will run from 9:00 - 5:00, with lunch provided and a reception to immediately follow.  A detailed agenda will be forthcoming.  

Lauren Di Monte of the libraries has sent us news about the Making Space event series that many of our faculty and staff will find interesting: 

• Video Games, Psychology and the User Experience, a public talk given by Dr. Ceclia Hodent from Epic Games. February 2, 4:00pm-5:00pm
• User Experience in Video Game Design, a hand-on workshop led by Dr. Hodent.February 2, 5:30-6:30pm
• Engineering an Engineering Toolset for Girls--and Boys Too, a public talk given by Sibel Deren Guler, founder of Teknikio. March 31, 3:00pm-4:00pm
• Future Wearables, a hands-on workshop led by Deren Guler on March 31, 6:00pm-9:00
  , and and a second session on April 1, 10:00am-1:00pm

New ways to learn more about 2016 Gulf Research Program fellowships (apply by Feb. 17)

Dear Colleagues,

We encourage you and your colleagues to take advantage of two new ways to learn more about the 2016 Gulf Research Program Early-Career Research Fellowships and Science Policy Fellowships for early-career researchers and professionals in the social and behavioral sciences, health and medicine, engineering, earth and life sciences, and relevant interdisciplinary fields.

Limited Submission Opportunity: Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research.

Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research: New Innovator in Food and Agriculture Research Award

This award will fund new faculty and their teams of graduate students and post-doctoral scholars to conduct innovative research with potential to expand the availability of food and facilitate the global practice of sustainable agriculture as the world’s population grows to more than 9 billion people by the year 2050. The program is intended to shine a spotlight on food and agriculture sciences and elevate the field in the scientific arena. 

ON HOLD: Request for Proposals: NC State Extension, Engagement, & Economic Development Seed Grant (Due January 29th)

ON HOLD. Per this note received December 16

The SEED Grant program is temporarily on hold, while Dr. Terri Helmlinger Ratcliff, Vice Provost for the Office of Outreach & Engagement, and Dr. Alan Rebar, Vice Chancellor for Research, Innovation and Economic Development have time to review the current program guidelines, past results and identify and secure appropriate funding resources.  Helmlinger Ratcliff and Rebar are committed to refocusing the SEED Grant program for greater impact in line with Pathway to the Future and institutional priorities moving forward.

Funding Opportunities (some are limited submission)

Colleagues,

Following are funding opportunities of interest to our faculty. The first two are limited submission opportunities, so you will need to indicate your interest (not the full application) by this Friday, December 18. Others are open submission. Let me know if you have any questions about this, and let me and Missy Seate know if you intend to apply.

Limited Submission Announcements

New Research Funding Opportunities in the Humanities and Social Sciences

Colleagues, the Office for Research, Innovation, and Economic Development has shared with us these funding opportunities, which will be of considerable interest in the college. Please share with interested parties and let my office know if you plan to apply.

Opal Mann Green Engagement and Scholarship Award--Call for Nominations

Opal Mann Green Engagement and Scholarship Award Rules

History

Dr. Opal Hurley Mann Green, former faculty member and leader at the county, state, and national level within Cooperative Extension, led an illustrious professional career spanning from 1943 to 1982, and then served as a community leader until 2009.  Her lifelong teaching, leadership, and positive modeling to others was congruent with John Dewey’s ideas of democracy in education, and in the community. (See: http://www.sobreroraleigh.com/tribute%20to%20Opal%20Mann%20Green.html). She exhibited these values throughout her career, family life, and community volunteer life.

Proposal Preparation Program (New for 2015-16)

Proposal Preparation Program (New for 2015-16)

Is your proposal almost ready to submit, but you need to do some work to complete it? Do you need support to resubmit a promising but so-far unfunded proposal?

To facilitate the timely completion of proposals for external funding, the College’s Research Office may be able to offer up to $3000 in funding for a range of activities that would help to strengthen a grant or fellowship proposal. Such activities include supporting pilot studies, travel to archives or other facilities, funding grad students for data entry for a pilot study, visits to a program officer or other funding official, or engaging a consultant to evaluate the proposal, manuscript, data analysis, and the like.

You may apply for support by providing the following information in a form found at http://www.chass.ncsu.edu/research/ppp/index.php

Submission Guidelines

Applications are accepted and evaluated on an on-going basis. The applications will be reviewed by the Associate Dean for Research, who may call upon members of the research committee for advice and input.

Please be sure to submit your PPP application to the research office no later than 7 months before your grant proposal deadline. This is a firm deadline.

Data management support from the NCSU Libraries

Colleagues, I received this from Hilary Davis in the NCSU Libraries. The libraries have done some great work in helping faculty with data management planning. Please share the following information with your colleagues.

More and more funding agencies require researchers to include data management plans with their grant proposals and share articles and data resulting from funded research.  

The NCSU Libraries provides free guidance to NC State faculty, staff, post-docs, and students on creating and implementing data management plans and meeting public access compliance requirements.  Our consultation includes advice on data types and standards for describing data, options for short-term storage and long-term preservation, and considerations for sharing research outputs and public access compliance.

As a starting point, visit the NCSU Data Management Planning guide:  http://www.lib.ncsu.edu/guides/datamanagement/  

• Review the main components of a data management plan
• Check the requirements of your funding source
• Draft a data management plan on your own or use the DMPTool to create a downloadable draft
• Send us your DMP draft to review: https://www.lib.ncsu.edu/dmpreview
• Questions?  Contact us at library_datamanagement@ncsu.edu

If you or your colleagues are interested in one-on-one consultation or a group workshop, feel free to let me know.  We'd be happy to customize a presentation or a hands-on workshop to meet your needs.

Hilary

-- 

Hilary Davis
Head of Collection Management & Director of Research Data Services
NCSU Libraries
Box 7111
2 Broughton Drive
Raleigh, NC 27695
fax: 919-515-7854
phone: 919-513-0654
hmdavis4@ncsu.edu

Restricted Data Application System

The college's IT staff have worked with us to develop an on-line tool for faculty who are applying for the use of restricted data sets. 

This tool will be used by our faculty when they apply to obtain a set of data, such as from a government agency, that carries with it important restrictions, such as who can access the data, in what form it is made available to us (CDs, online, etc.), and, when the data access agreement expires, how the original dataset is returned or destroyed. 

College faculty must complete a simple on-line form when applying to use such data. This system will also help alert us when the data use agreement requires a university signature. 

The on-line system is at http://www.chass.ncsu.edu/research/restricted_data/

Please let me know if you have any questions regarding this system. Day to day management of this system will be Joyce Christian's responsibility.

Writing a Research Grant Application: Tips for Success

On October 23rd, Dr. Marie Davidian presented a webinar entitled "Writing a Research Grant Application: Tips for Success."  If you, or someone you know, did not get the chance to attend, the recording of the webinar, along with Dr. Davidian's slides, can be found at the link below (under the "Webinars" heading at the bottom of the webpage).  You can access the site using your unity ID and password (that is, it is only available to NC State users)

http://research.ncsu.edu/intranet/pdu

ACLS Public Fellows Call for Applications

ACLS is currently accepting applications from organizations wishing to host a 2016 ACLS Public Fellow. Online applications will be accepted from recent PhDs starting in January 2016.

The ACLS Public Fellows program places recent PhDs from the humanities and humanistic social sciences in two-year staff positions at partnering organizations in government and the nonprofit sector. Fellows participate in the substantive work of these organizations and receive professional mentoring. The fellowship provides a stipend of $65,000 per year as well as individual health insurance.

This program, made possible by a grant from The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, aims to expand the reach of doctoral education in the US by demonstrating that the capacities developed in the advanced study of the humanities have wide application, both within and beyond the academy.

The ACLS Public Fellows program involves two separate application processes each program year:

In the fall, nonprofit and government organizations apply for the opportunity to host an ACLS Public Fellow, who will take up his or her appointment in the following year. For more information, visit 

Apply to Host an ACLS Public Fellow

In the spring, recent humanities PhDs who meet the program's eligibility requirements apply for two-year fellowship placements at one of the year's selected host organizations. For more information about becoming an ACLS Public Fellow, visit

ACLS Public Fellows Competition for Recent PhDs

Questions about this program may be directed topublicfellows@acls.org.