Current Funding Opportunities
From SIResearchInnovationOffice
Thinking of applying to one of these opportunities? Please email si-ori@umich.edu.
NSF - Broadening Participation in Computing - Deadline: May 21, 2008
Deadline post 2008: third wednesday in May
The Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) program aims to significantly increase the number of U.S. citizens and permanent residents receiving post secondary degrees in the computing disciplines, with an emphasis on students from communities with longstanding underrepresentation in computing: women, persons with disabilities, and minorities. Included minorities are African Americans, Hispanics, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, and Pacific Islanders. The BPC program seeks to engage the computing community in developing and implementing innovative methods to improve recruitment and retention of these students at the undergraduate and graduate levels. Because the lack of role models in the professoriate can be a barrier to participation, the BPC program also aims to develop effective strategies for encouraging individuals to pursue academic careers in computing and become these role models.
For more information please go to NSF 07-548
NSF - Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) - Deadline: May 21, 2008
The Course, Curriculum, and Laboratory Improvement (CCLI) program seeks to improve the quality of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education for all undergraduate students. The program supports efforts to create, adapt, and disseminate new learning materials and teaching strategies, develop faculty expertise, implement educational innovations, assess learning and evaluate innovations, and conduct research on STEM teaching and learning. The program supports three types of projects representing three different phases of development, ranging from small, exploratory investigations to large, comprehensive projects.
For more information please go to NSF 08-546
NSF - Virtual Organizations as Sociotechnical Systems - Deadline: June 2, 2008
A virtual organization is a group of individuals whose members and resources may be dispersed geographically, but who function as a coherent unit through the use of cyberinfrastructure. Virtual organizations are increasingly central to the science and engineering projects funded by the National Science Foundation. Focused investments in sociotechnical analyses of virtual organizations are necessary to harness their full potential and the promise they offer for discovery and learning.
The Virtual Organizations as Sociotechnical Systems (VOSS) program supports scientific research directed at advancing the understanding of what constitutes effective virtual organizations and under what conditions virtual organizations can enable and enhance scientific, engineering, and education production and innovation. Levels of analysis may include (but are not limited to) individuals, groups, organizations, and institutional arrangements. Disciplinary perspectives may include (but are not limited to) anthropology, complexity sciences, computer and information sciences, decision and management sciences, economics, engineering, organization theory, organizational behavior, social and industrial psychology, public administration, and sociology. Research methods may span a broad variety of qualitative and quantitative methods, including (but not limited to): ethnographies, surveys, simulation studies, experiments, comparative case studies, and network analyses.
VOSS funded research must be grounded in theory and rooted in empirical methods. It must produce broadly applicable and transferable results that augment knowledge and practice of virtual organizations as a modality. VOSS does not support proposals that aim to implement or evaluate individual virtual organizations.
For more information please go to NSF 08-550
DHS Center of Excellence in Command Control and INteroperability (C2I) - Deadline: June 15, 2008
This is an opportunity for $18,000,000 over six years. It is anticipated that there will be one cooperative agreement awarded under this announcement.
The DHS Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate is requesting applications from accredited U.S. colleges and universities to establish and operate a DHS Center of Excellence (COE) in Command Control and Interoperability (C2I). This COE will address issues related to
- dynamic, on-demand data processing and visualization;
- hypothesis-driven data analysis;
- visualization of structured, unstructured, and streaming data;
- mathematics of discrete and visual analytics;
- scalable information filtering and dissemination;
- visualization and simulation of information;
- mobile and light-weight information analytics and sharing.
This COE will create the scientific basis and enduring technologies needed to analyze massive amounts of information from multiple sources to more reliably detect threats to the security of the nation and its infrastructures and to the health and welfare of its populace. These new technologies will also improve the dissemination of both information and related technologies.
New methods are needed to give individuals the ability to examine massive, multi-dimensional, multi-source, time-varying information streams, discover and disseminate that information, and make decisions in a time-critical environment. Technologies are needed that will support the application of human judgment to make the best possible use of this information and share it with others as appropriate to prevent, deter, and respond to threats. Consequently, S&T seeks basic research in two new, interdisciplinary fields: visual analytics and discrete sciences.
When effective, visual analytics enables analysts to make sense rapidly of uncertain, complex and diverse data sources. Examples include numeric data from databases, sensors or computational models, unstructured text from documents and reports, images or videos, and voice or other audio data. Visual analytics uses mathematical and computational algorithms to enable visual assessment and manipulation of diverse data.
Discrete sciences apply the methods of discrete mathematics to computational science. Their focus is developing simpler, more efficient algorithms and architectures for use in a broad range of data-intensive computing applications, such as knowledge representation, natural language processing, text or information extraction, uncertainty quantification and high-performance computing.
Ongoing research in both areas can be applied to address common challenges in the following areas:
- Information analysis
- Knowledge management
- Threat assessment
- Situational awareness
- Decision support
- Information sharing
- Interoperable communications
- Surveillance and investigative operations
- Cyber infrastructure protection
For more information please go to Grants.gov Synopsis and link to the Full Announcement
HP Labs Innovation Research Program - Deadline: June 18, 2008 5PM EST
The HP Labs Open Innovation Office's Innovation Research Program is designed to create opportunities -- at colleges, universities and research institutes around the world -- for breakthrough collaborative research with HP. Through this open and competitive Call for Proposals, we are soliciting your best ideas on a range of topics with the goal of establishing new research collaborations. The 2008 HP Labs Innovation Research program is seeking proposals for breakthrough research within five broad research themes:
- Information explosion: Acquiring, analyzing and delivering the right information to individuals and businesses so they can act on it
- Dynamic cloud services: Developing web platforms and cloud services that are dynamically personalized based on your location, preferences, calendar and communities
- Content transformation : Enabling the fluid transformation of content from analog to digital, from device to device, and from digital content to physical products
- Intelligent infrastructure: Designing smarter, more secure computing devices, networks and architectures that work together to connect individuals and businesses to rich, dynamic content and services
- Sustainability: Creating technologies, IT infrastructure, and new business models for the low-carbon economy that save money and leave a lighter footprint on the world
Within these broad themes, a number of compelling research topics are being proposed for 2008. Details can be found at the HP Program 2008 Research Topics site. Proposals are solicited in line with these topics on a geographic basis.
Awards under the HP Labs Innovation Research Program will consist of cash support for one year in the USD $50,000 to $75,000 range, including any overhead. A key element of each award will be on-campus support for one graduate-student researcher.
Important Dates
- Wednesday, 7 May 2008: Research topics announced and submission tool opens
- Wednesday, 18 June 2008, 5:00 PM Pacific Time: Deadline for submissions
- Friday, 1 August 2008: Notification of decisions
Full program guidelines are detailed in the Innovation Research Program Request for Proposals, along with other important program documents:
NSF - National Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics Education Digital Library - Deadline: June 27, 2008
This program aims to establish a national network of learning environments and resources for science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at all levels. The program has four tracks: Pathways projects are expected to provide stewardship for the content and services needed by major communities of learners. Services projects are expected to develop services that support users and resource collection providers that enhance the impact, efficiency, and value of the NSDL network. Targeted Research projects are expected to explore specific topics that have immediate applicability to collections, services, and other aspects of the development of the NSDL network. The NSDL Resource Center will provide collaboration assistance across all projects; undertake strategic partnership development on behalf of projects particularly with respect to non-academic entities; coordinate and, in some cases, perform thematic research and evaluation studies related to the program; synthesize findings across the portfolio; and disseminate findings of the accomplishments of the NSDL program. In FY2008, within the first three tracks the program will accept proposals for large grants in 1) the Pathways track, 2) a new sub-track: Pathways - Stage II, and 3) specific sub-tracks of Services - including a single Technical network services project to provide technical infrastructure support across the NSDL network. In all tracks, except for the NSDL Resource Center, the program will also accept proposals for small grants that extend or enhance results from existing services, collections, or targeted research activity so as to enlarge the user audience for the NSDL network or improve capabilities for the user.
For more information please go to NSF 08-554
NSF - Biological Databases and Informatics - Deadline: July 14, 2008
The Biological Databases and Informatics (BD&I) program seeks to encourage new approaches to the management, analysis, and dissemination of biological knowledge for the benefit of both the scientific community and the broader public. The BD&I program is especially interested in the development of informatics tools and resources that have the potential to advance all fields of biology under the purview of the Directorate for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation.
For more information please go to NSF 05-577
ALISE - Research Grant Competition - Deadline: July 15, 2008
The Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) is now accepting proposals for its 2009 Research Grant Program Competition. An award of one or more grants totaling $5,000 may be made to support research broadly related to education for library and information science. The Research Grant Award cannot be used to support a doctoral dissertation. At least one applicant in a group submitting a proposal must be a personal member of ALISE as of the deadline date.
For more information please go to ALISE Research Grant Guidelines
NSF - Cluster Exploratory - Deadline: July 17, 2008
In the last five years, the private sector has launched a number of highly effective internet-scale applications powered by massively scaled, highly distributed computing resources. Academic researchers have expressed a need for access to similar computing resources that will allow them to engage and explore this emerging and pervasive model of computing.
Through the Cluster Exploratory (CluE) program, NSF-funded researchers will use software and services running on a Google-IBM cluster to explore innovative research ideas in data-intensive computing. Proposals funded are expected to cover a range of activities that first lead to advances in computing research, but that also explore the potential of this computing paradigm to contribute to science and engineering research and to applications that promise benefit to society as a whole.
For more information please go to NSF 08-560
NSF - CAREER: Faculty Early Career Development - Deadline: July 22-24, 2008
CAREER: The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program is a Foundation-wide activity that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards in support of junior faculty who exemplify the role of teacher-scholars through outstanding research, excellent education and the integration of education and research within the context of the mission of their organizations. Such activities should build a firm foundation for a lifetime of leadership in integrating education and research. NSF encourages submission of CAREER proposals from junior faculty members at all CAREER-eligible organizations and especially encourages women, members of underrepresented minority groups, and persons with disabilities to apply.
For more information please go to NSF 08-557
NEH - Preservation and Access: Humanities Collections and Resources - Deadline July 31, 2008
The possibilities presented by advances in digital technology require a new grant category that encompasses the range of activities funded through the previous programs and encourages the development of digital methods and tools to increase the availability and long-term preservation of humanities collections and resources. Grants support projects that preserve and create intellectual access to such collections as books, journals, manuscript and archival materials, maps, still and moving images, sound recordings, art, and objects of material culture. To ensure that significant collections are preserved and available for research, education, or public programming in the humanities, applications may be submitted for the following activities:
- digitizing collections;
- arranging and describing archival and manuscript collections;
- cataloging collections of printed works, photographs, recorded sound, moving image, art, and material culture;
- preservation reformatting;
- deacidification of collections; and
- preserving and improving access to humanities resources in “born digital” form.
For more information please go to the NEH Program Guidelines
NSF - Science, Technology and Society - Deadline: August 1, 2008
STS considers proposals that examine historical, philosophical, and sociological questions that arise in connection with science, engineering, and technology, and their respective interactions with society. STS has four components:
- Ethics and Values in Science, Engineering and Technology (EVS),
- History and Philosophy of Science, Engineering and Technology (HPS),
- Social Studies of Science, Engineering and Technology (SSS),
- Studies of Policy, Science, Engineering and Technology (SPS).
The components overlap, but are distinguished by the different scientific and scholarly orientations they take to the subject matter, as well as by different focuses within the subject area. STS encourages the submission of hybrid proposals that strive to integrate research involving two or more of these core areas.
STS provides the following modes of support:
- Scholars Awards,
- Standard Research Grants and Grants for Collaborative Research,
- Postdoctoral Fellowships,
- Professional Development Fellowships,
- Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants,
- Small Grants for Training and Research,
- Conference and Workshop Awards,
- Other Funding Opportunities.
Air Force Office of Scientific Research FY08 BAA - Deadline: Open through FY08
Some specific areas of interest to the school of information are found in section c of the BAA - Mathematics, Information and Life Sciences. See specifically section 2) Complex Networks, 4) Distributed Intelligence and Information Fusion, 6) Mathematical Modeling of Cognition and Decision, 9) Sensory Information Systems, and 10) Collective Behavior and Socio-Cultural Modeling.
For more information please go to AFOSR FY08 General BAA
New Economy Initiative for Southeast Michigan - Deadline: Open
New Economy Initiative grants support the efforts of nonprofit organizations, charities, and government agencies to transform the economy of southeast Michigan and return prosperity to the region. Grants are available for a variety of activities, but proposed activities must be focused on helping to achieve the goal of the New Economy Initiative and its objectives focused on talent, innovation and culture change.
For more information please go to New Economy Initiative Program Description
ALISE/OCLC - Library and Information Science Research Grant Program - Deadline: Sept 17, 2008
OCLC Online Computer Library Center, Incorporated, and OCLC Research in collaboration with the Association for Library and Information Science Education (ALISE) announce the Library and Information Science Research Grant (LISRG) program for 2009 and invite research proposals. In recognition of the importance of research to the advancement of librarianship and information science, OCLC and ALISE promote independent research that helps librarians integrate new technologies into areas of traditional competence and contributes to a better understanding of the library environment. To aid new researchers, priority will be given when possible to proposals from junior faculty and applicants who have not previously received LISRG fund.
For more information please go to ALISE/OCLC/LISRG Guidelines
