ORN-2025-30
NJIT Research Newsletter includes recent awards, and announcements of research related seminars, webinars, national and federal research news related to research funding, and Grant Opportunity Alerts (with links to sections). The Newsletter is posted on the NJIT Research Website https://research.njit.edu/funding-opportunities.
Special Announcements
Updates to NSF Research Security Policies
NSF Research Security Assessment and Requirements
Effective October 10, 2025 the NSF reserves the right to perform risk assessments, using analytical tools, of proposals and awards submitted to the Foundation to assess nondisclosures of required information from senior/key personnel, and establish other policies and procedures for identifying, communicating, and addressing security risks that may threaten the integrity of Foundation-supported research and development.
NSF proposers and recipients are required to maintain supporting documentation, including copies of contracts, grants, or any other agreements specific to foreign appointments, employment with a foreign institution, participation in a foreign talent recruitment program and other information reported as current and pending (other) support for all senior/key personnel that must be available to NSF upon request. Proposers and recipients are expected to review requested supporting documentation for compliance with NSF award terms and conditions.
Accordingly, those NJIT community members impacted should keep all records and also disclose such activities if they have not already done so. Please note that both proposers/proposals and recipients/awards are mentioned.
Research Security Training
Effective October 10, 2025 the National Science Foundation requires research security training certifications for all proposers and senior/key personnel. This training must cover cybersecurity, international collaboration, foreign interference, proper use of funds, disclosure, and conflicts of interest/commitment.
To help meet this requirement, the NSF, NIH, DOE, and DOD collaborated to offer four online modules, which were later condensed into a single module by the SECURE Center. This condensed module fulfills the government-wide research security training requirement outlined in Section 10634 of the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022. All four agencies recognize completion of this condensed module as compliant.
Specifically:
- Senior/key personnel must complete their required research security training within 12 months prior to proposal submission. NJIT must certify that all senior/key personnel have completed this training. Accordingly it is even more important to initiate pre-award approvals as early as possible.
- NJIT must also certify that the institution has a plan for Responsible and Ethical Conduct of Research training for all relevant personnel (students, faculty, etc.). This training must include mentor training, awareness of research security threats, and federal export control/disclosure requirements.
More details related to these federal requirements may be found here.
Over the coming weeks, through CITI Program, NJIT will have all required courses available. Our use of CITI Program for training integrates into our existing compliance training and allows for documentation and certification. NJIT now has single sign on access with CITI Program to facilitate accessibility (choose log in through my organization). More details will follow over the next few weeks about the specific actions we can take as members of the NJIT research community.
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U.S. Army xTech Program
The U.S. Army xTech Program, in partnership with the U.S. Army Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance (ISR) Task Force, is excited to announce the third iteration of the xTechLive pitch competition, where we will be awarding up to $100,000 in cash prizes. This is a unique opportunity for eligible small to medium businesses attending DEF CON 33 in Las Vegas, NV, in August 2025 to pitch innovative technology solutions to a live panel of U.S. Army subject matter experts (SMEs) and compete for prize money.
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Recent NJIT Non-Provisional U.S. Patent Applications (Filed)
Patent Title: PHASE CHANGE MATERIAL COMPOSITES INCLUDING CARBON NANOMATERIALS
NJIT Ref No.: 24-033
Inventor(s): Eon Soo Lee, Niladri Talukder
Patent Application Status: Filed Non-Provisional Patent Application
Patent Application Filing Date: 7/22/2025
Application Filing No.: 19/276,485
Technology Licensing Status: Available
Grant Opportunity Alerts
NSF: Computer and Information Science and Engineering: Future Computing Research (Future CoRe); Smart Health and Biomedical Research in the Era of Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Data Science (SCH): National Science Foundation Translation to Practice (NSF TTP)
NIH: Forecast: Advancing Bioinformatics, Translational Bioinformatics and Computational Biology Research (R01); Notice to Publish a Funding Opportunity Announcement for the Academic Career Excellence (ACE) Award (K32)
Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: US Army Combat Capabilities Development Command Broad Agency Announcement; Air Force Fiscal Year 2026 Young Investigator Program (YIP)
NASA: ROSES 2025: B.4 Space Weather Science Application Research-to-Operations-to-Research; ROSES 2025: C.2 Solar System Science; ROSES 2025
National Endowment of Humanities: Public Humanities Projects
Recent Research Grant and Contract Awards
In the News
Statement from NSF Chief of Staff Brian Stone, performing the duties of the NSF Director, on the White House AI Action Plan: The White House's AI Action Plan sends a clear message: the United States is all-in on winning the future of artificial intelligence. This road map removes barriers to American innovation and reaffirms our commitment to seizing the opportunities of AI to advance economic competitiveness and national security. At the U.S. National Science Foundation, we're proud to have a critical role in realizing this future. Over the coming weeks, NSF will unveil a series of major initiatives that align with this momentum, including:
- New NSF AI Research Institutes to accelerate breakthroughs in foundational AI and the application of AI to health, education, chemistry and materials science.
- A partnership to create a large language model infrastructure to develop cutting-edge capabilities to drive AI for science.
- AI Testbeds to evaluate real-world AI systems with transparency and rigor.
- The next phase of the National AI Research Resource to supercharge AI innovation through access to critical computational resources, data, software and training resources.
These investments will help secure U.S. leadership in AI while ensuring the benefits of this powerful technology reach across America and create more jobs. NSF stands ready to work alongside our partners in government, private industry and philanthropy to keep American innovation on the frontier where it belongs.
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AWS and Idaho National Lab to collaborate on AI for nuclear energy: Amazon Web Services is helping the Idaho National Laboratory modernize nuclear energy research and development through a new collaboration that will leverage AWS cloud computing infrastructure to create artificial intelligence tools tailored for nuclear energy projects. Announced on Wednesday, the forthcoming technology suite aims to help reduce overhead costs associated with permitting, building and operating nuclear facilities.
“Our collaboration with Amazon Web Services marks a significant leap forward in integrating advanced AI technologies into our nuclear energy research and development initiatives,” INL Director John Wagner said in a press release. “This collaboration underscores the critical role of linking the nation’s nuclear energy laboratory with AWS.” One of the goals of the collaboration is to develop nuclear energy solutions to offer sustainable power options for data centers handling large volumes of compute. AWS software will initially be used to develop a digital twin model of a small modular reactor to better understand how a physical reactor will function. More information is posted on the NextGov website.
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Energy announces first 4 AI data center sites on federal lands: The Department of Energy announced the federal lands it will use to host new data centers outfitted for artificial intelligence computing needs, selecting four facilities, including two national labs. Confirmed on Thursday, the facilities include Idaho National Laboratory, Oak Ridge Reservation, Paducah Gaseous Diffusion Plant and Savannah River Site, where private sector partners will develop AI data center and energy generation infrastructure. “By leveraging DOE land assets for the deployment of AI and energy infrastructure, we are taking a bold step to accelerate the next Manhattan Project — ensuring U.S. AI and energy leadership,” Energy Secretary Chris Wright said in the press release. “These sites are uniquely positioned to host data centers as well as power generation to bolster grid reliability, strengthen our national security, and reduce energy costs.” Each location was selected in part due to its existing infrastructure following an April request for information published by Energy. The push to construct new AI-specific data centers are a result of President Donald Trump’s latest executive order on AI, signed on Wednesday evening.
Webinars and Events
Research Grant Opportunities:
National Science Foundation
National Institutes of Health
Department of Defense
NASA
National Endowment for the Humanities
Proposal Submission and Streamlyne Information
The NJIT Proposal Submission Guidelines and Policy provides the expected institutional timeline for proposal submission. Streamlyne User Manuals are posted on https://research.njit.edu/streamlyne. For contact information on proposal submission, pre-award services and post-award grant management, please visit research website https://research.njit.edu/researchers and https://research.njit.edu/contact.