Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2023-39

Update: Good News!

NJIT Technology Innovation Translation and Acceleration (TITA) Seed Grants (Up to $75,000 per project)

Expected Number of FY2024 TITA Grants to be Awarded: 10-12

(Additional Funding Available from NSF ART (Accelerating Research Translation) Program, State of NJ and NJIT Strategic Investment Funds)

For Information How to Apply: Join us at the TITA Program Proposer Information Session:

Monday, October 2, 2023: 12.00.00 PM – 1.30 PM (light lunch will be served)

Please RSVP to attend the information session by filling out this form by September 26, 2023

FY2024 TITA Seed Grants: Call for Proposals

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1yjP8F8vp7qDUXXZQ2eLYO9X9HGk0UrRN?usp=sharing

TITA External Advisory Board (EAB)

TITA Stage-1 2-Page IDEA Concept Paper Submission Due: October 5, 2023

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U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Launches $4.6 Billion in Competitive Grants to Cut Climate Pollution

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) launched $4.6 billion in competitive grants to fund state, local, and Tribal programs and policies that cut climate pollution, advance environmental justice, and deploy clean energy solutions across the country. As part of President Biden’s Investing in America agenda, a key pillar of Bidenomics, EPA’s Climate Pollution Reduction Grants (CPRG) competitions will enable community-driven solutions to the climate crisis, helping to accelerate America’s clean energy transition. The announcement comes during Climate Week 2023 in New York City – an annual gathering of civil society leaders, business leaders, students, and advocates who are committed to taking bold climate action. The two new competitions are part of the second tranche of funding from EPA’s $5 billion Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program, which was created by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act – the largest climate investment in history. EPA has already made $250 million available to fund the development of climate action plans, and nearly all states, plus major cities opted in to receive these flexible planning resources. The $4.6 billion implementation grant competitions launched today will fund initiatives developed under the first phase of the program.

The Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Competitions

EPA is announcing the availability of $4.6 billion across two implementation grant competitions, one general competition and one specifically for Tribes and territories. Under these competitions, eligible applicants will compete for CPRG implementation grants to fund measures in their state-, municipality-, Tribe-, or territory-specific climate action plans. As part of its evaluation of applications, EPA will prioritize measures that achieve the greatest amount of GHG emissions reductions. EPA anticipates awarding approximately 30 to 115 grants ranging between $2 million and $500 million under the general competition. EPA also anticipates awarding approximately 25 to 100 grants ranging between $1 million and $25 million under the Tribes and territories competition.

The deadline to apply to the general competition is April 1, 2024. The deadline to apply to the Tribes and territories competition is May 1, 2024. EPA estimates that the implementation grants will be awarded in Fall 2024 for the general competition and in Winter 2024-2025 for the Tribes and territories competition.

EPA has published the two official Notice of Funding Opportunities or NOFOs for these grants competitions on  View Opportunity | GRANTS.GOV View Opportunity | GRANTS.GOV

Webinars: EPA will hold two informational webinars about the general competition on September 21 at 2:30 pm and October 3 at 3:00 pm (same content for both), and two informational webinars about the Tribes and territories competition on September 27 at 2:00 pm and October 5 at 1:00 pm (same content for both). All times are Eastern Time. These 1-hour webinars will provide more detailed information on the implementation grants competitions. Recordings of the webinars will be posted to the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants webpage.

Register for the September 21st webinar here.

More information on the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants

Sign up for notifications about the Climate Pollution Reduction Grants program

For further information: R3press@epa.gov

NSF: Partnerships for Innovation (PFI); Organismal Response to Climate Change (ORCC); Focused Research Groups in the Mathematical Sciences (FRGMS); Postdoctoral Research Fellowships in Biology (PRFB)

NIH: NIDA REI: Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA) Training a Diverse Data Science Workforce for Addiction Research (R15); BRAIN Initiative: New Concepts and Early-Stage Research for Recording and Modulation in the Nervous System (R21); Ruth L. Kirschstein National Research Service Award (NRSA) Individual Predoctoral Fellowship to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Parent F31-Diversity)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: Minerva Research Initiative’s (Minerva) Defense Education and Civilian University Research (DECUR) Partnership

EPA: Climate Pollution Reduction Grants Program: Implementation Grants

Department of Energy: Solar-thermal Fuels and Thermal Energy Storage via Concentrated Solar-thermal Energy; Notice of Intent to issue Critical Materials Accelerator Funding Opportunity Announcement; Advancing U.S. Thin-Film Solar Photovoltaics

NASA: ROSES 2023: E.8 Physical Sciences Informatics

National Endowment of Humanities: Digital Humanities Advancement Grants; Humanities Initiatives

Companies turn to risk mitigation tools to monitor AI absent federal law, study finds: Last week was a big one for artificial intelligence, as Congress continued to invite tech executives to talk about how AI works, what it can do and how they feel it should be regulated. The many meetings and hearings are occurring as generative AI continues to develop at lightning speed, with new AI models like ChatGPT 4, Google Bard, the new Bing, Stable Diffusion and many others being recently released or updated. And there are many more AI models in development, with each of them attempting to become smarter and more useful than those that came before them.

But there are also security concerns, as the AIs could possibly be used for nefarious purposes beyond the original intention of their designs. And people are also rightly concerned about being discriminated against by AI models coming to incorrect or even prejudicial conclusions based on faulty training data, which could negatively impact everything from people’s healthcare to their financial well-being. But even with those possible dangers, there is even more concern that overly stringent regulations could stifle AI development and harm the nascent industry while it works on creating what is potentially one of the most important technologies of the near future. With that in mind, many industry leaders are urging Congress to adopt a light touch when it comes to AI regulations so that the United States can maintain its competitive edge in the field. In the meantime, many businesses are adopting new IT tools to help self-regulate and protect their use of AI, ensuring that whatever systems they employ are not able to harm their business or negatively impact their customers. That is according to a just-released Gartner study, which found that business leaders feel AI can provide a competitive edge — but that it also comes with potential dangers. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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Further Clarifying NIH’s Foreign Subaward Agreement Policy: Addressing Community Feedback: in response to feedback received from the research community, we are releasing our final guide notice clarifying NIH’s long-standing policy on foreign subaward and consortium written agreements. In the video below, we talk about the origins of this notice, the consideration of and changes made in response to public comment, the final oversight and compliance requirements, and how these efforts will ensure NIH remains a proper steward of taxpayer support. Dr. Lawrence Tabak, Acting Director of NIH, and Ms. Michelle Bulls, Director of the OER Office of Policy for Extramural Research Administration join me in this video. Last June, we published a Notice in the Federal Register. The notice sought public comments on our plans to update the NIH Grants Policy Statement, section 15.2, to require that foreign subrecipients provide copies of all lab notebooks, all data, and all documentation that supports the research outcomes as described in the progress report, to the primary recipient no less than once every six months. This step was taken in response to separate audit recommendations from the HHS Office of Inspector General and Government Accountability Office. Effective January 2, 2024, section 15.2 of the NIH Grants Policy Statement will be updated to include these clarifications. Grant recipients will need to be in compliance with this updated policy guidance by March 2, 2024. We have also developed a new subaward webpage and FAQs, will provide language that can be included in subaward agreements, and will offer other resources to help the community comply with this policy guidance. More information is available on the NIH website.

Question:       Can I generate budgets for multiple years from the Year-1 budget in Streamlyne?

Answer:         Yes! You only need to input the Year-1 budget and then click on the “generate all periods” button. Stremalyne will create budget sheets for the remaining periods. You can then go to “summary” under the budget tab to review budget sheets for all periods. You can also change specific budget items that you allocated in Year-1 but you do not want to continue them in the following periods.

More FAQs on Streamlyne: Please visit http://www.njit.edu/research/streamlyne/