Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2022-24

DOE Releases Strategy for Building Cyber-Resilient Energy Systems

Energy.gov Website

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) released the congressionally-directed National Cyber-Informed Engineering (CIE) Strategy to provide a framework for enhancing engineering training, tools, and practices to build resilient clean energy systems designed to withstand cyber threats. The Strategy encourages the incorporation of cybersecurity technology early in the design lifecycle of engineered systems to reduce cyber risks and vulnerabilities including threats by foreign actors. Securing a strong and reliable clean energy grid is a key component of achieving President Biden’s goal of a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. 

            The National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2020 directed DOE to convene a multi-stakeholder working group, comprised of senior technical leaders from across government, industry, academia, and the DOE National Laboratories, to develop a new strategy to defend our nation’s energy infrastructure from cybersecurity threats, vulnerabilities, and risks in the most critical industrial control systems. Pursuant to congressional direction, CESER created the Securing Energy Infrastructure Executive Task Force to lead the development of the National CIE Strategy as well as to identify new classes of security vulnerabilities in industrial control systems and to evaluate the technologies and standards used to secure industrial control systems.  For more information about the National Cyber-Informed Engineering Strategy, click here.  

NSF: Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS); Mid-Career Advancement (MCA); Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU); Joint DMS/NIGMS Initiative to Support Research at the Interface of the Biological and Mathematical Sciences (DMS/NIGMS); Enabling Quantum Computing Platform Access for National Science Foundation Researchers with Amazon Web Services, IBM, and Microsoft Quantum; Advancing Educational Innovations and Broadening Participation in STEM with Blockchain Technology

NIH: Research Coordinating Center to Support Climate Change and Health Community of Practice (U24); BRAIN Initiative: Team-Research BRAIN Circuit Programs - TeamBCP (U19); NINDS Interdisciplinary Team Science Grant (RM1 Clinical Trial Optional); NIH Director’s Transformative Research Awards (R01); NIH Director’s Early Independence Awards (DP5 Clinical Trial Optional); NIH Director’s Pioneer Award Program (DP1); NIH Director’s New Innovator Award Program (DP2)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: Defense Sciences Office (DSO) Office-wide BAA; DoD Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy, Translational Research Award; DOD Parkinson's Investigator-Initiated Research Award; Defense Manufacturing Communities Support Program; FY22 DEFENSE ESTABLISHED PROGRAM TO STIMULATE COMPETITIVE RESEARCH (DEPSCoR) – RESEARCH COLLABORATION (RC)

Department of Transportation: Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellowship Program (DDETFP) Graduate Fellowship; UTC Program Competition 2022-2026 Grants

Department of Agriculture: Conservation Reserve Program Decision Support Tools

Department of Labor: Targeted Topic Training

Department of Commerce/EDA:  Ocean Exploration Fiscal Year 2023 Funding Opportunity; FY2021 to FY2023 NOAA Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)

EPA: ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE SMALL GRANTS PROGRAM

Department of Energy: Basic Energy Sciences - Reaching a New Energy Sciences Workforce (BES-RENEW); Carbon Management

NASA: ROSES 2022: Fundamental Physics; Space Technology Research Institutes Appendix; ROSES 2022: NASA Innovation Corps Pilot; ROSES 2022: ROSES 2022: Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics Networks

National Endowment of Humanities: Humanities Connections; Public Humanities Projects; Summer Stipends

Private Foundations: Global Partnerships and Grand Challenges

Pentagon Calls for New Ideas in ‘Third Wave’ of AI Evolution:  key research and development agency within the Department of Defense is accepting new contract proposals specifically focused on advancing algorithmic processing within Defense’s artificial intelligence projects. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is formally soliciting contracts for its new Enabling Confidence program, a subsect within its Artificial Intelligence Exploration initiative. The AIE focuses  on what DARPA defines as its “third wave” of artificial intelligence research, which includes AI theory and application research that examines limitations with rule and statistical learning theories belying AI technologies. “The pace of discovery in AI science and technology is accelerating worldwide,” the program announcement says. “AIE will enable DARPA to fund pioneering AI research to discover new areas where R&D programs awarded through this new approach may be able to advance the state of the art.” The AIE’s goal is to invest in “high-risk, high-reward” artificial intelligence topics that will ideally lead to quick prototype development. Technologies fostered within the AIE will primarily be related to Defense’s national security initiatives. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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Pentagon Plans to Manage Inflation Costs in Contracts: T he Defense Department knows cost increases due to inflation may begin to affect contracts. But, according to recent guidance, defense contracting officers are urged to "limit the scope" when using clauses for pay adjustments.  "The current economic environment requires we understand the impacts of inflation to existing contracts and consider various approaches to manage risk of inflation to prospective Department of Defense (DOD) contracts," John Tenaglia, the principal director for Defense Pricing and Contracting, wrote in a memo dated May 25.  "Against this backdrop, DOD contractors and contracting officers (COs) alike have expressed renewed interest in using economic price adjustment (EPA) clauses." Handling cost increases for existing contracts depends on the contract type and contractors are responsible for notifying DOD when costs are approaching the limits laid out in those agreements, the memo states. But an EPA clause could be a solution, when approached with care, for developing contracts or those in negotiation. More information is posted on the Government Executive website.

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HHS Establishes Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health: The Health and Human Services Department Thursday announced the formal launch of its Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health, or ARPA-H. ARPA-H will function as an independent entity within the National Institutions of Health, and will lead “high-risk, high-reward” biomedical and health investments, according to a notice set to publish Friday in the Federal Register.   Dr. Adam H. Russell, chief scientist at the University of Maryland’s Applied Research Laboratory for Intelligence and Security, was appointed ARPA-H’s deputy director Thursday by Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra in a separate announcement. The proposed mission of ARPA-H could be to make pivotal investments in break-through technologies and broadly applicable platforms, capabilities, resources, and solutions that have the potential to transform important areas of medicine and health for the benefit of all patients and that cannot readily be accomplished through traditional research or commercial activity. ARPA-H will:

• Speed application and implementation of health breakthroughs to serve all patients
• Foster breakthroughs across various levels — from the molecular to the societal 
• Build capabilities and platforms to revolutionize prevention, treatment, and cures in a range of diseases
• Support “use-driven” ideas focused on solving practical problems that advance equity and rapidly transform breakthroughs into tangible solutions for all patients.
• Focus on multiple time-limited projects with different approaches to achieve a quantifiable goal.
• Use a stage-gate process, with defined metrics, and inject accountability through meeting these metrics.
• Overcome market failures through critical solutions or incentives
• Use the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) as a model to establish a culture of championing innovative ideas in health and medicine.

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