Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2023-25

Accelerate American Solar Innovation

Apply Now: $50K Cash Prize for 20 Winners Through the Ready! Contest

https://americanmadechallenges.org/challenges/solarprize/

The U.S. Department of Energy just announced the launch of the American-Made Solar Prize Round 7. This year, there’s a $4 million prize pool up for anyone with a creative solution for making solar more affordable, accessible, and efficient. Through three contests—Ready! Set! and Go!—competitors will receive increasing financial support and resources, with the goal of preparing their technology for commercialization.

Register for the information session on July 11 and follow the prize on HeroX for upcoming dates and deadlines.

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Andrew Carnegie Fellows

In June 2023, Carnegie Corporation of New York announced a second phase of the Andrew Carnegie Fellows Program and a new focus on political polarization in the United States. For at least the next three years, the program will ask scholars to help Americans understand how and why our society has become so polarized and what we can do to strengthen the forces of cohesion in American society. The next class of fellows will be announced in spring 2024. 

The fellows program was established in 2015 to provide philanthropic support to extraordinary scholars and writers for high-caliber research in the humanities and social sciences. During its first eight years, nearly 250 scholars received fellowships of $200,000 to explore a range of important and enduring issues.

Fellowships of $200,000 are awarded annually to 30 exceptional scholars, authors, journalists, and public intellectuals. The criteria prioritize the originality and promise of the research, its potential impact on the field, and the scholar’s plans for communicating the findings to a broad audience. The funding is for a period of one or two years with the anticipated result of a book or major study. The fellows are selected by a distinguished panel of jurors, chaired by John J. DeGioia, president of Georgetown University, and comprised of academic and intellectual leaders from some of the nation’s most prominent educational institutions, foundations, and scholarly societies.  

NSF: Engineering of Biomedical Systems; Cyberinfrastructure Technology Acceleration Pathway (CITAP); Partnerships for Innovation (PFI); Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST Centers); Advancing Microelectronics Education

NIH: BRAIN Initiative: Development and Validation of Novel Tools to Probe Cell-Specific and Circuit-Specific Processes in the Brain (R01); Assessment of TBI-related ADRD Pathology Related to Cognitive Impairment and Dementia Outcomes (U01); Collaborative Opportunities for Multidisciplinary, Bold, and Innovative Neuroscience (COMBINE) (RM1)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: CENTER OF EXCELLENCE (COE): Extreme Neuromorphic Materials and Computing; C4ISR, Information Operations, Cyberspace Operations and Information Technology System Research, Cryogenics and Quantum

Department of Energy: Fiscal Year 2024 Distinguished Early Career Program; Seeding Critical Advances for Leading Energy Technologies With Untapped Potential 2023 (SCALEUP 2023)

US Congressional Science, Space and Technology Committee Moved Three Research Bills: Considered on Wednesday and passed on Thursday, Science Committee Members moved three bills through the Committee this week:

1. H.R. 2988, DOE and NASA Interagency Research Coordination Act
2. H.R. 2980, DOE and NSF Interagency Research Act
3. H.R. 3559, the FAA Research and Development Act of 2023

Ranking Member Lofgren said this on the passage of the three bills:

"The three bills we advanced through Committee today once again demonstrate the Science Committee’s commitment to bipartisanship. H.R. 2988 and H.R. 2980 will capitalize on the impressive capabilities of DOE and advance very important partnerships with NSF and NASA. H.R. 3559 will usher in a stronger future for the FAA and bolster its R&D efforts--which is extremely important to our leadership in aviation and aeronautics. I’m very proud of these bills, and I’m especially proud of the good faith negotiations it took with both staff and stakeholders to make sure they’re perfect. I thank Chairman Lucas for his leadership and look forward to working with my colleagues to move this on the House floor.”

Learn more here.

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Tech panel champions near-term quantum efforts in must-pass defense bill: The House Armed Services Committee signed off on a series of tech-centric markups to the fiscal 2024 National Defense Authorization Act during a Wednesday hearing, notably including a provision that would fund the first quantum pilot program focusing on developing quantum-applied technologies that are near completion. The proposed changes, drafted by the Armed Services’ Cyber, Information Technologies and Innovation subcommittee, were unanimously approved in a voice vote during the first markup hearing of the week.

Chief among the accepted suggestions was a new pilot program to help advance near-term quantum computing applied technologies. The Department of Defense and a new federally-funded research center would work with quantum technology industry partners to oversee the program’s projects. These entities together would need to create and submit a plan for the pilot’s operating methodology and then provide annual reports on the scope of work conducted within the pilot program. Qualifying near-term quantum applications must have a deadline of under a year, and include algorithms, supportive or enabling-technologies, annealing and gate systems — two different quantum computing models — and all qubit modalities. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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Bipartisan bill seeks to safeguard US data from foreign exploitation: A bipartisan group of lawmakers reintroduced legislation on Wednesday that would restrict exports of Americans’ personal data to hostile nations and prevent foreign-owned companies — like popular video app TikTok — from accessing U.S. users’ data from abroad.  The bill, from Sens. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., and Cynthia Lummis, R-Wyo., would amend the Export Control Reform Act “to require export controls with respect to certain personal data of United States nationals and individuals in the United States.” The 2018 law placed additional restrictions on exports of critical technologies and other commodities that could be used for civilian and military purposes by hostile nations.  The legislation — known as the Protecting Americans’ Data from Foreign Surveillance Act — is co-sponsored by Sens. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., Marco Rubio, R-Fla., and Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I. Wyden introduced a similar version of the bill during the 117th Congress, although it did not advance beyond the Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee.  In a press release, the lawmakers said that Wednesday’s legislation “updates the previously introduced bill to include new protections against foreign-owned companies like TikTok accessing U.S. data from abroad, or sending data to unfriendly foreign nations.” More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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U.S. Department of Commerce Announces CHIPS for America R&D Leaders: In remarks to the Industrial Advisory Committee, Under Secretary of Commerce for Standards and Technology and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Director Laurie E. Locascio will announce five leaders joining the CHIPS Research and Development Office within CHIPS for America. CHIPS for America was established by historic legislation to bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S. and to solidify the country’s leadership in technology and innovation.   “While the manufacturing incentives of the CHIPS Act will bring semiconductor manufacturing back to the U.S., the CHIPS R&D programs will ensure America’s global leadership by creating a robust semiconductor R&D ecosystem,” said Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo. “These leaders bring exactly the depth and breadth of organizational, programmatic and technical leadership experience that CHIPS needs to stand up new, transformational R&D programs.”  Visit https://www.chips.gov to learn more.

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/