Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2024-14

Issuance of the NSF Grants.gov Application Guide

NSF has published a revised version of the NSF Grants.gov Application Guide (NSF 24-006). Overall, the Guide has been updated to align with the revisions to NSF’s Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 24-1). A by-chapter summary of changes is provided at the beginning of the document.

The Guide will be effective for applications submitted (via Grants.gov) or due, on or after May 20, 2024.

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Grant Opportunities for NJIT as HSI/MSI/AANAPISI Institution

NJIT now has the federal distinction of being a Hispanic-serving institution (HSI), Minority Serving Institution (MSI) and an Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institution (AANAPISI). In 2024 NJIT qualified as an HSI with the Hispanic undergraduate population at 25% in the Fall of 2022.  In 2023 NJIT qualified as an AANAPISI with more than 20% of undergraduate students identifying as Asian American or Pacific Islander.

The Office of Postsecondary Education of the U.S. Department of Education confirmed the status recently in a letter indicating that for fiscal year 2024 NJIT has been designated as an eligible institution under Title III and/or Title V of the Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended by the Higher Education Opportunity Act of 2008.

NJIT faculty and staff can apply for external grant funding opportunities specifically designated HSI/MSI/AANAPISI institutional but can also mark NJIT as HSI/MSI/AANAPISI when asked in the proposal or grant application. If you have any questions or need additional clarification, please contact your college Director of Research (https://research.njit.edu/contact) or send an email to srard@njit.edu.

NSF: Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation; Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology - Research Infrastructure for Science and Engineering; Foundations for Digital Twins as Catalyzers of Biomedical Technological Innovation; Data Science Corps; Mathematical Foundations of Digital Twins; Focus on Recruiting Emerging Climate and Adaptation Scientists and Transformers; Piloting Departmental-level Systemic Change for Equity; Global Centers; Computer Science for All

NIH: Undergraduate Research Training Initiative for Student Enhancement (U-RISE) (T34); NIH Director’s Transformative Research Awards (R01)

Department of Defense/US Army/DARPA/ONR: Office of Naval Research Science and Technology for Advanced Manufacturing Projects (STAMP); DoD Spinal Cord Injury Research Program Investigator-Initiated Research Award; Air Force Fiscal Year 2025 Young Investigator Program (YIP); Expeditionary Carbon Utilization for energy Resilience and Stabilization (ExCURSion); NRL Long Range Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for Basic and Applied Research

Department of Commerce/EDA:  Accelerating Federal Technology Transfer (AFTT) Program; Measurement Science and Engineering (MSE) Research Grant Programs

Department of Energy: FY 2024 Funding for Accelerated, Inclusive Research (FAIR)

NASA: ROSES 2024: A.7 Biodiversity and Ecological Conservation; ROSES - 2024: Early Career Investigator Program and Other Solicitations

National Endowment of Humanities: Cultural and Community Resilience; Research and Development

Swedish, US officials see promise of AI but also the need for global agreements: Artificial intelligence technologies have the potential to revolutionize a host of sectors — from agriculture and healthcare to the defense industry and beyond — but global innovators need to ensure that they are harnessing the potential of these emerging tools while also working to counter their unsafe uses, according to Swedish and U.S. officials. Per-Arne Hjelmborn, director general for trade at the Swedish Ministry for Foreign Affairs, said more cooperation between allied nations is needed to establish rigorous guardrails around the more nefarious uses of AI and promote innovative uses of the technology moving forward. “An open and enlightened global conversation on how we best can make use of the new technologies is very much needed,” he said, adding that Sweden and the U.S. “share the same democratic values for how we can develop the usage of AI.” While the United Nations General Assembly adopted a nonbinding resolution last week calling for nations to mitigate some of the risks associated with AI, Hjelmborn said the step shows that nations “are speaking with the same voice to define a global consensus on safe, secure and trustworthy AI systems.” More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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DOD’s emerging tech experiments will continue to support CJADC2: The Pentagon’s Global information Dominance Experiment — or GIDE — series last year paved the way for the department to roll out the initial version of its effort to streamline communication between combatant commands, a Department of Defense official said on Tuesday.  During a discussion hosted by the Center for Strategic and International Studies think tank on Tuesday, Colonel Matthew Strohmeyer — experiment director for GIDE — said DOD’s push to develop a new approach to “warfighting for the 21st century” was made possible by the series’ experimentation with artificial intelligence, machine learning capabilities and other technologies to enhance communication and streamline data sharing.  DOD held GIDEs five through eight last year, which were the first series of experiments to be conducted across the entire Pentagon, including all of the combatant commands and allied partners. They proved integral for the Pentagon’s development of its combined joint all-domain command and control — or CJADC2 — capability, which is meant to enhance information sharing for personnel across disparate military domains. More information is posted on the NextGov website.

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NIST’s new AI safety institute to focus on synthetic content, international outreach: The National Institute of Standards and Technology’s new U.S. AI Safety Institute aims to lead both domestic and international conversations about standardization for artificial intelligence tools and applications, with a focus on monitoring synthetically generated content, according to the institute’s director, Elizabeth Kelly. 

Speaking during a Monday panel discussion at the unveiling of MITRE's new AI Assurance & Discovery Lab, Kelly, who was appointed the head of the USAISI on Feb. 7, discussed the “broader vision” for the institute. A product of President Joe Biden’s October executive order on AI, the institute was established in February 2024 and is tasked with a slew of deliverables for the evaluation of large language models and conducting advanced research into machine learning and AI. Kelly said that one of those tasks includes developing international engagement strategies with like-minded nations. More information is posted on the NextGov website.