Research NewsletterIssue: ORN-2024-40

Call For Proposals

NJIT Technology Innovation Translation and Acceleration (TITA) Seed Grant Program

Seed Grant Award: Up to $75,000 per project with potential continuation of additional funding in the subsequent year

TITA Program Proposer Information Session:

Tuesday, October 1, 2024: 12.00.00 PM – 1.30 PM (light lunch will be served)

Please RSVP to attend the information by filling out this form.

FY2025 TITA Seed Grants: Call for Proposals

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1zdJG0DHI9K8z5Cl6QBMsy2bmunyzjYkE?usp=sharing

TITA External Advisory Board (EAB)

TITA Seed Grant Program Objective

The NJIT Technology Innovation Translation and Acceleration (TITA) Seed Grant program will enable faculty and students to successfully accelerate the translation of their innovation to enterprise development and business incubation. The TITA grant program will foster entrepreneurial pathways from research and innovation to business and value creation with the acquisition of intellectual property, market validation, and engagement of stakeholders towards commercialization.

The TITA Seed Grants will increase awareness of the potential commercial benefits at earlier stages of the translation and market validation process and allow researchers and stakeholders to collaborate for entrepreneurial success. It will also help faculty to submit competitive translational research proposals to external grant funding opportunities.  

TITA Seed Grant Proposal Submission Timeline

• TITA Seed Grant Announcement: September 15, 2024 
• Stage-1: TITA 2-Page IDEA Concept Paper Submission: October 7, 2024
• Invitation to Submit TITA White Papers: October 15, 2024
• Stage-2: TITA 5-Page White Paper Submission: October 28, 2024
• Invitation to Submit Full TITA Proposal and Mentor Assignment: November 5, 2024
• Stage-3: TITA Full Proposal Submission: November 18, 2024
• Invitation to Live Pitch Presentation: November 26, 2024
• Stage-4: TITA Full Proposal Live Pitch Presentation to the EAB Board: December 5, 2024
• Announcement of TITA Seed Grant Award: December 12, 2024
• TITA Seed Grant Start Date: January 2, 2025

All Proposals and documents should be submitted with email attachment to

tita-2025-group@njit.edu

NSF: Partnerships for Innovation (PFI); Safety, Security, and Privacy of Open-Source Ecosystems (Safe-OSE); Molecular Foundations for Biotechnology (MFB); Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE); Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2)

NIH: BRAIN Initiative: New Technologies and Novel Approaches for Recording and Modulation in the Nervous System (R01); BRAIN Initiative: Optimization of Instrumentation and Device Technologies for Recording and Modulation in the Nervous System (U01); BRAIN Initiative: Reagent Resources for Brain Cell Type-Specific Access to Broaden Distribution of Enabling Technologies for Neuroscience (U24)

Department of Energy: 2024 Department of Energy Office of Environmental Management (DOE-EM) Minority Serving Institutions Partnership Program (MSIPP) Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO)

NASA: University Student Research Challenge (USRC); ROSES 2024: A.5 Carbon Cycle Science

National Endowment of Humanities: Humanities Research Centers on Artificial Intelligence

House bill looks to expand Energy’s AI research and development: A bipartisan group of House lawmakers introduced legislation on Wednesday seeking to enhance the Department of Energy’s artificial intelligence research and development efforts. The bill — sponsored by Reps. Brandon Williams, R-N.Y., and Suzanne Bonamici, D-Ore. — would provide Energy with additional funding and updated guidance to pursue AI testing activities that were not previously codified into law. The legislation would amend provisions of the fiscal year 2021 National Defense Authorization Act, which established an artificial intelligence research program within Energy. The new proposal, in part, would direct the department to establish partnerships with outside nonprofits and private firms to collaborate on AI-related innovation. 

The lawmakers said in a press release that their bill would authorize Energy’s Frontiers in Artificial Intelligence for Science, Security and Technology initiative, which is a collaboration between the department and its 17 National Laboratories. Energy has called this program an effort “to build the world's most powerful integrated scientific AI systems for science, energy and national security.” Bonamici said the legislation would “position the Department of Energy to develop high-performance platforms, responsibly cultivate training data and improve energy efficiency to support safe AI innovation.”

The bill would authorize the department to take additional research steps, including establishing “at least one data center testbed for the development and assessment of hardware and algorithms for energy-efficient and energy-flexible artificial intelligence training and inference.” More information is posted on the NextGov website.

_________________________

Commerce shares financial goals for the US quantum industry: On Monday, leadership from the Department of Commerce emphasized the importance of centering a national security perspective in emerging technology arenas, particularly in quantum information systems and technologies. Speaking during a forum at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, Deputy Secretary of Commerce Don Graves noted that there are larger financial and policy elements required to support a quantum information sciences and technology industry in the U.S.  Discussing arenas like supply chain and international partnerships, he said that cultivating a robust, domestic quantum information science industry extends beyond the fundamental science. “I think it's important to not talk about things like neutral atoms and qubits and cryptoanalytically relevant quantum computers and quantum things like that, and talk about what it actually means,” Graves began. “It's enabling us to do a whole lot more than we had ever thought possible.” Funding was a paramount topic in Graves’s remarks, as he said that the Department of Commerce is focused on shoring up U.S. leadership in QIST work through strategic federal investments and private sector participation. More information is posted on the NextGov website.