Special News Section

NIH Seeking Comments on Peer Review

NIH has formed a Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director (http://www.nih.gov/about/director/acd/index.htm) to gather information from the external community and explore possible enhancements to all aspects of the system used by NIH to support biomedical and behavioral science, including the two-tiered review process. The efforts of this Working Group will complement ongoing Center for Scientific Review (CSR) activities. See http://cms.csr.nih.gov/AboutCSR/CSRInitatives.htm

Information Requested
NIH is especially interested in creative, concrete suggestions on the following questions:

  1. Challenges of NIH System of Research Support such as the current array of grant mechanisms, number of grants awarded per investigator, and the duration of grants.
  2. Challenges of current NIH Peer Review Process
  3. Solutions to Challenges
    Please concisely describe specific approaches or concepts that would address any of the above challenges, even if they involve a radical change to the current approach.
  4. Core Values of NIH Peer Review Process
  5. Peer Review Criteria and Scoring
    Are the appropriate criteria
    (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-05-002.html) and scoring procedures (http://cms.csr.nih.gov/NR/rdonlyres/B2CFE17E-AA1C-46E5-BADB-
    FDBF2FBBEE80/11892/CSRScoringProcedure090706.pdf    ) being used by NIH to evaluate applications during peer review? If not, what should replace them?
  6. Career Pathways
    Is the current peer review process for investigators at specific stages in their career appropriate?

Responses will be accepted until August 17, 2007

http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfi_files/rfi_peer_review_add.htm and e-mail address PeerReviewRFI@mail.nih.gov. The form will limit the length of each response to the number of characters identified.

A summary of the results obtained from the responses to this RFI will be available to the public on the NIH Peer Review website: http://enhancing-peer-review.nih.gov. Inquiries concerning this Notice may be directed to: E-mail: PeerReviewRFI@mail.nih.gov

Essential Policy and Procedure Updates

Reminder Regarding NSF Annual Technical Reports

NSF annual technical reports are due 90 days prior to each year’s anniversary date. Projects coming to term that receive a no-cost extension will still require an annual progress report 90 days before the end of the committed project period and then a final technical report at the end of the no-cost extension period. Questions or concerns should be addressed to your Sponsored Programs Coordinator.

Grants.gov Extends Transition Time for Agencies

Although originally targeting the end of FY2007 to have all agencies transitioned to the new Adobe-based forms, Grants.gov has extended the time provided to agencies to fully transition to the new format into 2008. The additional time allows Grants.gov to complete the development and testing of the new forms and provides agencies with greater flexibility in how they approach the transition. NIH’s transition to the Adobe forms remains on hold while waiting for Grants.gov to finalize the SF424 (R&R) form set. Progress will be reported through electronic submission listservs. Once transition plans are finalized, formal announcements also will be posted in the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts and in the NIH Extramural Nexus.

NIH - Office of Extramural Research Website

Approximately 85% of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) $28 billion budget is dedicated to its extramural research program (research funded by NIH and conducted at other research institutions throughout the US and abroad). The NIH Office of Extramural Research (OER) supports extramural research by providing policy and guidance to the 24 NIH Institutes and Centers that award grants. If you are new to the NIH grants process, learning all the ins and outs can be a daunting task. To provide a comprehensive view of NIH policies and procedures, the OER recently redesigned the OER Grants Web Site to include:

If you have any interest in NIH grant opportunities, take a few minutes to familiarize yourself with the resources available on this updated site. Comments, suggestions, and feedback should be sent to the content or technical contacts listed at the bottom of each Web page or to GrantsInfo@nih.gov.

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Funding Opportunities

DoD FY 2008 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP)

The Department of Defense (DoD) has announced the Fiscal Year 2008 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP), a part of the University Research Initiative (URI). DURIP is designed to improve the capabilities of institutions of higher education to conduct research and to educate scientists and engineers in areas important to national defense by providing funds for the acquisition of research equipment.

DoD is interested primarily in the research and related science and engineering education that the equipment would facilitate. For this reason, the proposal must adequately describe the goals of the research and research-related education, so that judgments can be made on relevance to DoD goals. In some cases, proposed instrumentation and associated research may be relevant to more than one of the participating agencies.

Through this DURIP competition, the DoD intends to award approximately $40 million for FY 2008, subject to the availability of funds. These funds will be awarded via grants made by ARO, ONR, and AFOSR. Grants will be for the purchase of research equipment costing $50,000 or more, for items that typically cannot be purchased within the budgets of single-investigator awards. An individual award may not exceed $1,000,000 in DoD funding. In FY 2007, 201 awards totaling $41.2 million were made. Awards ranged from approximately $50,000 to $950,000 averaging $205,000; very few awards exceeded $500,000.

Proposals are due 4:00PM Eastern Daylight Time, 21 August 2007. Program details and application can be found at: http://www.afosr.af.mil/pdfs/afosr_baa_2007_9_2.pdf

 

John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation: Fellowships to Assist Research and Artistic Creation

The John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation offers fellowships to further the development of scholars and artists by assisting them to engage in research in any field of knowledge and creation in any of the arts, under the freest possible conditions and irrespective of race, color, or creed.

The foundation provides fellowships for advanced professionals -  writers, scholars, or scientists who have a significant record of publication, or artists, playwrights, filmmakers, photographers, composers, or the like, who have a significant record of exhibition or performance of their work - in all fields (natural sciences, social sciences, humanities, creative arts) except the performing arts. The foundation selects its fellows on the basis of two separate competitions, one for the United States and Canada, the other for Latin America and the Caribbean.

The foundation only supports individuals. The amounts of the grants will be adjusted to the needs of the fellows, considering their other resources and the purpose and scope of their plans. Appointments are ordinarily made for one year, and in no instance for a period shorter than six consecutive months.

The new deadline for submitting applications for 2008 US/Canada competition is September 15, 2007. The application forms will be available on June 15, 2007. The URL for further information is: http://www.gf.org

 

NSF: Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) 2008

The Directorate for Engineering at the National Science Foundation has established the Office of Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) to fund research opportunities that would be difficult to fund with the current funding mechanisms of Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER), typical core awards, or large research center awards.  It is expected that EFRI support will represent higher risk opportunities with high potential payoffs leading to new research directions, potential new industries or capabilities that result in a leadership position for the country, or significant progress on a national need or grand challenge.

EFRI is launching a new funding opportunity for interdisciplinary teams of researchers to embark on rapidly advancing frontiers of fundamental engineering research. NSF will consider proposals that aim to investigate emerging frontiers in the following two specific research areas: (1) Cognitive Optimization and Prediction:  From Neural Systems to Neurotechnology (COPN) and (2) Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructures (RESIN).

Cognitive Optimization and Prediction: From Neural Systems to Neurotechnology (COPN) - This EFRI topic provides partnership opportunities for engineers and neuroscientists to address two goals:

  • to understand how massively parallel circuits in brains address complex tasks in adaptive optimal decision-making and prediction, and to understand the system identification circuits in the brain which help make it possible.
  • to use this understanding to develop new general-purpose designs or algorithms for optimal decision-making over time, or prediction, or both, powerful enough to work existing benchmark challenges in simulation or in physical testbeds taken from engineering.

The focus is on subsymbolic intelligence, because it is a difficult and important prerequisite to a deeper understanding of human intelligence. A grand challenge is to develop new concepts of anticipatory optimization that can cope with spatial complexity in time and nonconvexity as required to improve probability of survival in nonlinear, stochastic environments. Transformative benefits expected are: (1) to put science firmly on the path to a truly functional, unified mathematical and systems understanding of intelligence in the brain – an objective as important as the search for unified models in physics; (2) new designs for optimal decision-making which can handle complexity beyond the capacity of today’s methods, as required for truly optimal rational management of complex engineered systems; (3) improved performance in specified simulation testbeds; and (4) development of new and more general ways to harness the potential power of massively parallel “supercomputers on a chip."

Resilient and Sustainable Infrastructures (RESIN) - Infrastructures, such as drinking water and wastewater treatment systems; energy generation, transmission, and distribution; chemical production and distribution; communications; transportation; agriculture and food; and public health networks, are critical to our nation’s welfare, security, and ability to compete in a global economy. Design, construction, and operation of these interdependent infrastructures in the twenty-first century are major national challenges. Many infrastructures are legacy systems facing degradation and coping with integrating new technologies.  Recent catastrophic events and their associated costs for response and recovery have highlighted the vulnerability of interdependent infrastructures to natural and technological disasters; they must be re-engineered to be more resilient and sustainable over the long term. Research is needed to expand the theoretical frameworks for understanding, modeling, and simulating interdependent infrastructure systems at multiple time scales, i.e., under short-term disturbances and over the longer term. Researchers should take an integrative approach to address interdependent infrastructure modeling and engineering science for resiliency and sustainability in the context of specific interdependent critical infrastructures. The overall goal of this topic area is to transform the nation’s capacity to build, renew, expand, monitor, and control critical interdependent infrastructures to be both resilient and sustainable.

September 25 is the receipt date for required Letters of Intent. Preliminary proposals are due October 26. Invited full proposals will be due April 30, 2008. The official announcement and description of this opportunity may be found on NSF’s website
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07579/nsf07579.htm

Call for Papers/Abstracts/Submissions

6th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities, January 11 - 14, 2008 at Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio, Honolulu Hawaii, USA

Submission Deadline:  August 23, 2007

Sponsored by:
University of Louisville - Center for Sustainable Urban Neighborhoods
The Baylor Journal of Theatre and Performance
Web address: http://www.hichumanities.org
Email address: humanities@hichumanities.org

The 6th Annual Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities will be held from January 11 (Friday) to January 14 (Monday), 2008 at the Waikiki Beach Marriott Resort & Spa, and the Hilton Waikiki Prince Kuhio, in Honolulu, Hawaii.  The conference will provide many opportunities for academicians and professionals from arts and humanities related fields to interact with members inside and outside their own particular disciplines.  Cross-disciplinary submissions with other fields are welcome.

 Topic Areas (All Areas of Arts & Humanities are Invited):

Anthropology
American Studies
Archeology
Architecture
Art
Art History
Dance
English
Ethnic Studies
Film
Folklore
Geography 		Graphic Design
History
Landscape Architecture
Languages
Literature
Linguistics
Music
Performing Arts
Philosophy
Postcolonial Identities
Product Design 		Religion
Second Language Studies
Speech/Communication
Theatre
Visual Arts
*Other Areas of Arts and Humanities
*Cross-disciplinary areas of the above related to each other or other areas.

Submitting a Proposal:
You may now submit your paper/proposal by using the new online submission system! To use the system, and for detailed information about submitting see: http://www.hichumanities.org/cfp_artshumanities.htm

Hawaii International Conference on Arts & Humanities
P.O. Box 75036
Honolulu, HI 96836 USA
Telephone: (808) 542-4385
Fax: (808) 947-2420

Upcoming Funding Opportunities

For a complete list of upcoming deadlines, please go to -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/fndopp/deadlcal.html

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News and Events

News

$6 Million for National Security

Researchers in the College of Engineering and Applied Sciences are to receive a total of $6.1 million to develop advanced new national security technologies. A team led by Distinguished Professor and Chair of Electrical and Computer Engineering Serge Luryi, who also directs the New York State Center for Advanced Technology in Sensor Systems, has received $682,000 as the first phase of a prospective DOD award of $4 million over five years to develop a radiation detector with superior isotope identification and directional capability. Current state of the art detectors intended to prevent the smuggling of a “dirty bomb” yield many false positives because they cannot distinguish harmful from benign radiation nor tell where it is coming from. The new detection technology, based on principles of optoelectronics that underlie all semiconductor lasers, builds on preliminary work supported by NYSTAR in the Sensor CAT as well as a Stony Brook-Brookhaven seed grant.

A Computer Science collaboration of Scott Stoller, R. Sekar and C.R. Ramakrishnan won a $2.1 million grant under the DOD Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) – one of only four awarded nationally in cyber-security and the only one of the 36 MURI awards to a single institution.  Targeted cyber-attacks, whether truly malicious or merely irritating, often exploit the process of trusting information received from external systems. Most computer systems lack the means to correlate the trustworthiness of specific data elements with the security privileges involved in processing it, potentially opening the door to corrupting or compromising invasions. The service-oriented architecture of large software systems will make it possible for this project to address the security problem in a variety of systems from operating systems to large application software.

NBC Coverage of MSRC Sea Grant Funded Study

An NBC segment on a New York Sea Grant funded project, estrogen mimics in Jamaica Bay and the effects on winter flounder, featuring Stony Brook researchers Anne McElroy and Bruce Brownawell and Sea Grant director Jack Mattice, aired Wednesday evening, July 25, and can be found at the following link:
WNBC-TV
Female Flounders Rule in Jamaica Bay
http://video.wnbc.com/player/?id=133971

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Events

Stony Brook Human Evolution Symposium
"Tracking the Earliest Bipeds"
September 25

Convened by Richard Leakey, the 4th Annual Human Evolution Symposium is a full-day event featuring many of the foremost scholars in the field. The 2007 Symposium focuses on the early hominids that changed the way paleoanthropologists thought about evolution.

For more information please visit: www.stonybrook.edu/sb/humanevolution/

Celebratory 20th Anniversary Humanities Institute Conference
"Cosmopolitanism and Globalization: Memory-Spaces-Cities-Images"
October 10-13

The conference seeks to "interrogate the usefulness of cosmopolitanism as a concept for understanding and contributing to our current historical, cultural and political movement." For more information, a list of participants and a schedule please visit: www.stonybrook.edu/humanities/conferences.shtml

Principal Investigator Award Interface (PIAI) Training Sessions

The Research Foundation has successfully completed upgrading the current version of the Oracle Business System from 11.0.3 to the new 11i version. This was necessary since Oracle no longer supports the version used by the RF. The new version was implemented on May 1, 2007. Oracle is now viewed primarily as a transaction processing system for the administrative departments that handle your financial transactions.

As PIAI is considered a superior and more user friendly information interface for inquiry only access, we are offering training to Project Directors and their assistants to familiarize them with this application. The 90-minute PIAI training session will take place in the OVPR Conference Room, W5510 Melville Library.

To register please send an email to Marie Bilbao in the Office of Grants Management at Marie.Bilbao@stonybrook.edu

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For More Information

Gail S. Habicht is Vice President for Research. She can be reached at (631) 632-7932. An abundance of specific information for the research community is available on our website, where past issues of this bulletin can also be found.

Office of the Vice President for Research -
http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/

Research News and Monday Memo archive - http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/monmemo/mmarchive.html

All Past issue of Research News and Monday Memo are keyword searchable. The index can be accessed at - http://www.stonybrook.edu/research/sitemap.html.

If you have information you would like to contribute to Research News please email it to the editor, Ann-Marie Scheidt, at amscheidt@notes.cc.sunysb.edu

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