Grant Funding Opportunities: 9/21/2012

Visit the North Carolina Biotechnology Center’s Funding Gateway page to get more information on funding announcements, links to opportunity search databases and grant development tips!

Upcoming NIH SBIR Workshop:  The National Council of Entrepreneurial Tech Transfer (NCET2) is presenting an online “how to” workshop on applying to the NIH SBIR Phase 1 Program geared towards first-time applicants.  The four hour workshop held over two evenings on October 2 and October 3 is designed to help researchers, faculty members, graduate students, post-docs and entrepreneurs create a SBIR company and apply to the National Science Foundation's SBIR program in December of 2012.  The class is limited to 25 students.  To find out details and register, visit the following website:  http://center.ncet2.org/index.php?option=com_joomla_lms&Itemid=53&task=course_guest&id=91

Deadline: 10/26/2012
Agency: Biogen Idec Foundation
Program: Micro-Grants in Science Education Fund

Description: The purpose of this Fund is to provide small, one-time grants to schools and nonprofit organizations in the Triangle region to support science education programs and projects that might otherwise go unfunded. 

Award Amount: Grants will range from $250 to $2,500, and proposals in the lower and middle parts of the range are encouraged. 
Website: http://www.trianglecf.org/grants_support/biogen_idec_foundation/
Eligibility:  Schools and Non-Profit organizations in the Triangle region

Deadline: 11/1/2012
Agency: American Honda Foundation
Program: Applicant Driven Grants

Description: The purpose of this program is to help meet the needs of American society in the areas of youth and scientific education by awarding grants to nonprofits, while strategically assisting communities in deriving long-term benefits.  The American Honda Foundation engages in grant making that reflects the basic tenets, beliefs and philosophies of Honda companies, which are characterized by the following qualities: imaginative, creative, youthful, forward-thinking, scientific, humanistic, and innovative. The foundation supports youth education with a specific focus on the STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) subjects in addition to the environment, job training, and literacy.

Award Amount: The grant ranges from $20,000 to $75,000 over a one-year period
Website: http://corporate.honda.com/america/philanthropy.aspx?id=ahf
Eligibility:  Non-profits 

Deadline: TBA in October 2012
Agency: Department of Defense
Program: Breast Cancer Research Program

Description: The Fiscal Year 2012 (FY12) Defense Appropriations Act provides $120 million (M) to the Department of Defense Breast Cancer Research Program (BCRP) to support innovative, high-impact breast cancer research.  The BCRP is administered by the US Army Medical Research and Materiel Command (USAMRMC) through the Office of Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs (CDMRP).

Award Amount: Maximum funding of $300,000 for direct costs ($100,000 per year, plus indirect costs). Period of performance not to exceed 3 years.
Website: http://cdmrp.army.mil/pubs/press/2012/12bcrppreann_postdoc.shtml
Eligibility:  Principal Investigator: Doctoral graduates (Ph.D. or M.D.). Clinical investigators are eligible to apply. Must have no more than 2 years of experience in the proposed research setting and no more than 4 years of postdoctoral research experience as of the application deadline. Mentor or formal co-mentor must have breast cancer research experience, including current funding and publications.

Mecklenburg County Opportunity
Deadline: 10/22/12 (Letter of Inquiry Due)
Agency: Women’s Impact Fund (WIF)
Program: Applicant driven grants

Description: The Women’s Impact Fund awards grants to:

• Both new and existing projects and programs that meet at least one of the following criteria:
  1) provide a creative, substantive approach to a critical community need, and / or
  2) address an emerging community issue.
• Proposals that offer opportunities to collaborate and foster partnerships, as well as leverage other funding sources.
• Projects that demonstrate the ability to achieve measurable results and have a high probability of successful continuation beyond the grant period.
• Projects that fit within one of our five funding areas: 1) Arts & Culture, 2) Education, 3) Environment, 4) Health, and 5) Human Services.

Award Amount: The fund intends to award five grants ranging from $40,000 to $100,000 to nonprofit organizations in Mecklenburg County. One grant will be awarded in each of the fund's five focus areas — Arts & Culture, Education, Environment, Health, and Human Services.
Website: http://www.womensimpactfund.org/index.php/grants/guidelines
Eligibility:  Non-profit organizations must be located and provide services in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. Agencies applying for an environmental grant may be domiciled outside of Mecklenburg County, but must provide services within the County.

Deadline: 3/21/13
Agency: Department of the Army
Program: Medical Practice Initiative Augmented Reality for Medical Applications (MPI-ARM)

Description: The Medical Practice Initiative is primarily focused on the research and, ultimately, the development of medical training methods, technologies, systems, and competency assessment tools for the sustainment of military medical readiness. To promote and accelerate this development, new modalities for medical training, data collection, and performance assessment are being sought and additional research proposals into the field of augmented reality for medical training is being solicited. The methods devised and data collected in the course of this research may, in due course, lead to the development and integration of improved medical training systems and competency assessment tools. The primary, but not exclusive, purpose of this MPI-ARM Program Announcement (PA) is to solicit pre-proposals and then, by invitation only, request full proposal submissions for research that will offer contextually relevant, novel methods for the real-time augmentation or enhancement of the user’s perception of reality, specifically related to the areas of medical training and/or practice applications and scenarios in both controlled and austere environments. The augmentation or enhancement should be related to one or more of the following sensory modalities: visual or display information, haptic and/or tactile feedback, and auditory feedback. In the context of this PA, haptic feedback refers specifically to force feedback whereas tactile feedback refers to the sense of touch. Olfactory augmentation is explicitly excluded. Prototyped systems may be portable or stationary, networked or non-networked, software, hardware, or combinations of both. In order to facilitate the broader goal of reducing development costs and democratize access to technology used in the creation of medical training and simulation systems, software and/or hardware designs and specifications developed under this funding should be freely accessible to the broader training and simulation development communities. Similarly, it is intended that the research data and validation study be made available as a public resource to further facilitate advancements in this field. 

Award Amount: Four awards with an award ceiling of $1,750,000.
Website: http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=201473
Eligibility: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above)

Deadline: 3/13/13
Agency: National Science Foundation
Program: Computing Education for the 21st Century

Description: The Computing Education for the 21st Century (CE21) program aims to build a robust computing research community, a computationally competent 21st century workforce, and a computationally empowered citizenry. In this undertaking, there are three interrelated challenges: the significant underproduction of degrees needed for the computing and computing-related workforce, the longstanding underrepresentation of many segments of our population, and the lack of a presence of computing in K-12. Innovation in information technology (IT) has driven economic growth, underlies many of our recent scientific advances, and ensures our national security; it is not surprising then that predicted IT job growth is very strong. Yet students are not majoring in computing in sufficient numbers to fulfill the forecasted demand. This shortfall is exacerbated by the longstanding underrepresentation of women, persons with disabilities, African Americans, Hispanics, Native Americans and indigenous peoples in computing. We cannot meet workforce demands without their participation and we cannot, in an increasingly competitive world economy, afford to cede the talents and creativity of so many. To ensure their participation, and the full participation of all students, we must provide better opportunities to study computing in K-12. We must start with a better understanding of how students learn computing. Unlike many of the other STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) disciplines, computing has not developed a robust research base on the teaching and learning of its fundamental concepts and skills. That research base must be built and it must be used in providing all students with rigorous academic curricula that cover computational concepts and skills, and the breadth of application and potential of computing. Providing access to rigorous, academic computing in K-12 will require an unprecedented effort to develop curriculum and materials and to prepare teachers.CE21 thus supports efforts in three tracks: Computing Education Research (CER) proposals will aim to develop a research base for computing education. Projects may conduct basic research on the teaching and learning of computational competencies in face-to-face or online settings; they may design, develop, test, validate, and refine materials, measurement tools, and methods for teaching in specific contexts; and/or they may implement promising small-scale interventions in order to study their efficacy with particular groups. Efforts can focus on computational thinking as taught in computing courses or infused across the curriculum, they can target students or their teachers in informal or formal educational settings, or they can address any level within the K-16 pipeline, from elementary school through high school and college. CS 10K proposals will aim to develop the knowledge base and partnerships needed to catalyze the CS 10K Project.

Award Amount: Award ceiling of $10,000,000
Website: http://www07.grants.gov/search/search.do?&mode=VIEW&oppId=201473
Eligibility:  Non-profit, non-academic organizations; Independent museums, observatories, research labs, professional societies and similar organizations in the U.S. associated with educational or research activities; State and Local Governments; Universities and Colleges