June 30, 2008 Newsletter

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National Science Foundation Research Terms and Conditions

Agency:        National Science Foundation
Deadline:      July 1, 2008

On January 25th, 2008, the National Science & Technology Council (NSTC) announced in the Federal Register (Vol. 73, No. 17, pages 4563-4567) that research agencies will be able to utilize a new standard core set of terms and conditions on research and research-related awards that are subject to OMB Circular A–110, Uniform Administrative Requirements for Grants andAgreements With Institutions of Higher Education, Hospitals, and Other Non-Profit Organizations (2 CFR Part 215). This resulted from an initiative of the NSTC/Research Business Models (RBM) Subcommittee of the Committee on Science (CoS). One of the RBM Subcommittee’s priority areas is to create greater consistency in the administration of Federal research awards. Given the increasing complexity of interdisciplinary and interagency research, it has become increasingly important for Federal agencies to manage awards in a consistent fashion. The new standard terms and conditions are heavily based on the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) Terms and Conditions. The FDP Terms and Conditions were intended as a model implementation of OMB Circular A-110, and the Foundation has incorporated these terms and conditions in awards to the 98 participating FDP institutions since 2000.

Effective 1 July 2008, all new NSF grants and funding increments on existing NSF grants to organizations subject to 2 CFR part 215, will incorporate by reference the Research Terms & Conditions dated July 1, 2008 and the NSF Agency Specific Requirements dated July 1, 2008. The Research Terms & Conditions will not be applied to NSF cooperative agreements and NSF fellowship awards made to individuals. For NSF purposes, there are no substantive changes to the requirements currently imposed by the NSF General Grant Conditions (GC-1). The GC-1 will continue to be applied to organizations that are not subject to OMB Circular A-110.

For NSF purposes, there are no substantive changes to the requirements currently contained in the General Grant Conditions (GC-1). The NSF website is serving as the official host site of the Research Terms and Conditions for this important interagency initiative. The Research Terms, and other documents pertinent to this initiative are posted at: http://www.nsf.gov/bfa/dias/policy/rtc/index.jsp. This Research Terms webpage includes:

  • The Research Terms & Conditions Federal Register Notice and Policy Letter;
  • The Research Terms & Conditions Implementation Statements; (NSF will attempt to consolidate as many of the statements as possible on our site)
  • The Research Terms & Conditions;
  • The Research Terms & Conditions Appendix B - Subaward Requirements;
  • The Research Terms & Conditions Appendix C - National Policy Requirements;
  • The Research Terms and Conditions Agency Specific Requirements; and,
  • Relevant Links.

NSF will continue to keep the Research Terms website updated as additional documents are provided to us for posting. For further questions, please contact the Policy Office at NSF at policy@nsf.gov; and (703) 292-8243.

URL: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/rtc/rtcnotice0608.pdf?govDel=USNSF_109

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Institutional, University-Wide, or Multi-Disciplinary Opportunities

Creative-IT

Agency:        National Science Foundation
Deadline:      September 26, 2008

Creativity, design, and research all contribute new knowledge and artifacts. The CreativeIT program focuses on the commonality of these three processes and solicits proposals that bring creative practice and creativity research to play a role in transformative research in specific contexts of computer science, cognitive science, information technology, education, engineering design and science. The program considers design as a type of research in which the definition of the problem may change in response to the exploration and development of alternative solutions, leading to creative solutions and innovation. The program's objective is to bring together different disciplines associated with creative and scientific advances in a way that is mutually beneficial. This program encourages new ways of thinking about one discipline in terms of another, so that the interdisciplinary nature of the project is a means to an end rather than an end in itself.

CreativeIT seeks proposals for projects whose objectives are new models of creativity, new models for research and education, or creativity enhancing tools developed in the context of a specific discipline. A project may respond to one or more of the following types of advances :

  • New Theoretical Models – the synergy of research in creativity and computer science can lead to new computational and/or cognitive models of creativity as ways of searching for problems and solutions.
  • New Modes of Research – a focus on understanding the role of creative processes or creative professionals in research in computer science and information systems can lead to new modes of research.  This understanding can be developed empirically through various social science methods applied in the context of solving a specific problem.
  • Innovative Educational Approaches – creativity can be a focus for learning environments in computer science using models such as studio learning and problem-based learning that reward creative thinking.
  • Creativity Enhancing Tools – innovation in information technology tools and infrastructure can support and enhance creativity in problem finding as well as problem solving.

The following research areas elaborate on these potential types of advances as guidelines for describing how the objectives of the project contribute to CreativeIT:

  • Understanding Creative Cognition and Computation. Research in this area leads to cognitive models that serve as inspiration for computational models of creativity, support for human creativity, and approaches for educating people to be more creative. This research is typically done by adopting or adapting a model of cognition and evaluating its creative performance in different contexts, or developing a new model of creativity based on empirical or ethnographic studies.
  • Creativity to Stimulate Breakthroughs in Science and Engineering .  This area considers the role and performance of artists in developing new technologies, discovering new patterns in information, and in finding new ways of seeing, knowing, and doing computer and information science and engineering.  NSF seeks to foster research conducted with groups of people from different backgrounds in which the creative synergy is focused on a specific context, problem, or perceived need. 
  • Educational Approaches that Encourage Creativity . This area considers a broad range of approaches to teaching that encourages creativity: multi-disciplinary teaching and learning, design studio teaching, skills development through making and doing, and open-ended problem-based learning.
  • Supporting Creativity with Information Technology .  This area both develops new software and user interfaces to support users in being more creative and evaluates their performance through user studies either in controlled environments with empirical studies or in the context of a complex problem or situation with ethnographic studies.

Synergies with other NSF programs are encouraged and provide opportunities for additional funding or co-review.  Applicants are encouraged to review the full proposal announcement and contact the designated program officer to discuss their ideas.

There are two types of projects:Pilot and Major. Pilot Projects typically have a single PI and a single undergraduate or graduate student for a duration of one to three years. A Pilot project identifies a synergy from understanding creativity in a specific context in which a computing environment has the potential to lead to innovative and creative advances in one or more disciplines. Major Projects have one or more PIs and multiple undergraduate and graduate students for a duration of three years with a maximum budget of $800,000. A Major project brings together a group of people to develop a synergistic effect that can transform our understanding of models, computing environments or education relevant to CreativeIT. While the research may use a design approach in which the specifics of the problem and solution may change during the life of the project, the overall objectives and methods are well defined. This type of project is well founded on previous research in the individual or combined disciplines involved in the project. NSF anticipates making 15-20 awards.  Cost sharing is not required

URL: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08572/nsf08572.htm

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DFG/NEH Joint Digitization Projects

Agency:      National Endowment for the Humanities
Deadline:      October 15, 2008

The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) in the United States and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft e.V., DFG) are working together to offer support for digitization projects in the humanities. These grants provide funding for up to three years of development in any of the following areas:

  • new digitization projects and pilot projects;
  • the addition of important materials to existing digitization projects; and
  • the development of related infrastructure to support international digitization work and the use of those digitized resources.

Each application must be sponsored by at least one eligible German individual or institution, and at least one U.S. institution (see Eligibility requirements below), and there must be a project director from each country. The partners will collaborate to write a single application package, which the U.S. partner will submit to the NEH (via Grants.gov) and the German partner will submit to the DFG via regular postal service (additional submission of a pdf version via e-mail is encouraged).

 Proposals for digitization projects may include:

  • digitization of humanities collections that are relevant to either or both scholarly communities for use in research and higher education,
  • developing a detailed plan for the digitization of humanities collections that could benefit humanities research and performing a limited pilot digitization program to test shared infrastructure and procedures,
  • connecting existing split digitized collections and detailing suitable transatlantic standards and communication strategies, and
  • creating a virtual archive or resource that would join complementary materials (analog or digital) internationally.


DFG/NEH Joint Digitization Project Grants may not be used for:

  • the digitization of materials that are the responsibility of an agency of the U.S. federal government,
  • the digitization of materials that are not made regularly accessible for research, education, or public programming,
  • the retrospective conversion of a library's general card catalog or the basic inventory of a museum's collections,
  • the creation of software or the purchase of computer systems for records management,
  • the maintenance or upgrading of computer systems,
  • the acquisition of collections, or
  • teaching and learning resources, tools, and reference works designed exclusively for classroom instruction.

Awards range from $100,000 to $350,000 (approximately 70,000 to 240,000 € ) for up to three years. If funded, projects will be begin July 1, 2009. Cost sharing is not required; however, NEH is rarely able to support the full costs of projects approved for funding. In most cases, NEH grants cover no more than 50-60% of project costs.

URL: http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/DFG_JDP.html

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