{"id":1320,"date":"2013-09-04T10:46:04","date_gmt":"2013-09-04T18:46:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/?p=1320"},"modified":"2013-09-04T10:46:04","modified_gmt":"2013-09-04T18:46:04","slug":"funding-opportunities-4","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/erlenmeyer\/2013\/09\/04\/funding-opportunities-4\/","title":{"rendered":"Funding Opportunities"},"content":{"rendered":"

1. \u00a0NIH Funding Opportunity: Big Data Centers of Excellence<\/strong><\/p>\n

On July 22, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) released a Request for Applications (RFA) for Centers of Excellence for Big Data Computing in the Biomedical Sciences, the signature Centers program supported by NIH\u2019s Big Data to Knowledge (BD2K) Initiative. These BD2K Centers of Excellence will support multi- investigator, interdisciplinary teams to advance the science and utility of biomedical Big Data by creating new approaches, software, and tools that will be broadly applicable to the needs of the biomedical research community. NIH began developing the BD2K Initiative, including the BD2K Center program, as part of its plan to implement recommendations of a Data and Informatics Working Group of the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director, which highlighted the need to address challenges related to the use of biomedical Big Data.<\/p>\n

Research at these Centers will range from early-stage to mature development of methods and resources. NIH will not support BD2K Centers to generate large datasets or databases. The RFA identifies four areas of Big Data science that NIH is hoping to address though the program\u2019s activities. Center applicants are encouraged to focus on one or more of the following; a single Center is not expected to address all of these areas:<\/p>\n

1. Collaborative environments and technologies:<\/p>\n

A Center may address issues related to the release and accessibility of Big Data and tools.<\/p>\n

2. Data integration:<\/p>\n

A Center may develop strategies for creating connections across data types.<\/p>\n

3. Analysis and modeling methodologies:<\/p>\n

A Center may develop approaches for modeling, simulation, or analysis to produce new, useful biomedical information not provided by current methods.<\/p>\n

4. Computer science and statistical approaches:<\/p>\n

A Center may explore research areas in the basic computational science of biomedical Big Data.<\/p>\n

Also included in the RFA are several examples of projects that could be proposed by Center applicants to enable the development of approaches, methods, and tools that would improve the ability to extract new knowledge from large, complex datasets. It is expected that the research of the Centers will focus on specific biomedical questions, but the results and products of the research should be applicable to broader uses. NIH does not specify a particular organizational structure for the BD2K Centers, but applicants are advised to submit well-integrated plans that incorporate large-scale research, dissemination, and training activities into a cohesive Center.<\/p>\n

The BD2K Center awards will use the U54 Specialized Center Cooperative Agreement mechanism. Under this mechanism, NIH plans to organize a BD2K Center Consortium in which all BD2K Center of Excellence awardees will be expected to participate. Consortium activities will identify areas of synergy among the Centers and explore possibilities for concerted actions that have the potential to advance the field of data science beyond the efforts of individual Centers.<\/p>\n

Letters of Intent: Letters of intent are optional and should be submitted by\u00a0October 20, 2013. Application Due Date: Full proposals are due\u00a0November 20, 2013.<\/p>\n

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2. \u00a0DOD Funding Opportunity: DOD Releases FY 2014 MURI BAA<\/strong><\/p>\n

On August 19, the Department of Defense (DOD) released its fiscal year (FY) 2014 Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) for the popular Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI) program. MURI is one of DOD\u2019s cornerstone university research programs, supporting basic research projects at the intersection of multiple scientific disciplines in areas of interest to DOD. DOD indicates that it will award a total of up to $250 million for MURI projects in FY 2014. While the BAA was released through the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Army Research Office (ARO) and Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) also partake in the program. Each of the service branch research offices administers specific topic areas within the BAA (see below). Researchers submit proposals directly to the office responsible for the topic area to which they are responding.<\/p>\n

The FY 2014 MURI topics reflect a number of crosscutting priority areas for DOD, including energy, advanced materials, biology and synthetic biology, and computational and information sciences. These areas map with topics recently identified by senior DOD research officials as enduring science and technology priorities despite budget pressure caused by sequestration and other spending reductions. New for FY 2014, DOD stipulates the funding amount and desired team size for each individual topic area rather than providing general guidelines,\u00a0as was previous practice. Details are included in the complete description of each topic area contained in the full BAA. FY 2014 MURI topic areas by service branch are:<\/p>\n

Army Research Office<\/p>\n