Project Description: Incorporated in 1985, the Conservation, Food and Health Foundation seeks to promote the conservation of natural resources, improve the production and distribution of food, and improve health in the developing world. The foundation helps build capacity within developing countries in its three areas of interest with grants that support research or projects that solve specific problems.

The foundation supports projects that demonstrate strong local leadership, promote professional development in the conservation, agricultural, and health sciences; develop the capacity of local organizations; and address a particular problem in the field. It prefers to support projects addressing under-funded issues and geographic areas.

The NSF ADVANCE program contributes to the National Science Foundation's goal of a more diverse and capable science and engineering workforce.1 In this solicitation, NSF ADVANCE seeks to build on prior NSF ADVANCE work and other research and literature concerning gender, racial, and ethnic equity. The NSF ADVANCE program goal is to broaden the implementation of evidence-based systemic change strategies that promote equity for STEM2 faculty in academic workplaces and the academic profession. The NSF ADVANCE program provides grants to enhance the systemic factors that support equity and inclusion and to mitigate the systemic factors that create inequities in the academic profession and workplaces. Systemic (or organizational) inequities may exist in areas such as policy and practice as well as in organizational culture and climate. For example, practices in academic departments that result in the inequitable allocation of service or teaching assignments may impede research productivity, delay advancement, and create a culture of differential treatment and rewards. Similarly, policies and procedures that do not mitigate implicit bias in hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions could lead to women and racial and ethnic minorities being evaluated less favorably, perpetuating historical under-participation in STEM academic careers and contributing to an academic climate that is not inclusive.

All NSF ADVANCE proposals are expected to use intersectional approaches in the design of systemic change strategies in recognition that gender, race and ethnicity do not exist in isolation from each other and from other categories of social identity. The solicitation includes four funding tracks: Institutional Transformation (IT), Adaptation, Partnership, and Catalyst, in support of the NSF ADVANCE program goal to broaden the implementation of systemic strategies that promote equity for STEM faculty in academic workplaces and the academic profession.

• The Institutional Transformation (IT) track is designed to support the development, implementation, and evaluation of innovative systemic change strategies that promote gender equity for STEM faculty within an institution of higher education.
• The Adaptation track is designed to support the work to adapt, implement, and evaluate evidence-based systemic change strategies that have been shown to promote gender equity for STEM faculty in academic workplaces and the academic profession. Adaptation projects can either: 1) support the adaptation of evidence-based systemic change strategies to promote equity for STEM faculty within an institution of higher education; or 2) facilitate national or regional STEM disciplinary transformation by adapting evidence-based systemic change strategies to non-profit, non-academic organizations.
• The Partnership track is designed to support the work to facilitate the broader adaptation of gender equity and systemic change strategies. Partnership projects are expected to result in national or regional transformation in STEM academic workplaces and the academic profession and demonstrate significant reach. Partnership projects can focus on the transformation of institutions and organizations and/or the transformation within one or more STEM disciplines.
• The Catalyst track is designed to broaden the types of IHEs that are able to undertake data collection and institutional self-assessment work to identify systemic gender inequities impacting their STEM faculty so that these can be addressed by the institution.

Please note that NSF ADVANCE does not provide fellowships, research, or travel grants to individual students, postdoctoral researchers, or faculty to pursue STEM degrees or research. Undergraduate STEM opportunities can be found at stemundergrads.science.gov and graduate STEM opportunities at stemgradstudents.science.gov.

Project Description: The fields of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) hold much promise as sectors of the economy where we can expect to see continuous vigorous growth in the coming decades. STEM job creation is expected to outpace non-STEM job creation significantly, according to the Commerce Department, reflecting the importance of STEM knowledge to the US economy.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) plays a leadership role in developing and implementing efforts to enhance and improve STEM education in the United States. Through NSF's Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) initiative, the agency continues to make a substantial commitment to the highest caliber undergraduate STEM education through a Foundation-wide framework of investments. The IUSE: EHR is a core NSF STEM education program that seeks to promote novel, creative, and transformative approaches to generating and using new knowledge about STEM teaching and learning to improve STEM education for undergraduate students. The program is open to application from all institutions of higher education and associated organizations. NSF places high value on educating students to be leaders and innovators in emerging and rapidly changing STEM fields as well as educating a scientifically literate public. In pursuit of this goal, IUSE: EHR supports projects that seek to bring recent advances in STEM knowledge into undergraduate education, that adapt, improve, and incorporate evidence-based practices into STEM teaching and learning, and that lay the groundwork for institutional improvement in STEM education. In addition to innovative work at the frontier of STEM education, this program also encourages replication of research studies at different types of institutions and with different student bodies to produce deeper knowledge about the effectiveness and transferability of findings.

IUSE: EHR also seeks to support projects that have high potential for broader societal impacts, including improved diversity of students and instructors participating in STEM education, professional development for instructors to ensure adoption of new and effective pedagogical techniques that meet the changing needs of students, and projects that promote institutional partnerships for collaborative research and development. IUSE: EHR especially welcomes proposals that will pair well with the efforts of NSF INCLUDES (https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/nsfincludes/index.jsp) to develop STEM talent from all sectors and groups in our society.

For all the above objectives, NSF invests primarily in evidence-based and knowledge-generating approaches to understand and improve STEM learning and learning environments, improve the diversity of STEM students and majors, and prepare STEM majors for the workforce. In addition to contributing to STEM education in the host institution(s), proposals should have the promise of adding more broadly to our understanding of effective teaching and learning practices.

The IUSE: EHR program features two tracks: (1) Engaged Student Learning and (2) Institutional and Community Transformation. Several levels of scope, scale, and funding are available within each track, as summarized in Table 1.

Project Description: The Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) is designed to fulfill the mandate of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to promote scientific progress nationwide. Jurisdictions are eligible to participate in the NSF EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Program (RII) based on their level of NSF research support averaged over three years (see RII eligibility). Through this program, NSF facilitates the establishment of partnerships among government, higher education, and industry that are designed to effect sustainable improvements in a jurisdiction's research infrastructure, Research and Development (R&D) capacity, and hence, its R&D competitiveness.

Research Infrastructure Improvement Track-1 (RII Track-1) awards provide up to $20 million total over five years to support research-driven improvements to jurisdictions’ physical and cyber infrastructure and human capital development in topical areas selected by the jurisdiction's EPSCoR steering committee as having the best potential to improve future R&D competitiveness. The project’s research activities must align with the specific research priorities identified in the submitting jurisdiction’s approved Science and Technology (S&T) Plan. Refer to Sections II and V.A.4.1 below for more information on alignment of the research activities of the project with the science, technology, engineering and math (STEM) research priorities of the S&T Plan.

Project Description: Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes are large-scale interdisciplinary research projects that aim to advance the frontiers of quantum information science and engineering. Research at these Institutes will span the focus areas of quantum computation, quantum communication, quantum simulation and/or quantum sensing. The institutes are expected to foster multidisciplinary approaches to specific scientific, technological, educational workforce development goals in these fields. Two types of awards will be supported under this program:

• (i) 12-month Conceptualization Grants (CGs) to support teams envisioning subsequent Institute proposals and
• (ii) 5-year Challenge Institute (CI) awards to establish and operate Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes.

This activity is part of the Quantum Leap, one of the research Big Ideas promoted by the National Science Foundation (NSF). The NSF Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes program is consistent with the scope of NSF multidisciplinary centers for quantum research and education as described in the National Quantum Initiative Act

Project Description: The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program supports the research and teaching careers of talented young faculty in the chemical sciences. Based on institutional nominations, the program provides discretionary funding to faculty at an early stage in their careers. Criteria for selection include an independent body of scholarship attained in the early years of their appointment, and a demonstrated commitment to education, signaling the promise of continuing outstanding contributions to both research and teaching. The Camille Dreyfus Teacher-Scholar Awards Program provides an unrestricted research grant of $75,000.

Project Description: The National Science Foundation Directorate for Engineering (NSF/ENG) invites the engineering research community to establish an organization that will serve to identify and develop bold and societally impactful new engineering research directions and thereby catalyze the engineering research community's pursuit of innovative, high-impact research. Specifically, NSF/ENG calls on the engineering research community to establish an Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) that ENG will support to facilitate the articulation of compelling research visions that align with national and global challenges. This organization will be charged with obtaining and integrating input from all stakeholders with interest in engineering research, including academia, industry, societies, government agencies and the public. A reciprocal goal of the organization will be to communicate coordinated information on nascent opportunities and priorities in engineering research to these stakeholders. It is anticipated that through its activities, ERVA will strengthen connectivity across these diverse stakeholders, and increase coordination among engineering disciplinary communities.

The ERVA should have membership/representation of academic, industrial and other stakeholders, and should be inclusive of all engineering disciplines. Through its proposed activities, the ERVA should provide the engineering community with a process for identifying future research challenges and enable the engineering research community to speak with a unified voice.

FURTHER INFORMATION: An informational webinar will be presented on Wednesday, March 25th at 1:00pm Eastern to discuss the ERVA solicitation and answer questions. Details on how to join this webinar will be posted on the NSF/Engineering website (https://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=ENG).

Program Description: As the nation continues to expand the horizon of opportunities and possibilities through advances in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM), the need for a more diverse and well-prepared STEM workforce is also expanding. The challenge of preparing citizens for the expanding workforce and the changing workplace environments calls for new innovations in STEM education. ITEST is a research and development program that supports projects to promote PreK-12 student interests and capacities to participate in the STEM and information and communications technology (ICT) workforce of the future. The ITEST program supports research on the design, development, implementation, and selective spread of innovative strategies for engaging students in technology-rich experiences that:

1. increase student awareness of STEM occupations;
2. motivate students to pursue appropriate education pathways to STEM occupations; or
3. develop disciplinary-based knowledge and practices, or promote critical thinking, reasoning skills, or communication skills needed for entering STEM workforce sectors.

ITEST projects may adopt an interdisciplinary focus that includes multiple STEM disciplines, focus on a single discipline, or focus on one or more sub-disciplines. The ITEST program supports projects that provide evidence for factors, instructional designs, and practices in formal and informal learning environments that broaden participation of students from underrepresented groups in STEM fields and related education and workforce domains. Projects that actively engage business and industry partners to better ensure that PreK-12 experiences foster the knowledge and skill-sets needed for emerging STEM occupations are strongly encouraged.

Program Description: The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is to invite applications to participate in the Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Program which supports high quality translational science and clinical research locally, regionally and nationally and fosters innovation in research methods, training, and career development.

The National Science Foundation Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarship Program seeks to encourage talented science, technology, engineering, and mathematics majors and professionals to become K-12 STEM teachers. The program invites creative and innovative proposals that address the critical need for recruiting and preparing highly effective K-12 STEM teachers, especially in high-need local educational agencies. The program offers four tracks: Track 1: The Robert Noyce Teacher Scholarships and Stipends Track, Track 2: The NSF Teaching Fellowships Track, Track 3: The NSF Master Teaching Fellowships Track, and Track 4: Noyce Research Track. In addition, Capacity Building proposals are accepted from proposers intending to develop a future Track 1, 2, or 3 proposal.

Project Description: The Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) program supports active research participation by undergraduate students in any of the areas of research funded by the National Science Foundation. REU projects involve students in meaningful ways in ongoing research programs or in research projects specifically designed for the REU program. This solicitation features two mechanisms for support of student research: (1) REU Sites are based on independent proposals to initiate and conduct projects that engage a number of students in research. REU Sites may be based in a single discipline or academic department or may offer interdisciplinary or multi-department research opportunities with a coherent intellectual theme. Proposals with an international dimension are welcome. (2) REU Supplements may be included as a component of proposals for new or renewal NSF grants or cooperative agreements or may be requested for ongoing NSF-funded research projects.