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Limited Submission Notice: Germination of Research Questions for Addressing Critical Societal Challenges (NSF 21-594)

Sponsor:

National Science Foundation (NSF)

Summary:

The NSF Directorate for Engineering GERMINATION program invites proposals to design, test, evaluate and implement pedagogical frameworks, platforms and/or environments that enable participants to formulate research questions and ideas that have the potential to address critical societal challenges. Two tracks will be supported in Fiscal Year 2022: GERMINATION Innovation and GERMINATION Expansion.

GERMINATION Innovation awards will fund projects to design, test, and evaluate previously unexplored pedagogical frameworks, platforms, and/or environments that have the explicit goal of enabling the participants to formulate research questions with potentially transformative outcomes.

GERMINATION Expansion awards will fund projects that focus on development, implementation and scaling of evidence-based strategies for achieving GERMINATION goals. Projects supported under the Expansion track should focus on scaling previously piloted approaches with demonstrated efficacy to a regional or national sphere of activity, and will likely involve development of new collaborative relationships to establish networks capable of implementation beyond the pilot institution.

For more information, view the full GERMINATION: Germination of Research Questions for Addressing Critical Societal Challenges solicitation.

Award:

GERMINATION Innovation Track: $100,000 – $300,000 total for 1-2 years

GERMINATION Expansion Track: $500,000 total for up to 3 years

Limited Submission Requirements and Timeline:

One (1) application per institution is permitted.

Only proposals approved by the Division of Research and Economic Development may be submitted to this program. If you are interested in submitting, please send an email indicating your interest to preaward@boisestate.edu by noon on August 13.

If more than one PI is interested in submitting, a subsequent white paper round will be conducted.

Key Submission Dates:
  • 8/13 @ 12pm – Email indicating interest due to preaward@boisestate.edu.
  • 8/27 – Letter of Intent due (Expansion track) or Concept Outline due (Innovation track)
  • 10/22 – Final Documents due to OSP Pre-Award
  • 10/29 – Full proposal due to NSF
Important Proposal Requirements:
  • For both tracks, proposers are strongly encouraged to design their approaches as creatively as possible, but approaches should be grounded in relevant existing knowledge from the social and behavioral sciences and/or science of research organizations. Inclusion of appropriate social science expertise in the research team is strongly recommended.
  • Proposals submitted to both tracks should include STEM graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, and/or faculty as participants and should clearly identify targeted participants.
  • GERMINATION teams must gather, analyze, evaluate and utilize data during development and implementation of these platforms to identify successful training strategies for leveraging and dissemination. Involvement of individuals with evaluation expertise in the leadership team is strongly encouraged. Plea note the evaluation differences for the Innovation and Expansion tracks.

Did you find a limited submission opportunity?  Email us at preaward@boisestate.edu.