Federal Agency Updates & Funding Opportunities

Abstracts for the FY 2000 grant awards for the USDA Small Business Innovation Research Program have been posted on the agency’s website: http://www.reeusda.gov/sbir/ Chris Busch and Jill Kline reported statistics on the distribution of proposals and awards by state in last week’s Wyoming SBIR Initiative Newsletter. For this issue and other archived editions of their resourceful newsletter, visit: http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/sbir/newsletters.htm

Commerce

The National Telecommunications and Information Administration announced it received 662 proposals in response to the 2000 Technology Opportunities Program (TOP) solicitation. Applicants requested $270 million, pledging an additional $430 million is non-federal matching funds. TOP has only $12.5 million available this year for new grants. Award decisions should be announced in September. A complete list of applicants and grants is posted on the TOP website: http://ntiaotiant2.ntia.doc.gov/top/2000info/index.cfm

The National Sea Grant College Program and the US Fish and Wildlife Service seek proposals for innovative research, outreach and demonstration projects that address the problems of aquatic invasive species in U.S..waters. In FY 2000, $1,000,000 is available to support projects to improve ballast water treatment and management in the Chesapeake Bay and Grant Lakes in particular and U.S. coast waters in general. Any person may apply for funding in response to this announcement. Proposals must be submitted by June 19, 2000. For further information contact: Leon M. Cammen, Invasive Species Coordinator, National Seat Grant College Program, 301-713-2435; or Sharon Gross, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, 703-358-1718. [See also the May 19 online edition of the Federal Register]

Energy

The Office of Research and Engineering in the Office of Defense Nuclear Nonproliferation is interested in receiving grant applications for its Chemical and Biological Nonproliferation Program. Research is sought for experimental and computational studies for biological detection and the underlying enabling science. The formal solicitation document will be issued in early June 2000 at http://doe-iips.pr.doe.gov  Potential applicants are strongly encouraged to submit a brief two to four page pre-application. All pre-applications, referencing solicitation DE-PS01-00NN20115, should be received by DOE by June 23, 2000. The due date for full applications will be July 28, 2000.

Health

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a request for proposals for the cooperative agreement research program for Optimizing Strategies to Provide STD Partner Services. Applications may be submitted by any for-profit or non-profit organization, government or Indian tribal government agency or entity, or academic institution. Approximately $750,000 is available in FY 2000. Awards are anticipated to average $250,000 Letters of intent are to be submitted by June 12, 2000. More information on this and several other opportunities are available under “Funding” on the CDC website: http://www.cdc.gov

National Science Foundation

The National Science Foundation High Performance Connections (HPC) program has awarded high performance network connections for ten additional universities, bringing the total number of institutions assisted through such grants to 177. They will join previous awardees in connecting to a national grid of research networks that operate at speeds up to 2.4 billion bits per second. The two-year awards average $350,000, which will be matched at least equally by each recipient.

New recipients include: Binghamton University (State University of New York); California State University at Hayward; Idaho State University; Jackson State University (Mississippi); New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology; Rockefeller University (New York); State University of New York at Stony Brook; University of Texas at El Paso; Virginia Commonwealth University; and Wright State University (Ohio).

A list of all other HPC awardees is available at: http://www.interact.nsf.gov/CISE/ASC/CISEWeb.nsf/program_ani?OpenView&Count=500