Senate Agriculture Panel Backs Five -Year Reauthorization of Farm Bill

The Senate Agriculture panel backed a five-year reauthorization and overhaul of farm, conservation and nutrition programs on April 26 that would cut spending by more than $23 billion over 10 years, keeping a promise to achieve savings in mandatory programs. Every five years, Congress passes a bundle of legislation, typically referred to as the "Farm Bill" that sets national agriculture, nutrition, conservation, and forestry policy. The last Farm Bill was enacted in 2008, and is set to expire in September of 2012, so a new one must be patch-worked together between the House and Senate Committees this year. The bill's typical title is a gross oversimplification since far more than farms are affected; the farm bill decides things from Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) benefits to research funding. The amended bill, now known as the Agriculture Reform, Food and Jobs Act of 2012, comes in at a mere 980 pages.

The Committee markup was originally scheduled for April 25, but was postponed as leaders worked to ensure that the bill could pass through the panel. There was a general consensus that disagreements about how rice, cotton, peanuts and wheat fared in the bill and concerns by Southern and Plains state senators representing those interests forced the delay. Some Senators on the Committee from those regions complained that the April 23 deadline for amendments provided insufficient time to have them properly written and vetted. After a day of scrambling, the markup was rescheduled for the next morning.

Included in the amended bill are directions to Secretary Tom Vilsack to establish a Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, a non-profit, non-governmental entity to foster public private partnerships within the research community including the Department of Agriculture, other agencies, non-governmental organizations, academia, corporations, private foundations, and wealthy donors. The directed purpose of the Foundation will be to advance the research mission of the Department by supporting agriculture research activities focused on addressing key problems of national and international significance. In the months leading up to this bill, COSSA joined with other concerned groups to fight for the inclusion of agriculture economics and rural communities in this new Foundation. The Senate Committee has seen fit to include these vital areas of research in the mission of the new Foundation. During the markup Chairwoman Deborah Stabenow (D-MI) made specific reference to the new Foundation calling it a "new non-profit research foundation with dollars.... to support cutting edge research." The National Institutes of Health have a similar Foundation arrangement.

Speaking on the Rural Development Title, VI, Stabenow said the Committee had "worked hard to remove duplicative programs, authorizations, to organize the title in a better way...[and] worked very hard to make it simpler both for farmers and for local community leaders to access the services that are available." She also touted that the bill would extend rural development initiatives to help rural communities, upgrade infrastructure, and create an environment for small businesses to grow.

A number of amendments were offered, mainly from Southern Senators. Nevertheless, the final committee vote to send the bill to the Senate floor was 12-4 of those present and 16-5, with the inclusion of proxy votes. Even with it through Committee, the bill's backers are on a tight timeframe. With the old farm bill set to expire on September 30, this new bill will need quick passage once it hits the floor. Stabenow has said of the rest of the process "we have some deadlines to meet. This is not over."

House Agriculture Panel Holds Hearing on Rural Development as Part of Farm Bill Reauthorization

On April 25, the House Agriculture Subcommittee on Rural Development, Research, Biotechnology, and Foreign Agriculture held the first of eight hearings the House will hold on the 2012 Farm Bill, starting things off with a focus on rural development programs. The House begins this process considerably later than the Senate, who passed their Farm Bill out of Committee on April 26. Witnesses who represented various rural industries did their best to defend rural development programs while acknowledging the difficult economic situation.

The hearing was composed of two panels. The first panel included Charles Conner, President of the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives; Donald Larson, Commissioner of Brookings County, SD, present on behalf of the National Association of Counties; and Leanne Mazer, Executive Director of the Tri-County Council for Western Maryland, presenting on behalf of the National Association of Development Organizations. After opening statements that included calls for careful allocation of scarce funds from Subcommittee Chairman Rep. Tim Johnson (R-IL), Conner seemed to speak to the Chairman's heart when he said that "there are more than 88 programs administered by 16 different federal agencies specifically targeted at rural economic development. With a significant decrease in funding for the Farm Bill, it just makes sense to consolidate the programs." He added that Value Added Producer Grants, however, are "instrumental for cooperatives overcoming many barriers."

In addressing the grant application process, Conner repeated what many legislators and hearing witnesses have been saying in recent months regarding USDA's grant process-it's so complicated and time consuming it can be a genuine deterrent. Larson pointed out a different issue when he discussed how rural economies are increasingly dynamic regional economies and yet programs are too often targeted at individual communities.

Subcommittee Ranking Member Rep. Jim Costa (D-CA) later brought up his desire to more carefully define the word "rural." He noted that many communities that deserve access to rural programs have trouble qualifying due to big cities in the vicinity, among other issues. Illinois Rural Water Association Executive Director Frank Dunmire, who sat on the second panel, commented that expanding USDA loan and grant eligibility to larger communities was problematic. He noted that, at least for his area of expertise-water- "we do not believe anything is to be gained by increasing the pool of eligible communities."

At the close of the hearing Johnson declared that "we're going to have to make some cuts, none of which are going to be painless. We're not going to balance the budget unless we all recognize that every single component of what the federal government does is going to have to be examined." He then asked all of the witnesses present, including those not on the second panel currently seated in front of the microphones, where they would make cuts. Larson stood up from the next row of seats and rather passionately defended programs intended to support rural economies. He declared that the money saved from cutting direct payments to farmers in the Farm Bill should be funneled toward rural development programs.

For more information about the hearing, please visit the Committee's website here.

AHRQ's National Advisory Council Meets

At the April 13^th meeting of the National Advisory Council (NAC) for the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ) director Carolyn Clancy updated the Council on the agency's recent activities: reducing disparities in health care, AHRQ's investments supported by the Patient Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund, and a "big picture" overview of recent AHRQ accomplishments.  

She reviewed the agency's FY 2012 budget, which is $369 million and $3 million less than the FY 2011 funding level, plus $12 million in Prevention and Public Health Funds (PPHF) and $24 million from the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Trust Fund (PCORTF) equaling a total FY 2012 AHRQ budget of $405 million. Of this sum, $16.6 million will go to Patient-Centered Outcomes Research along with the $24 million from the PCORTF; $15.9 million for Prevention Care/Management in addition to the $14 million from the PPHF; $3.7 million for Value Research; $25.6 million for Health IT; $65.6 million for Patient Safety, including $34 million for Healthcare Associated Infections (HAI); and $108.4 million for Crosscutting areas, including $15.9 million for new grants.

She followed it with an overview of the President's FY 2013 budget request for AHRQ which includes $334 million, $34.7 million less than the FY 2012 funding level, plus $12 million in PPHF and $62.4 million from the PCORTF for a total funding level of $408.8 million in FY 2013.   The FY 2013 funding would provide $10 million for Patient-Centered Outcomes Research in addition to the $64.4 million from PCORTF; $15.9 million for Prevention/Care Management plus the $12 million from the PPHF; $3.6 million for Value Research; $25.6 million for Health IT; $62.6 million for Patient Safety ($34 million for HAI); and $88.9 million for cross-cutting research ($2.7 million to support new grants).

Clancy also announced that the AHRQ would be moving its offices to the newly renovated Parklawn Building, along with the operating divisions of the Health Research and Services Administration, Indian Health Service, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, and components of the Program Support Center.

The AHRQ director highlighted recent accomplishments by the agency, including:

• The AHCPR (Agency for Health Care Research and Policy, the agency's prior name)-Funded Chronic Diseases Self-Management Program, a program that is now available in nearly all 50 states. The program, developed at Stanford in the early 1990s, is designed to help people gain self-confidence in their ability to control their symptoms and how their health problems affect their lives. It consists of small-group, highly interactive workshops that are six weeks long, with once a week meetings over two and a half hours, facilitated by a pair of leaders one or both of whom are non-health professionals with a chronic diseases themselves.
• The results of research around E-Prescribing. It is safe and efficient, reported the director, but barriers remain in realizing its full potential.
• Promotion of Spanish-Language Resources - AHRQ recently launched the Toma Las riendas (Take the Reins) campaign to encourage Hispanics to take control of their own health and explore treatment options.
• An AHRQ-funded study which reveals that consumers choose high-value providers when given good data. When cost and quality data are combined, consumers more easily identify providers who deliver high-quality care at a lower cost. The study examined ways to present cost and quality information, such as symbols, specific figures, and labels. The research has implications for the design of public report cards.
• AHRQ's Health Literacy Universal Precautions Toolkit (Saint Louis University School of Medicine) which was incorporated into the curriculum on clear communication techniques. More than 1,200 students from seven professions took part in literacy seminars. Additionally, the toolkit was used during clinical rotation in outreach educational activities.
• AHRQ's Nursing Home Survey on Patient Safety Culture and TeamSTEPPS^TM where results have informed best strategies to improve care in 62 nursing homes. The results showed improved communication and teamwork skills.
• AHRQ's Effective Health Care (EHC) program guides by StayWell Health Management (MN) which incorporated guides for consumers into a pool of organization's resources.

As part of her update on program activities, Clancy announced that AHRQ and the National Science Foundation are collaborating around Health IT research funding: Advancing Health Services through System Modeling Research. She also noted the external interest in a couple of AHRQ's Health IT funding opportunity announcements: (1) Understanding User Need and Context to Inform Consumer Health Information Technology Design; and (2) Understanding Clinical Information Needs and Health Care Decision Making Processes in the Context of Health Information Technology.

Clancy also highlighted the 2011 Institute of Medicine report on Health IT and Patient Safety: Building Safer Systems for Better Care which recommended that the AHRQ and the Department of Health and Human Services' Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC) work together closely. AHRQ has been doing that and will continue to do so, Clancy reported. The report also recommended that the AHRQ fund more research on health IT and patient safety. AHRQ will do that, she informed the NAC.

She announced that the National Healthcare Quality and Disparities reports were nearing release (see related story). The highlights included in the reports are organized around National Quality Strategy priorities and includes new sections on: adolescent health, musculoskeletal diseases; health care safety net and transgender people. The 2012 reports will be the 10^th in the series. The reports have added more of NQS measures reflecting population need, focus on long-term trends and focus on new Health and Human Services race and ethnicity standards, stated Clancy. She also reported that the NHQRDRnet (an online query system that allows you to access national and State data on the quality of, and access to, health care from scientifically credible measures and data sources) and State Snapshots are coming soon. In addition, the ability to generate customized graphics has been added to NHQRDRnet.

Noting that Healthcare-Associated Infections are a priority for the HHS Secretary, Clancy pointed out that a priority performance goal will be tracked by HHS and the Office of Management and Budget. Led by the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services, it will be a collaborative effort of AHRQ, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Health. The goals include: a 25 percent reduction in hospital-acquired CLABSI (Central Line-Associated Bloodstream Infection), a 20 percent reduction in hospital-acquired CAUTI (Catheter-Associated Urinary Tract Infection), to be achieved by September 30, 2013 versus 2010 baseline, and aligned with goals of the HAI National Action Plan and Partnership for Patients (PfP). AHRQ's ongoing programs will contribute significantly to the effort, reported Clancy.

The NAC heard a presentation from Brian Smedley, Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, on the "Implications of the Affordable Care Act for Communities of Color." Smedley discussed the economic burden of health inequalities in the U.S., including direct medical costs, indirect costs, and the costs of premature death. He reported that between 2003 and 2006, 30.6 percent of direct medical care expenditures for African Americans, Asians, and Hispanics were excess costs due to health inequalities. Additionally, he reported that between 2003 and 2006 the combined costs of health inequities and premature death were $1.24 trillion. Eliminating health inequalities for minorities would have reduced direct medical care expenditures by $229.4 billion for the years 2003-2006, he informed the council.

Smedley also talked about the implication of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) for addressing health care, including those associated with insurance coverage expansion, improving access to health care, data collection and reporting, along with other provisions of the legislation including increasing investments in health disparities research and authorizing cultural competence education and organizational support.   Regarding data collection and reporting, he pointed out that the law requires that population surveys collect and report data on race, ethnicity and primary language; collect and report disparities in Medicaid and CHIP; and monitor health disparities trends in federally-funded programs. He further pointed out that there is also a "treasure trove" of new data that can help in the understanding of where and when inequities occur.

More needs to be done, argued Smedley, underscoring that public health and health systems in partnership with communities can take steps to address the root causes of health inequities. The factors that contribute to these inequities include structural inequality which influences the known factors of socioeconomic position, residential segregation and environmental living condition, occupational risks and exposures, health risk and health-seeking behaviors, differences in access to health care, and differences in health care quality, he continued

According to Smedley, to move from science to policy and practice, the evidence suggests that: a focus on prevention, particularly on the conditions in which people live, work, play, and study; multiple strategies across sectors; sustained investment and a long-term policy agenda; place-based strategies (investments in communities); people based strategies (increasing housing mobility options) are needed. There is growing evidence that a focus on prevention is particularly important. It is not simply a case of health education for individuals and communities at risk. There is a need for a sustained investment in a long-term agenda, emphasizing that it is clear that these conditions did not emerge in a generation, he related to the NAC. He further cited the need for the creation of healthier communities: improved food and nutritional options; land use and zoning policy structured to reduce the concentration of health risks; and the institution of health impact assessments to determine the public health consequences of any new housing, transportation, labor and education policies.

As an example of moving science to practice, Smedley concluded his presentation by highlighting the Joint Center's Place Matters initiative. He noted that the Place Matters' teams are currently: identifying key social determinants and health outcomes that must be addressed at the community levels, building multi-sector alliances; engaging policymakers and other key stakeholders; and evaluating practices. Place determines so many things about the way we live. It is not just our geography but it is also our social place and where we are on the ladder of advancement, Smedley concluded.

The NAC also discussed AHRQ's/HHS's relationship with the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI). Board member Sharon Levine (The Permanente Medical Group) and Ann C. Beal, PCORI's Chief Operating Officer, described the role and activities involved in this relationship. AHRQ is charged with focusing on disseminating the research from PCORI and other entities that support comparative effectiveness or patient-centered outcomes research and to assist with the incorporation of these findings and decision support systems. Ultimately, according to Clancy, AHRQ's focus is to fund projects and initiatives that are highly complementary to and consistent to PCORI activities.

Levine began by acknowledging AHRQ's efforts in this area and recognized that PCORI is "blessed and privileged" to actually build on the work that AHRQ has done through its effective healthcare program, having laid the groundwork around what dissemination means and what it means to think about different audiences and different channels, including measuring the impact in terms of discerning whether the information released ever gets taken up in practice. She noted that one of the first things that the PCORI Board of Governors' Chair, Gene Washington, did was establish a joint ARHQ workgroup to ensure that PCORI focused on a firm commitment to eliminate redundancy or the opportunity for redundancy and effort. Levine and Clancy are co-chairs of the workgroup.

Levine emphasized that PCORI's goal is to assist patients and clinicians and policy makers in making informed health decisions and to disseminate research findings, with respect to the relative health outcomes, clinical effectiveness and appropriateness of medical treatment. PCORI is not a public agency but a private not-for-profit 501(c)(3), meaning that some of the constraints on a federal agency do not apply to PCORI. She cited the use of survey methodology as an example.

She noted that the PCORI board has agreed upon a set of assumptions around dissemination. Patient outcomes is an objective measure of health status or measures of health status modified, modulated and inclusive of patient reported outcomes - those things of value and importance to the patients, she explained. PCORI will disseminate the results of PCORI-funded research and will also fund research on dissemination, supplementing what AHRQ is doing. PCORI/AHRQ are requiring investigators, among a number of things, to think through the answers to questions about what it would take to identify the intended beneficiaries of the research. Not necessarily to make them responsible for dissemination, she clarified, because the individuals doing the research are necessarily the best people to do it.

The second piece, she noted, is to provide rapid follow-on funding for dissemination for selected studies where there is clear value. "Translating results and influencing is very context dependent," Levine explained. Success in doing that is going to be directly linked to how effective PCORI is at establishing partnerships early on with AHRQ, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), non-governmental organizations, and private sector actors, and clarifying how PCORI would support and contribute to their efforts in terms of reaching the intended beneficiaries of this work, she explained.

She shared that PCORI had a report from the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE) Office looking at five case studies of failed dissemination. They are still looking at the results, Levine reported. There is a universal need and requirement by both clinicians and patients for unbiased and balance information which is recognized as such because of the source. They are also beginning to understand that disseminating new research is very different from disseminating systematic reviews, she explained.

Beal discussed PCORI and the issue of dissemination. She indicated that the Institute has operationalized this as a robust agenda around engagement and engaging providers and patients. There are three broad steps to research: 1) identifying the research questions; 2) conducting the research, and 3) disseminating the research. In terms of asking the question, PCORI spends a "lot of time" with engagement activities and helping to set its priorities, Beal explained. In addition to the focus groups, as part of its national agenda or national priorities, PCORI has started posting its research agenda on its webpage.

PCORI Amends Draft Research Agenda

On April 25^th the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) Board of Governors voted to amend PCORI's draft Research Agenda, responding to public comments it received. The Board added or refined language to respond to the 15 major themes that emerged from more than 450 public comments (see Update, February 6, 2012). The Board, however, did not recommend changes in PCORI's National Priorities for Research, reflecting the lack of public comments identifying significant gaps in the five proposed priorities.

In addition, the PCORI Board also authorized $30 million in funding over two years for a slate of 50 pilot projects that will address a broad range of questions about methods for engaging patients in various aspects of the research and dissemination process. A full final version of the National Priorities and Research Agenda, including accepted revisions, will be posted May 21 after final Board review and approval at its next public meeting which will be held in Denver.

Education Department Awards Grants for Undergraduate STEM Education: Social/Behavioral Sciences Included

On April 27, he U.S. Department of Education announced the award of 14 grants worth more than $3.1 million to promote long-range improvement in science and engineering education at predominantly minority institutions. The funds, under the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program, are aimed at increasing the participation of underrepresented ethnic minorities, particularly women, in scientific and technological careers.

"These grants will help support the expansion of America's scientific and technological capacity to build global competitiveness by increasing minority graduates in the STEM fields of science, technology, engineering and mathematics," said U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan.

The grants will support:

• Student research in STEM fields.
• Stipends for eligible participants.
• Pre-college programs, K-12 (students and teachers).
• College programs (STEM).
• Faculty development (STEM).
• Curriculum development (STEM fields). And,
• Renovation of STEM labs/classrooms.

Unlike the recent report on Undergraduate STEM Education from the President's Council of Advisers on Science and Technology (PACAST) (see Update, February 20, 2012), the social and behavioral sciences are included in the definition of science for the purpose of these awards.

For more on the Minority Science and Engineering Improvement Program in the Office of Postsecondary Education, see http://www2.ed.gov/programs/iduesmsi/index.html.

NSF Seeks Proposals for Science Education Research

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) Education and Human Resources Directorate (EHR) seeks proposals for its Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and Engineering (REESE) program. The solicitation incorporates the Fostering Interdisciplinary Research on Education (FIRE) program into REESE. The proposals are due on July 17, 2012.

According to NSF, the REESE program seeks to advance research at the frontiers of STEM learning and education, and to provide the foundational knowledge necessary to improve STEM learning and education in current and emerging learning contexts, both formal and informal, from childhood through adulthood, for all groups, and from before school through to graduate school and beyond into the workforce.

The goals of the REESE program are: (1) to catalyze discovery and innovation at the frontiers of STEM learning and education; (2) to stimulate the field to produce high quality and robust research results through the progress of theory, method, and human resources; and (3) to coordinate and transform advances in education and learning research.

REESE supports research that seeks transformative and novel answers to foundational questions about what STEM concepts can be learned by whom, when, how, and where. The initial benefits of REESE proposals are primarily up-stream. They ought to have the potential to advance the relevant research   literatures. REESE pursues its mission by developing a research portfolio focusing on core scientific questions of STEM learning and education. REESE-supported research is often multi- and inter-disciplinary, drawing on the expertise of STEM content experts, STEM education researchers and evaluators, cognitive and social scientists, and experts from other areas of practice and scholarship. REESE projects may focus on any age range and any setting, including schools, homes, museums, and science centers.

REESE projects should employ research designs and methodologies that are appropriate to the goals of the research. Proposals should have a strong connection to a STEM content area and should indicate who the direct audiences are for the results (e.g., other communities of researchers, materials developers, teacher-educators, policy analysts, or policymakers) and whom the eventual beneficiaries of the research are, however indirectly and long-term.

REESE challenges scholarly communities to put forward groundbreaking ideas, concepts, theories, and measurement and methodological approaches that focus on one or more of the following topical strands. These strands do not constitute an exhaustive or mutually exclusive set of priorities or possibilities.

            1. Neural bases of STEM learning;

            2. Cognitive Underpinnings of STEM Learning;

            3. STEM Learning in Formal and Informal Settings;

            4. Educational Technologies;

            5. Research on Diffusion;

            6. Methods, models, and measures for STEM education and learning research;

            7. Secondary Analysis of Large Datasets; and

            8. Broadening participation research.

There are three types of proposals.

Synthesis proposals are small grants for the synthesis and/or meta-analysis of existing knowledge on a topic of critical importance to STEM learning and/or education or for the diffusion of research-based knowledge.

Empirical Research projects are designed to support the design and conduct of research projects including the collection of new empirical data or the use of secondary analyses from existing state, national, international or other databases. Three levels of Empirical Research are available: Small, Medium, and Large.

     * Small Empirical projects will have maximum total award size of $500,000 for three years.

     * Medium Empirical projects will have maximum total award size of $1.5 million for three years.

     * Large Empirical projects will have maximum total award size of $2.5 million for five years.

Fostering Interdisciplinary Research in Education (FIRE) proposals facilitate scholars crossing disciplinary boundaries to acquire the skills and knowledge that would improve their abilities to conduct rigorous research on STEM learning and education. Proposals must have both a research and a professional development component. The primary goal of FIRE is to facilitate the development of innovative theoretical, methodological, and analytic approaches to understanding complex STEM education issues of national importance and, by so doing, make progress toward solving them. A secondary goal of FIRE is to broaden and deepen the pool of investigators engaged in STEM educational research, by bringing their communities into closer and more systematic interaction with another. To address this goal, investigators must pair with a mentoring scholar in the to-be-learned field.

With anticipated funding of $10 million, EHR estimates it will make between 20-30 new awards in FY 2012. Of these approximately 2-3 will be Synthesis, 7-10 Small Empirical, 7-10 Medium Empirical, 1-2 Large Empirical, and 3-5 FIRE awards will be funded.

For more information: REESE program officers, (703)292-8650, or [email protected].

For the full solicitation go to:

http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?WT.z_pims_id=13667&ods_key=nsf12552.

NSF Solicitation Called DIBBS Part of Cyberinfrastructure Initiative

The National Science Foundation (NSF) has posted a solicitation for a program they are calling Date Infrastructure Building Blocks (DIBBS). This is part of NSF's cross-directorate program dubbed Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21). The proposals are due July 26, 2012.

According to NSF, science and engineering research and education are increasingly digital and increasingly data-intensive. Digital data are not only the output of research since their analysis provide input to new hypotheses, enabling new scientific insights, driving innovation and informing education.  Therein lies one of the major challenges of this scientific generation:  how to develop, implement and support the new methods, management structures and technologies to store and manage the diversity, size, and complexity of current and future data sets and data streams.

DIBBS seeks to provide support for the following research activities:

Conceptualization:  Conceptualization Awards are planning awards aimed at further developing disciplinary and interdisciplinary communities' understanding of their data storage and management requirements with the goal of developing an initial prototype.  Any activity that brings the community together to address common problems, further refine requirements and avoid unnecessary and wasteful duplication of resources and efforts will be eligible for funding.  Funded activities could include focused workshops, special sessions at professional meetings, focus groups, etc. Awards will be up to 1 year in duration.  The output of a conceptualization award will be design specifications for creating a sustainable data infrastructure that will be discoverable, searchable, accessible, and usable to the entire research and education community.

Implementation: Implementation awards will support development and implementation of technologies addressing a subset of elements of the data preservation and access lifecycle, including acquisition; documentation; security and integrity; storage; access, analysis and dissemination; migration; and deaccession. These data preservation and access technologies will enable science and engineering research, such that the scientific and engineering problems serve as use cases for data technology development. Awards will be up to 5 years in duration.

Interoperability:  Interoperability awards will develop frameworks that provide consistency or commonality of design across communities and implementation for data acquisition, management, preservation, sharing, dissemination, etc.  This includes data and metadata format and content conventions, standardized constructs or protocols, taxonomies, or ontologies.  The development of interoperability frameworks through community-based mechanisms provides a means for ensuring that existing conventions and practices are appropriately recognized and integrated, that implementation is made realistic and feasible, and, most importantly, that the real needs of the community are identified and met. Awards will be up to 3 years in duration.

The Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) encourages its scientists to utilize DIBBS to follow-up on activities begun by its other CIF21 initiatives:

META-SSS (www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11583/nsf11583.htm).

For the full solicitation go to:

http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504776&org=NSF&sel_org=NSF&from=fund.