| Reminder | |
Climate Science Day (CSD) on Capitol Hill 2012 applications due November 7, 2011. Following on from the success of CSD 2011, NEON, Inc. would like to announce an opportunity for up to four individuals to engage in a training session on communicating with Congress. This is an informational visit to Capitol Hill, and Federal employees are eligible to participate. See below for more details.
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| Welcome | | We are pleased to welcome our latest member institution: the University of Guam, with Dr. John Peterson as the Member Institution Representative. |
| Membership input informs Earth Cube White Paper |
At the Fourth Annual NEON, Inc. Membership Meeting in Boulder, CO on 2011-9-16, a number of attendees participated in the breakout group on the development and support of ecological community models. Based on the input provided at that breakout, a white paper titled "Requirements Driven Community Modeling Framework for the Earth and Environmental Sciences" was submitted for the upcoming NSF Earth Cube charette. Thank you to everybody who contributed to the community model discussion: you helped inform the direction of the white paper.
The goal of EarthCube is to transform the conduct of research by supporting the development of community-guided cyberinfrastructure to integrate data and information for knowledge management (see also the June 2011 and August 2011 updates). The charette is "a collaborative session in which possible solutions for an Earth Cube design are drafted by community stakeholders". A total of 111 white papers were submitted for the charette, and because NEON is an NSF supported facility, we will be one of the many participants at the charette that runs from 2011-11-01 through 2011-11-04 in the Washington DC metro area.
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NEON, Inc. Member Institutions Selected to Head DOI Climate-Science Centers
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The Department of Interior's (DOI) eight Regional Climate Science Centers (CSCs) will provide scientific information, tools and techniques that land, water, wildlife and cultural resource managers and other interested parties can apply to anticipate, monitor and adapt to climate and ecologically-driven responses at regional-to-local scales. NEON anticipates collaborating with the DOI on the future data and information needs of the CSCs. (See also the October 2010 update.)
On 2011-10-20, Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar announced that the University of Massachusetts Amherst and the University of Hawaii Manoa will be the lead hosts for the Northeast and Pacific Islands CSC respectively. Both universities are current NEON, Inc. Member Institutions. Other current NEON, Inc. Member Institutions selected to participate in CSC consortiums include (Founding Member Institutions are marked in red):
- University of Guam (Pacific Islands)
- University of Hawaii Hilo (Pacific Islands)
- Oregon State University (Northwest, lead host)
- University of Idaho (Northwest)
- University of Washington (Northwest)
- Arizona State University (Southwest)
- University of Arizona (Southwest, lead host)
- University of California Los Angeles (Southwest)
- University of California Merced (Southwest)
- University of Colorado Boulder (Southwest)
- Colorado State University (North Central, lead host)
- Kansas State University (North Central)
- Montana State University (North Central)
- University of Montana (North Central)
- Oklahoma State University (South Central)
- Marine Biological Labs (Northeast)
- University of Minnesota (Northeast)
The University of Oklahoma (NEON, Inc. Founding Member Institution) is the lead host for the South Central CSC. |
| USDA ARS Announces LTAR |
At the Fourth Interagency Conference on Research in the Watersheds in Fairbanks, AK (2011.09.26 - 2011.09.30), the USDA Agricultural Research Service (ARS) presented the vision of a Long-Term Agro-Ecosystem Research (LTAR) network, similar to NSF's LTER network. The concept was also presented at the Ecological Society of America's annual meeting in Austin, TX in August 2011.
It is anticipated that a subset of the ARS' existing 23 benchmark experimental watersheds will be used to form the core of an LTAR network. Given that three NEON sites are co-located with existing ARS sites, the leadership teams of both environmental observatories have engaged in a number of discussions about shared measurements and complementary activities. Although still a nascent collaboration, this is an example of how the structured processes used to design the NEON infrastructure (and, eventually, the actual infrastructure) can be utilized by NEON's partners to enable organizational- and mission- specific solutions.
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NSF Press Release on Earth System Models and Dimentions of Biodiversity
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NSF issued two press releases highlighting the outcome of two recent solicitations: the Dimensions of Biodiversity program (see the December 2011 update under "Solicitations"), and the Decadal and Regional Climate Prediction Using Earth System Models program (see the April 2010 update) .
The Dimensions of Biodiversity initiative seeks to characterize biodiversity on Earth by using integrative, innovative approaches to fill rapidly the most substantial gaps in our understanding of the diversity of life on Earth. This campaign will take a broad view of biodiversity, and in its initial phase will focus on the integration of genetic, taxonomic, and functional dimensions of biodiversity.
The Earth System Models (EaSM) program calls for the development of next-generation Earth System Models that include coupled and interactive representations of ecosystems, agricultural working lands and forests, urban environments, biogeochemistry, atmospheric chemistry, ocean and atmospheric currents, the water cycle, land ice, and human activities. |
| NSF Press Release on Sustainability Research Coordination Networks Program |
NSF issued a press release on 2011-10-20 highlighting the first awards under the Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability (SEES) activity in its Research Coordination Networks (RCN) program. One of the SEES-RCN awards was for a proposal headed by NEON, Inc. Board Director Dan Childers (Arizona State University, a NEON, Inc. Founding Member Institution and current member) for establishing "an interdisciplinary Urban Sustainability Research Coordination Network to integrate and synthesize urban research while developing solutions-oriented products to enable sustainable transitions for cities".
Urbanization, one of the NEON science themes, will will be addressed in two transects across seven sites (sites on the humid Eastern Seaboard and in Puerto Rico, and dry sites in the Intermountain West and Southwest). For more information, see the August 2011 draft of the NEON Science Strategy. |
| Climate Science Day on Capitol Hill 2012 |
Following on from the resounding success of Climate Science Day on Capitol Hill 2011, NEON, Inc. would like to announce an opportunity for up to four individuals to engage in a training session on communicating with Congress (January 31, 2012). This will be followed by a visit to Capitol Hill (February 1, 2012) to meet with your legislator and other Members of Congress in multi-disciplinary teams led by representatives from organizing institutions.
NEON, Inc. is looking for individuals to effectively communicate the impacts of large-scale environmental changes on natural resources and the complex interaction between climate and ecosystems. Limited travel assistance is available. Early career scientists are encouraged to apply.
This event DOES NOT subscribe to any particular policy course or action. As such, Federal employees may participate in this event. Applications are due by November 7, 2011. For more details, including reports from attendees about the learning experience they went through earlier this year, see http://goo.gl/S0JHL.
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Solicitations of Potential Interest to the NEON Community
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Please click the respective links to check the original source of information. The abbreviated text below may not reflect amendments to the original announcements, and may not reflect the original intent of the solicitation. The "New" icons indicate recent new announcements (includes announcements for regular solicitations), and not necessarily new programs. These are primarily, though not limited to, NSF solicitations. Not all new announcements are included in the list below.  USGS Powell Center Synthesis Activities in Earth System Science - Excerpt: The USGS's John Wesley Powell Center for Earth System Science Analysis and Synthesis fosters innovative thinking in earth system science. Interdisciplinary working groups comprising USGS researchers and their national and international colleagues in academia and government will collaborate on analysis and synthesis of existing data and information. The USGS Powell Center will fund up to five proposals. New this year, the USGS Powell Center and the National Science Foundation (NSF) will jointly fund an additional two to three proposals for Working Groups.
- Critical Dates: FY2012 proposals are due Nov 30, 2011. FY2013 proposals are due April 30, 2012.
- Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis (OPUS)
- Excerpt: To encourage synthetic studies, the Population and Community Ecology, Ecosystem Science, Evolutionary Processes, and Systematic Biology and Biodiversity Inventories Clusters in the Division of Environmental Biology have established OPUS (Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis). OPUS supports investigators to synthesize the body of their research. OPUS awards target investigators who have, over time, produced important papers from a series of related research projects, but have not yet integrated that series in a single synthesis. OPUS will fund single or multiple investigators to synthesize the body of work they themselves have generated. Funds requesting support for the production of new data or for synthesizing other investigators' research are not appropriate.
- Critical Dates: August 01, 2012
- Improvements in Facilities, Communications, and Equipment at Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (FSML)
- Excerpt: Biological Field Stations and Marine Laboratories (FSMLs) are off-campus facilities for research and education pertaining to physical and biological phenomena and organisms in the natural habitats of terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems. In recognition of the continuing need for modern facilities and equipment at FSMLs, the NSF invites proposals that address the general goal of FSML improvement. Requests must fall exclusively into one of two classes: Improvement or Planning. Improvement proposals should focus on well-defined projects of major equipment acquisition, data management and communication systems modernization, or physical plant improvement. Planning proposals are for strategic institutional planning for the long term research and education goals of the station.
- Critical Dates: January 17, 2012; December 14, 2012
- Long Term Research in Environmental Biology (LTREB)
- Excerpt: Through the LTREB program, the Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) and the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) encourage the submission of proposals that generate extended time series of biological and environmental data to address ecological and evolutionary processes and resolve important issues in organismal and environmental biology. Researchers must have collected at least six years of previous data to qualify for funding, and these data must motivate the proposed research. The proposal also must present a cohesive conceptual rationale or framework for ten years of research. Questions or hypotheses outlined in this conceptual framework must guide an initial 5-year proposal as well as a subsequent, abbreviated renewal.
- Critical Dates: January 10, 2012
- Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP)
- Excerpt: The NSF Graduate Research Fellowship Program (GRFP) provides Fellowships to individuals selected early in their graduate careers based on their demonstrated potential for significant achievements in science and engineering. Three years of support is provided by the program for graduate study that is in a field within NSF's mission and leads to a research-based master's or doctoral degree.
- Critical Dates: November 18, 2011
- Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER)
- Excerpt: USAID and NSF are pleased to announce the launching of a new program called Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER). This competitive grants program will allow scientists in developing countries to apply for funds to support research and capacity-building activities in partnership with their NSF-funded collaborators on topics of importance to USAID, like agricultural development, fisheries, plant genomics, ecology of infectious disease, natural/human system interactions, climate process and modeling, biodiversity, water, renewable energy, and others.
- Critical Dates: November 30, 2011
- Sustainability Research Networks Competition (SRN)
- Excerpt: The goal of the Sustainability Research Networks (SRN) competition is to support the development and coalescence of entities to advance collaborative research that addresses questions and challenges in sustainability science, engineering, and education. SRNs will link scientists, engineers, and educators, at existing institutions, centers, networks, and also develop new research efforts and collaborations. The Sustainability Research Networks competition outlined here is one part of the growing NSF investment in its Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability (SEES) portfolio (www.nsf.gov/sees/). Challenges associated with broadly based SEES goals will be met by supporting fundamental science and engineering research and education needed to understand and overcome the barriers to sustainable human well being and to forge reasoned pathways to a sustainable future.
- Critical Dates: Preliminary proposal due: December 01, 2011. Full proposal du: April 1, 2012.
- NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows
- Excerpt: Through SEES Fellows, NSF seeks to enable the discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. The program's emphasis is to facilitate investigations that cross traditional disciplinary boundaries and address issues of sustainability through a systems approach, building bridges between academic inquiry, economic growth, and societal needs. The challenge of sustainability, maintaining and improving the quality of life for the nation within a healthy Earth system, is of global concern. The NSF SEES Fellows may strengthen connections and collaborations with the broader international science and engineering community by having an international research partnership.
- Critical Dates: December 5, 2011
- Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases (EEID)
- Excerpt: The Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases program supports research on the ecological, evolutionary, and socio-ecological principles and processes that regulate the transmission dynamics of infectious diseases. The program's focus is on the discovery of general principles and processes, and on the building and testing of models that elucidate these principles. The history of the EEID program has shown that the most competitive proposals are those that advance broad, conceptual knowledge that reaches beyond the specific system under study and that may be useful for understanding public, agricultural or ecosystem health, natural resource use and wildlife management, and/or economic development.
- Critical Dates: December 07, 2011
- Basic Research to Enable Agricultural Development (BREAD)
- Excerpt: The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) are partnering to support a new research program to be administered by NSF. The objective of the BREAD Program is to support innovative basic scientific research designed to address key constraints to smallholder agriculture in the developing world. A significant distinction between BREAD and other NSF programs is that proposals to BREAD must make a clear and well-defined connection between the outcomes of the proposed basic research and its direct relevance and potential application to agriculture in the developing world. The BREAD Program takes the activities of the Plant Genome Research Program (PGRP) to the next level by supporting a broader range of scientific research and by enabling funding to be allocated to international collaborators through subawards.
- Critical Dates: November 22, 2011
- Geoinformatics (GI)
- Excerpt: The Division of Earth Sciences (EAR) will consider proposals for the development of cyberinfrastructure for the geosciences (Geoinformatics). EAR seeks the development and implementation of enabling information technology with impacts that extend beyond an individual investigator or small group of investigators and that facilitates the next generation of geosciences research. Proposals to this solicitation may seek support for community-driven development and implementation of databases; tools for data integration, interoperability, and visualization; software development and code hardening; and data-intensive/new computing methodologies that support the enhancement of geosciences research and education activities.
- Critical Dates: January 13, 2012
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