| Seeking Nominations for Board Election 2014 |
Individuals from member institutions in good standing are eligible to submit suggestions for the slate of candidates who will run for the upcoming Board elections. Suggestions must be submitted via the nominations website.
Nominations close May 1, 2014.
The NEON, Inc. Board of Directors is responsible for defining NEON, Inc.'s mission and providing overall leadership and strategic direction to the organization. The NEON, Inc. bylaws stipulate that the Board comprise two groups of Directors: At-Large and Membership. The latter group is elected by NEON, Inc.'s institutional member representatives, while the former group is elected by the Directors then in-office. Each Director serves a three-year term. Three seats from the Membership Group will become vacant at the end of 2014. These seats are currently occupied by the University of Michigan, Archbold Biological Station, and the University of Minnesota. The new term runs from calendar year 2015 through end of 2017.
In order for your nomination(s) to be valid:
Within seven days of submitting your suggestion(s), you will receive an email to verify that you did indeed submit those name(s).
The NEON, Inc. Governance Committee (a subgroup of the Board of Directors) will consider your suggestions as they prepare a slate of candidates to stand for election. This step is undertaken to ensure diversity on the Board. The slate of candidates is then voted upon by the institutional member representatives in the fall. Please submit your suggestions via the nominations website. |
| NEON Data Portal |
In December 2013 at the American Geophysical Union meeting in San Francisco, we initiated a survey on how potential users interact with data. As we continue to improve the NEON data portal based on your feedback, we have also hired a usability firm to help improve the portal.
The initial survey results based on approximately 400 responses has been summarized and posted on the NEON blog. Based on the initial results, our usability firm has created data portal prototypes and deployed them in two rounds of interviews with volunteers from among the survey respondents. There'll be more opportunities in the near future to participate in data portal testing and contribute feedback. |
| Recent NEON-related Publications | |
Taking the pulse of a continent: expanding site-based research infrastructure for regional- to continental-scale ecology was published 2014-03-17. This paper assesses the challenges associated with the analyses of large-scale phenomena, and strategies for leveraging the strengths of different types of observation networks. |
| Science Policy |
The US House of Representatives' Science, Space and Technology Committee recently approved H.R. 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology (FIRST) Act. The Act reauthorizes programs at NSF, the National Institute of Standards and Research, the interagency Networking and Information Technology Research and Development (NITRD) program, and the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP). On 2014-03-12, NEON, Inc. joined with 82 other organizations to voice concerns about the FIRST Act in a letter to the Committee. Among other things, the letter urges strong support for all disciplines of basic scientific research at NSF.
On 2014-03-04, President Obama released the Administration's FY2015 budget request to Congress. The request included $7.26B for NSF, which is 1.2% above the estimated FY2014 levels. The NSF's Biosiences Directorate's budget request is $708.52M, 1.8% below estimated FY2014 levels. The MREFC account that funds major infrastructure projects like NEON was requested at $200.75M, 0.4% above the estimated FY2014 levels.
Subsequent to the budget request, Congressman G.K. Butterfield from North Carolina circulated a Dear Colleague letter to his fellow legislators in the House of Representatives to request that the House Appropriations committee consider funding NSF at $7.5B. Colorado's Congressman Jared Polis, whose district includes the NEON HQ in Boulder, was a signatory on that letter. |
| NCEAS Call for Proposals |
The National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) has announced two calls for proposals. The first is identified as a Long-term Synthesis within the Gulf of Alaska. NCEAS has collaborated with a number of partners to collect data on the Gulf of Alaska. The data are diverse and range from long-term, automated sensing of oceanographic and atmospheric conditions, to short-term, experimental, monitoring, and behavioral studies of biological components of the system. Through this Call for Proposals, NCEAS seeks two synthesis Working Groups and two Postdoctoral Associates to commence Summer 2014 and conclude Autumn 2016.
The second call for proposal is for the Science for Nature and People (SNAP) program that seeks working groups to use existing data to fill important knowledge gaps and advance solution to innovative partnership between NCEAS, the Nature Conservancy, and the Wildlife Conservation Society. Proposals may require some original modeling, and in rare cases funding may be provided to collect some original data that fill gaps in an otherwise relatively complete picture. Projects must have the potential to generate clear outcomes for improving human well-being and nature conservation, and should examine a geographic scale that can produce generalizable conclusions and/or replicable solutions.
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| US-European Researcher Collaboration |
A new, two-year pilot opportunity--known as the U.S. NSF/BIO-UK BBSRC Lead Agency Pilot Opportunity was launched on 2014-03-04. This Pilot opportunity is designed to make it easier for research teams comprised of scientists from the United States and the United Kingdom to manage funding logistics and to simultaneously obtain funding from both countries. It is funded by the U.S. National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Biological Sciences and the U.K.'s Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC). Areas considered for funding include systems biology, computational biology, bioinformatics and synthetic biology (fall 2015 only).
In another Dear Colleague letter, NSF announces an opportunity for U.S. scientists and engineers with NSF-funded CAREER awards and Postdoctoral Research Fellowships to pursue research collaboration with European colleagues supported through EU-funded European Research Council (ERC) grants. NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellows may apply for a single short-term or long-term research visit. Time spent in Europe will be in addition to, rather than in lieu of, the NSF-funded fellowship duration. NSF will cover round-trip transportation for the Fellow's visit and, in the case of long-term visits, for qualified family members (as defined in U.S. Federal travel regulations). |
| Climate Communications Initiative |
The new Science Speakers Network will be launched this spring as an initiative of the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) and the United Nations Foundation. The goal is to bring scientists and their local communities together for real dialogue on climate science that speaks to citizens' current and future well-being and responsibility as members of a community and democracy.
Materials for context-setting presentations will be offered as will coaching regarding how to begin conversations about climate change with fellow citizens. Venues for such conversations will be local institutions such as service organizations (Rotary, etc.), faith-based institutions, chambers of commerce, etc. Details are available from climatevoices.org. |
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. |
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Key Dates in 2014
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May 14 - 15: NEON, Inc. Board Meeting (Washington DC area)
June 24 - 26: EarthCube All-hands Annual Meeting (Washington, DC)
July 8 - 11: ESIP Summer Meeting (Frisco, CO)
Aug 10 - 15: ESA Annual Meeting
October 23 - 24: NEON, Inc. Board Meeting
Dec 15 - 19: AGU Fall Meeting |
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