Funding

USDA Updated NIFA Policy Guide Ready for Review

The updated NIFA Policy Guide is now available for your review. We’ve made changes to align with regulations in 2 CFR 200 and the current NIFA Terms and Conditions. The Policy Guide is now in an updated format for easier use and reference.

The Policy Guide provides comprehensive guidance on:

• Roles and responsibilities
• Application and review processes
• Award notification and administration procedures
• Award terms and conditions
• Uniform administrative requirements
• Allowable costs
• Reporting requirements
• Close-out procedures
• Audit requirements

To help you navigate the updated guide, we will offer a webinar to walk through the guide on May 5 at 4 p.m. ET / 3 p.m. CT. Stakeholders will have until May 24 to offer input into the next round of updates on any further improvements needed to make the guide the best tool it can be for you. Register for the May 5 webinar online.

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: The Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) is America’s flagship competitive grants program that provides funding for fundamental and applied research, education, and extension projects in the food and agricultural sciences. In this RFA, NIFA requests applications for six AFRI priority areas through the Foundational and Applied Science Program for 2021 and 2022. Applicants considering applying to the second year should check the AFRI RFA webpage and www.grants.gov. The goal of this program is to invest in agricultural production research, education, and extension projects for more sustainable, productive and economically viable plant and animal production systems. The global agricultural output needs to be expanded significantly to meet the food needs of the population expected in 2050; thus, it is imperative to develop innovative, safe and sustainable management strategies for livestock, crops, and critical underlying resources.

In 2021 and 2022, applications are sought in the following priority areas: 1. Plant health and production and plant products; 2. Animal health and production and animal products; 3. Food safety, nutrition, and health; 4. Bioenergy, natural resources, and environment; 5. Agriculture systems and technology; and 6. Agriculture economics and rural communities The anticipated amount available for new grants for the 2021 deadlines in this Foundational and Applied Science RFA is approximately $300 million. The anticipated amount available for new grants for the 2022 deadlines in this Foundational and Applied Science RFA is approximately $300 million.

This RFA solicits Standard Grants, Conference Grants, Coordinated Agricultural Project Grants, and Food and Agricultural Science Enhancement (FASE) Grants, whereas project types solicited in this RFA are Research, Extension and Integrated Research, Education and/or Extension projects. Grant types and project types solicited vary by program area priority and not all grant types are solicited within each program area priority. See Part I, C (Program Area Descriptions) of this RFA for grant and project types solicited by each specific program area priority, and Part II, C of this RFA for a description of each individual grant type and project type.

NSF - STUDENT DESIGN PROJECT SUPPLEMENTS

Don’t forget that NSF offers an opportunity for supplemental funding (https://bit.ly/2mbzp7V) for mentored, student-led design projects that are directly related to currently funded NSF awards from the Engineering Directorate. 

NSF – Resilient & Intelligent NextG Systems (RINGS)

The RINGS program seeks to accelerate research in areas that will potentially have significant impact on emerging Next Generation (NextG) wireless and mobile communication, networking, sensing, and computing systems, along with global-scale services, with a focus on greatly improving the resiliency of such networked systems among other performance metrics. Modern communication devices, systems, and networks are expected to support a broad range of critical and essential services, incorporating computation, coordination, and intelligent decision making. Resiliency of such systems, which subsumes security, adaptability, and autonomy, will be a key driving factor for future NextG network systems. Resiliency in both design and operations ensures robust network and computing capabilities that exhibit graceful performance- and service-degradation with rapid adaptability under even extreme operating scenarios. The RINGS program seeks innovations to enhance both resiliency as well as performance across the various aspects of NextG communications, networking and computing systems. This program seeks to go beyond the current research portfolio within the individual participating directorates by simultaneously emphasizing gains in resiliency (through security, adaptability and/or autonomy) across all layers of the networking protocol and computation stacks as well as in throughput, latency, and connection density.

In this program, NSF is partnering with the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (OUSD R&E), the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) and a number of industry partners shown above. This program seeks to fund collaborative team research that transcends the traditional boundaries of individual disciplines to achieve the program goals.

Click here for more information.

NSF - NEW FACULTY OPPORTUNITIES

The new Engineering Research Initiation (ERI) program, for faculty at non-R1 institutions who have not received prior federal funds, will hold a webinar on April 29 (https://bit.ly/3dWu7pp). The NSF CAREER program, for early-career faculty, will hold webinars on May 14 and May 20 (https://bit.ly/3vmiLki).

NSF - ENGINEERING RESEARCH VISIONING ALLIANCE

We recently announced the start of the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) (https://bit.ly/3nvv6zR), a new organization that will convene the engineering community to identify important engineering research challenges and opportunities. Our vision is for ERVA to enable the engineering community to mobilize and make a difference in our country’s future. We encourage you to get involved – find out how you can join ERVA’s upcoming visioning activities at www.ervacommunity.org.