News & Updates

Funded by the NSF Directorate for Engineering, the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance (ERVA) is a neutral convener that helps to identify bold and transformative new engineering research directions. We do this by engaging experts in a visioning workshop.

The DOE has announced a $52 million funding opportunity announcement (FOA) that will accelerate research, development, and demonstration (RD&D) in domestic manufacturing to strengthen America’s economic competitiveness and move the US towards a net-zero carbon economy by 2050. The FOA will drive innovation to develop the next-generation materials and manufacturing technologies required to help tackle the climate crisis, secure our domestic supply chains, and position the US as a leader in the global clean energy economy.

The NSF is accelerating convergence research across materials discovery and development as well as production and manufacturing to address challenges aligned to the manufacturing, reuse and recycling of critical materials and products.

Announced in an Executive Order, the National Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Initiative aims to advance innovative solutions in health, climate change, energy, food security, agriculture, and supply chain resilience.

The White House is now looking for public input, via a pair of RFIs, on how advances in biotechnology and biomanufacturing can achieve previously unachievable goals and the steps necessary to create critical components in support of the bioeconomy and, separately, on biotechnology product regulation.

DOE EPSCoR announces its interest in receiving new and renewal applications from applicants within eligible jurisdictions for Implementation Grants. DOE follows the NSF’s eligibility criteria for EPSCoR. Grants awarded under this program are intended to improve research capability through the support of a group of scientists and engineers, including undergraduate students, graduate students, and postdoctoral fellows, working on a common scientific theme in one or more EPSCoR jurisdictions.

NSF has appointed Charles "Chuck" Barber to serve as chief diversity and inclusion officer, a newly created role included in the CHIPS and Science Act. In this role, Barber will serve as NSF's senior advisor responsible for providing vision, strategic leadership and management for ongoing agency programs and new initiatives related to diversity, equity, inclusion and accessibility, or DEIA, in the NSF workplace and the STEM enterprise.

Three projects have been selected for funding under a DOE Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) interagency agreement with the Minority Serving Institution STEM R&D Consortium (MSRDC). DOE has leveraged the partnership to reduce barriers to entry for Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) and increase research partnerships.

To address the overdose crisis in the United States, the NIH has established a research network that will test harm reduction strategies in different community settings to inform efforts to help save lives. The harm reduction research network’s efforts build on existing harm reduction research, and represent the largest pool of funding from NIH to date to study harm reduction strategies to address overdose deaths.

In his last year as Chairman of the EPSCoR/IDeA Coalition Board of Directors, Dr. Bill Gern, who at the time was also the Vice President for Research at the University of Wyoming, introduced the idea of presenting an award to an extraordinary individual in the EPSCoR/IDeA community in the name of the “father of EPSCoR,” Dr. Joe Danek. Bill Gern saw Joe Danek as a “revolutionary,” someone who recognized research disparity across the United States and was committed to building a program that would improve the research infrastructure in states which received low amounts of federal research funding. In 2015, the EIF/C Boards approved “the Danek Award” to recognize individuals who develop the best ideas to resolve research disparity. In the words of Dr. Gern, the Danek award would be presented before the EPSCoR/IDeA community to an awardee who “has established a long-term commitment to the ideals and goals which EPSCoR represents befitting for awarding of the prize.”

In his last year as Chairman of the EPSCoR/IDeA Coalition Board of Directors, Dr. Bill Gern, who at the time was also the Vice President for Research at the University of Wyoming, introduced the idea of presenting an award to an extraordinary individual in the EPSCoR/IDeA community in the name of the “father of EPSCoR,” Dr. Joe Danek. Bill Gern saw Joe Danek as a “revolutionary,” someone who recognized research disparity across the United States and was committed to building a program that would improve the research infrastructure in states which received low amounts of federal research funding. In 2015, the EIF/C Boards approved “the Danek Award” to recognize individuals who develop the best ideas to resolve research disparity. In the words of Dr. Gern, the Danek award would be presented before the EPSCoR/IDeA community to an awardee who “has established a long-term commitment to the ideals and goals which EPSCoR represents befitting for awarding of the prize.”