We are pleased to announce a Request for Proposals (RFP) for the OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program (2011-12), open to the Ohio State University (OSU) Materials community. This enhanced seed program leverages resources and best practices from the seed programs of the Center for Emergent Materials (CEM), ENCOMM, and Institute for Materials Research (IMR). The result is a unified RFP with three Funding Tiers designed to achieve the greatest impact for seeding excellence in materials research of varying scopes.
The three Funding Tiers are:
1. Proto-IRG Grants, which provide funds up to $100,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one Principal Investigator (PI) and two Co-Principal Investigators (Co-PIs), and may have unfunded collaborators, with the goal of forming new Interdisciplinary Research Groups (IRGs) that could be incorporated into the CEM renewal proposal in 2013.
2. Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants, which provide funds up to $60,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI and one Co-PI, and may have unfunded collaborators, with the goal of forming multidisciplinary materials research teams that can compete effectively for federal block-funding opportunities.
3. Exploratory Materials Research Grants, which provide funds up to $40,000/year per award in direct costs, and require one PI, and may have Co-PIs and/or unfunded collaborators, with the goal of enabling nascent materials research to emerge to the point of being competitive for external funding.
This new OSU Materials Research Seed Grant Program replaces the previously separate CEM Proto-IRG, ENCOMM Seed Grant, and IMR Interdisciplinary Materials Research Grant (IMRG) programs. As a result, the proposal submission and review processes for the three Funding Tiers have been integrated and aligned.
The full RFP is available here.
For more information on the PRoto-IRG Grants contact Prof. Nitin Padture (padture.1@osu.edu, 614-247-8114).
For more information on Multidisciplinary Team Building Grants or Exploratory Materials Research Grants contact Profs. P. Chris Hammel (hammel@physics.osu.edu, 614 247-6928) or Steven A. Ringel (ringel@ece.osu.edu, 614 688-3924).