Closed Limited Submissions

(CLOSED) Agilent Early Career Professor Award (ACA)

Slots: As per Agilent: “We invite many top universities to nominate one candidate. Of course, if your university is so fortunate as to have two world-leading early career professors in the area of this call, please do nominate both.”

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Closed.

LOI: N/A

External Deadline: February 24, 2023 to university_relations@agilent.com

Award Information

Award Type: Grant

Anticipated Award Amount: An unrestricted research award of $120,000 to be distributed in 2 years to university in the professor’s name. (Option to use all or part of award to obtain Agilent products at 50% discount; option to accelerate payments to facilitate procurement of equipment with list price over $120,000).

Who May Serve as PI:

Professor must hold a tenure-tracked faculty position
Must have completed Ph.D. or M.D. residency within 12 years of award year
(additional extensions may apply, please see FAQ)

Link to Award: https://www.agilent.com/univ_relation/profaward/index.shtml

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the USC Research and Innovation (R&I) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/.

Materials to submit include:

(1) Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
(2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Note: The portal requires information about the PIs and Co-PIs in addition to department and contact information, including the 10-digit USC ID#, Gender, and Ethnicity. Please have this material prepared before beginning this application.

Purpose

The purpose of the Agilent Early Career Professor Award is to:

Promote and encourage excellent research enabling measurements of importance to Agilent Technologies and the world
Establish strong collaborative relationships between Agilent researchers and leading professors early in their career
Build the prominence of Agilent as a sponsor of university research

Selection Criteria

Significant original research contributions enabling measurements of importance to Agilent Technologies and the world
Outstanding potential for future research
Professor completed Ph.D. (residency in case of M.D.’s or M.D. Ph.D’s) not earlier than January 2012. See FAQ
Alignment with the 2022 Focus: Contributions to the development of live cell analytical tools to identify and measure novel critical quality attributes (CQA) to advance biomanufacturing applications.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

(CLOSED) 2023 Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering

Slots: 2 early-career professors

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Contact RII.

Nominations Due: March 15, 2023

External Deadline: April 20, 2023

Award Information

Award Type: Grant

Estimated Number of Awards: 20

Anticipated Award Amount: $875,000 distributed over five years

Who May Serve as PI: Candidates must be faculty members who are eligible to serve as principal investigators engaged in research in the natural and physical sciences or engineering and must be within the first three years of their faculty careers. Disciplines that will be considered include physics, chemistry, mathematics, biology, astronomy, computer science, earth science, ocean science, and all branches of engineering. Candidates engaged in research in the social sciences will not be considered. The Fellowship Program provides support for highly creative researchers early in their careers; faculty members who are well established and well-funded are less likely to receive the award. Packard Fellows are inquisitive, passionate scientists and engineers who take a creative approach to their research, dare to think big, and follow new ideas wherever they lead. The Foundation emphasizes support for innovative individual research that involves the Fellows, their students, and junior colleagues, rather than extensions or components of large-scale, ongoing research programs.

Link to Award: https://www.packard.org/what-we-fund/science/packard-fellowships-for-science-and-engineering/

PDF of Guidelines: https://www.packard.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/2023-Packard-Fellowship-Guidelines.pdf

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the USC Research and Innovation (R&I) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/.

Materials to submit include:

(1) Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
(2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Purpose

The Packard Fellowships for Science and Engineering program invests in future leaders who have the freedom to take risks, explore new frontiers in their fields of study, and follow uncharted paths that may lead to groundbreaking discoveries. Recognizing that certain areas of contemporary science and engineering already have access to relatively generous funding (for example, clinical research, research associated with the design and construction of large national facilities such as

accelerators and space stations, and applied research of direct relevance to national security), the Packard Fellowships are directed to other, less generously supported fields.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

(CLOSED) NSF-23-538: Partnerships for Innovation (PFI)

Slots:There is no limit on the number of PFI-TT proposals an organization may submit to the deadlines of this solicitation. However, an organization may not submit more than one (1) new or resubmitted PFI-RP proposal to a deadline of this solicitation. This eligibility constraint will be strictly enforced. If an organization exceeds this limit, the first PFI-RP proposal received will be accepted, and the remainder will be returned without review. An organization may not receive more than two (2) awards from a submission deadline of this solicitation.

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Closed.

LOI: Not required.

External Deadline: May 2, 2023

Recurring Deadlines: September 5, 2023; January 2, 2024;

First Tuesday in May, Annually Thereafter; First Tuesday in September, Annually Thereafter; First Tuesday in January, Annually Thereafter

Award Information

Award Type: Standard or Continuing Grant

Estimated Number of Awards: 25 to 55

Anticipated Award Amount: $30,000,000

Who May Serve as PI: The PI must have the technical skills required to lead and execute the proposed research project.

In addition to the PI, PFI-TT proposals must include a Senior Personnel or co-PI who brings technology commercialization experience in the targeted fields of application or industry sector. The technology commercialization expert must have an active role in the project.

PFI-RP proposals must include, without exception, a co-PI who is a member or employee of the required Industrial Partner organization. PFI-RP proposals without an Industrial Partner co-PI may be returned without review.

The technology commercialization expert cannot use NSF-funded time and effort to perform any “Objectives Not Responsive to this Solicitation” listed in Section II.E of this solicitation. However, the expert may participate in any mandatory I-Corps training that will be provided during the term of the PFI award. Additional collaborators or organizations that bring needed multidisciplinary expertise or commercialization experience may be involved as co-PI, Senior Personnel, Other Professional, subawardee, consultant, etc.

NSF Lineage Requirement: All proposals submitted to the PFI program must meet a lineage requirement by having NSF-supported research results. Please refer to “Additional Eligibility Information” under Section IV of the link below for details.

Link to Award: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2023/nsf23538/nsf23538.htm

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Research Initiatives and Infrastructure Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/.

Materials to submit include:

(1) Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
(2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Purpose

PFI has five broad goals, as set forth by the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act of 2017 (“the Act”, S.3084 — 114th Congress; Sec. 602. Translational Research Grants): (1) identifying and supporting NSF-sponsored research and technologies that have the potential for accelerated commercialization; (2) supporting prior or current NSF-sponsored investigators, institutions of higher education, and non-profit organizations that partner with an institution of higher education in undertaking proof-of-concept work, including the development of technology prototypes that are derived from NSF-sponsored research and have potential market value; (3) promoting sustainable partnerships between NSF-funded institutions, industry, and other organizations within academia and the private sector with the purpose of accelerating the transfer of technology; (4) developing multi-disciplinary innovation ecosystems which involve and are responsive to the specific needs of academia and industry; (5) providing professional development, mentoring, and advice in entrepreneurship, project management, and technology and business development to innovators.

In addition, PFI responds to the mandate set by Congress in Section 601(c)(3) of the Act (Follow-on Grants), to support prototype or proof-of-concept development work by participants with innovations that because of the early stage of development are not eligible to participate in a Small Business Innovation Research Program or a Small Business Technology Transfer Program.

Finally, PFI seeks to implement the mandate set by Congress in Section 102(c)(a) of the Act (Broader Impacts Review Criterion Update) by enhancing partnerships between academia and industry in the United States, and expanding the participation of women and individuals from underrepresented groups in innovation, technology translation, and entrepreneurship.

SPECIFIC REQUIREMENTS FOR PFI-RP PROPOSALS

PFI-RP proposals consist of use-inspired research and commercialization projects that specifically depend on highly collaborative partnerships between academic researchers and industrial partners. The proposed project should further scientific and engineering foundational outcomes to enable breakthrough technologies with the potential to address critical industrial and societal needs. Industry involvement assures that the technology development endeavor is industry-relevant. With input from their Industrial Partner(s), Principal Investigators are expected to design their applied research objectives to respond to the unmet market/societal needs. Interdisciplinary projects that enable researchers from different academic and non-academic organizations to interact with one or more industrial partners in industry-university groups or networks are encouraged. Proposals may include the participation of a non-profit organization that has research and technology translation experience. NSF funding can be used for university research/education activities and may support activities of faculty and their students and research associates in the industrial setting.

PFI-RP proposals should include one or more of the following partners:

Industrial Partner:

PFI-RP proposals require a minimum of one (1) Industrial Partner. This partner (i.e., either a for-profit or not- for-profit entity that fulfills the minimum requirement) must be U.S.-based and have an established record of commercial revenues that include sales, services, or licensing. Organizations that meet the definitions of Foreign Public Entity in 2 CFR § 200.46 or Foreign Organization in 2 CFR § 200.47 may not serve as an Industrial Partner. Grants and government contracts may contribute to its revenues but may not constitute the entirety of its revenues. It is essential that the minimally qualifying industrial partner has experience in bringing a product, process, or service to the marketplace in the industry sector of the proposed technology application to ensure that the proposal team incorporates a meaningful commercial and industrial perspective. Non-profit organizations involved in technology transfer may serve as primary industrial partners if they meet the commercial revenues requirement above. A PFI project may propose more than one Industrial Partner.

Note: With regard to industrial partners, subawards can only be allocated to businesses that meet the Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) program eligibility requirements: (https://www.sbir.gov/faqs/eligibility-requirements) and in which the submitting organization or the participants in the proposed project hold no financial, ownership or controlling interest. Subawards are not intended to complement, circumvent or replace awards to small businesses under the SBIR/STTR program. An ideal Industrial Partner demonstrates a strategic commercial interest in the PFI-funded technology, is not expected to serve as a service provider in the project or, in the case of SBIR/STTR businesses, to receive a substantial subaward. PFI-RP proposals without an Industry Partner may be returned without review.

Research Partner:

Once a PFI-RP proposal meets the requirement of a minimum of one (1) Industrial Partner, other partners such as academic institutions, non-profit organizations including foundations, public sector organizations may be included as research partners. Research partners should be carefully chosen to expand the technical expertise of the lead academic team. The purpose of the research partner is to add a complementary skill set to the proposing organization so that technologies (which neither party could independently develop as well or as rapidly) are accelerated towards commercialization by the Industrial Partner. The proposal must clearly describe the role of the research partner(s), the skill set they add to the proposing organization and how this will help accelerate technology development and scale-up. A research partner may receive a subaward from the lead organization. Technology Transfer Organizations (as defined in the Eligibility section) are strongly encouraged to partner with an academic research partner.

Partners in a PFI-RP proposal must agree to the management of any intellectual property (IP) rights underlying or generated by the proposed work. An executed cooperative research agreement (CRA) between the submitting organization and each collaborating partner (or among all partners) must be provided to NSF before the proposal is awarded. An example of a potential CRA is available. The letters of collaboration should state that the CRA will be provided prior to award.

Guidance for NSF-funded centers: PFI proposers are strongly encouraged to leverage the research and education capabilities of NSF-funded centers or large, multi-year, multi-faculty alliances. However, the PFI is not intended to extend work that is currently funded, for instance, by NSF or Industry-University Collaborative Research Centers. Instead, centers and alliances can avoid any overlap or duplication of effort by using PFI to generate early proof-of-concept that will attract future corporate sponsorship, to spin-off technologies graduated from NSF centers, or to enable postdoctoral researchers, and students to conduct research and gain experience in an industrial setting.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

(CLOSED) CDC RFA-DP-23-001: Assessing the Effectiveness of Programs, Policies, or Practices that Affect Social Determinants of Health to Promote Health Equity and Reduce Health Disparities in Chronic Diseases

Slots: 1

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Friday, January 13, 2023, 5pm PT

LOI: N/A

External Deadline: February 9, 2023

Award Information

Award Type: Coperative Agreement

Estimated Number of Awards: 12

Anticipated Award Amount: $28,500,000

Who May Serve as PI:

Any individual(s) with the skills, knowledge, and resources necessary to carry out the proposed
research as the Project Director/Principal Investigator (PD/PI) is invited to work with his/her
organization to develop an application for support. Individuals from underrepresented racial and
ethnic groups as well as individuals with disabilities are always encouraged to apply for
HHS/CDC support.

Link to Award: https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=340501

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the USC Research and Innovation (R&I) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/.

Materials to submit include:

(1) Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
(2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Purpose

Cardiovascular disease, cancer, diabetes, obesity, and lung diseases are the most common causes of illness, disability, and death in the United States, and wide variations exist in their prevalence and outcomes across communities and populations. These disparities in health outcomes are closely linked with social, demographic, environmental, and geographic factors. Many chronic diseases tend to be more common, diagnosed later, and result in worse outcomes for people with lower incomes, people with lower educational attainment, those living in rural or hard-to-reach communities, racial and ethnic minority groups, and people with disabilities [1, 2]. Despite decades of research and interventions to reduce and eliminate these health disparities, they persist and, in some cases, are widening [3]. Disparities in health do not have a single cause. The socioecological framework highlights the interrelationships between aspects of the social and physical environments that operate at multiple levels to influence health [4]. Consistent with this framework, change can occur at individual, interpersonal, community, and structural levels to promote chronic disease prevention and significantly reduce health disparities. The structural social determinants or the social determinants of health (SDOH), the focus of this NOFO, correspond to the bottom tiers of the Health Impact Pyramid, where action taken can have the greatest population impact [5].

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) define SDOH as “conditions in the environments in which people are born, live, learn, work, play, worship, and age that affect a wide range of health, functioning, and quality-of-life outcomes and risks.” [6]. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ Healthy People 2030 highlights the importance of addressing SDOH by including “social and physical environments that promote good health for all” as one of the four overarching goals for the next decade (Social Determinants of Health – Healthy People 2030 | health.gov). The key priorities of CDC’s National Center for Chronic Page 7 of 78 Disease Prevention and Health Promotion (NCCDPHP) support this charge by focusing on advancing health equity and addressing structural social determinants that drive inequity in health outcomes.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

(CLOSED) RFA-OD-23-005: NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hubs (REACH) Awards (U01 Clinical Trial Optional)

Slots: 1

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Closed.

LOI: N/A

External Deadline: February 9, 2023

Award Information

Award Type: Cooperative Agreement

Estimated Number of Awards: 5

Anticipated Award Amount: $20,000,000

Who May Serve as PI: Standard NIH requirements.

Link to Award: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/rfa-files/RFA-OD-23-005.html

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the USC Research and Innovation (R&I) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/.

Materials to submit include:

(1) Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
(2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Purpose

The NIH Research Evaluation and Commercialization Hub (REACH) program is a partnership program between NIH and the qualifying research institutions to accelerate the creation of small businesses and the transition of discoveries originating from academic research into products that improve patient care and enhance health. REACH Hubs foster the advancement of therapeutics, preventatives, diagnostics, devices, and research tools that address unmet patient and public health needs across the entire NIH mission. Applicants are encouraged to focus on building robust entrepreneurial ecosystems in the areas of highest U.S. burden of disease and disability and areas that historically attract lower levels of private biomedical capital investment.

The new REACH Hubs will build upon lessons learned from previous awardees to transition promising technologies to the next stage of commercialization. Proposed technology development projects should have already advanced from scientific discovery into the early stages of product development. As a guiding principle, proposed technology development projects should be within one or two steps of a commercial transaction (selling, partnering, licensing, startup, or entry into another suitable program to continue development), but require additional validation in order to be considered competitive for a Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) or Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) award. Although every technology development project is unique, broad guidelines for different types of projects are as follows:

Small Molecule Therapeutics: The compound is at the lead optimization or preclinical stage. The target is known, and/or there is some method or assay to determine its effect.
Biologics or Cell Based Therapies: The biologic or cell population has been identified and some reasonable method of development, sourcing, manufacture, or proliferation is proposed. Mechanism of action has been determined to a sufficient level that there is a reasonable understanding of the product to be developed or tested in the project.
Interventional Medical Device: The proposal includes prototype development and testing, either on the bench or in animals. Physiologic experiments have been conducted or reported in the literature, providing rationale for prototype development.
Diagnostic Medical Device/IVD/MDx: The proposal includes prototype development and some method of testing.
Health IT, Software, Apps, and Algorithms: The proposal should be beyond the concept stage and already have an existing code base. The idea should be grounded in previous experiments or solid peer reviewed evidence. The proposal should include steps to validate the technology by demonstrating its efficacy versus the standard of care or utility in pilot studies or user testing, or, if already validated, to refine the technology to make it appropriate for commercialization.

The program aims to strengthen and de-risk technologies toward this goal through a team-based developmental approach that addresses downstream requirements, including but not limited to intellectual property, regulatory, and reimbursement issues, and business case development. It is expected that spinout companies will be in a position to submit strong SBIR and STTR program applications. The Hubs will establish novel partnerships, strengthen existing alliances between stakeholders (including academic, non-profit, and industry sectors), provide entrepreneurial educational opportunities for innovators from diverse backgrounds, and create cultural and systemic changes to more rapidly transform breakthrough innovations into products that will have health, economic, and societal impact.

Objectives and Requirements for this FOA

Each Hub will assemble a diverse group of experts in biomedical product development and will have the expertise to identify and source technology development projects that have progressed to a point where a potential commercial product can be envisioned, but additional research and development efforts are required to define the product (demonstrate feasibility and proof-of-concept). Through a combination of in-house efforts and collaboration, each Hub funded under this FOA will perform functions to address the critical knowledge and funding gaps that hinder the early steps needed to turn novel discoveries into products with health, economic, and societal impact. The work supported by the REACH Hubs should include technical validation, facilitating business development opportunities, clarifying intellectual property and identifying barriers to entry, performing market research (including market needs and competitive advantages), and clarifying regulatory, manufacturing, clinical, or payer requirements.

Hubs must meet all the following requirements:

1) Hub Leadership: Be governed by leadership with a documented track record of success in biomedical product development.

2) Collaborations and Partnerships: Develop the necessary collaborations and partnerships with stakeholders (including academic, non-profit, and industry sectors) to meet the goals of this FOA. Each Hub is expected to partner with existing federal government resources, including those within the Hub’s ecosystem, as appropriate, such as: EDA’s Build to Scale (B2S), NSF’s Regional Innovation Engines, Innovation Corps (I-Corps™) and the National Innovation Network; SBA Growth Accelerators, SBA Federal and State Technology (FAST) Awardees, NCATS Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA), NIBIB’s Concept to Clinic: Commercializing Innovation Program (C3i) and Point-of-Care Technologies Research Network (POCTRN); NIGMS’ Regional Technology Transfer Accelerator Hubs for IDeA States and IDeA Regional Entrepreneurship Development Program (I-RED), IDeA Networks of Biomedical Research Excellence (INBRE), IDeA Networks for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR), and Centers of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE); NIH Centers for Accelerated Innovations (NCAI) and REACH, and the Coulter Translational Partnership Award in Biomedical Engineering (TP) or other appropriate programs identified by the Hub.

Hubs are strongly encouraged to partner with several educational institutions, particularly those that are Minority Serving Institutions [including but not limited to Hispanic-serving Institutions, Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), Tribally Controlled Colleges and Universities (TCCUs), Alaska Native and Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions, and/or Asian American Native American Pacific Islander Serving Institutions (AANAPISIs)], those institutions that have not been major recipients of past NIH support, and/or institutions in IDeA states.

This FOA encourages cost matching. Each Hub is encouraged to have identified at the time of application and committed at the time of award a minimum of $250,000/year of matching funds to augment the federal investment for product definition studies. Matching funds can originate from any non-federal source (e.g., awardee institution, foundations, for-profit investors, state or local economic development resources).

3) Regional and Local Impact: Make a unique impact on small business development, entrepreneurial culture, workforce diversity, and health disparities. Hubs should serve innovators from diverse backgrounds (see Notice of NIH’s Interest in Diversity) or meet pressing local or regional needs in areas such as economic development, entrepreneurial education, research funding, disease burden, and health disparities.

4) Technology Development: Demonstrate the ability to support technology development ranging from early-stage laboratory-based technology feasibility through pre-clinical testing for technologies across the breadth of the NIH mission. Hubs must provide infrastructure to solicit, evaluate, and select the most promising technology opportunities with health, economic, and societal impact that otherwise would not receive support for early-stage proof-of-concept work. In addition to supporting technology development projects from innovators within the Hub’s partner institutions, each Hub should develop and implement efficient strategies to support technology development projects from innovators at other institutions within their research and development ecosystem. The budget of any technology development project can utilize a maximum of $100,000 from the REACH award, with the balance coming from the Hub’s matching funds. It is expected that Hubs will be continuously developing 4 – 6 technologies each year.

5) Project Management: Develop and implement milestone-driven, market-focused project management oversight and decision-making processes. Each Hub should use project management processes that enable continuous assessment of progress relative to established milestones in order to make strategic decisions regarding the support of each technology development project (e.g., discontinue a failing project early, pivot to a new application, or provide additional resources). Hubs are expected to provide agile management to assemble a package of resources and services tailored to each technology development project. Hubs are strongly encouraged to utilize project managers with formal project management training and/or biomedical industry experience. Salary support for the project manager is considered to be part of the direct cost of each technology development project. The Hubs should leverage best practices from current pilot programs and any other relevant program to promote and facilitate the open exchange of information regarding the scope, methods, analysis, results, and lessons learned from each technology development project.

6) Educational Activities: Provide innovators from diverse backgrounds, including innovators from underrepresented groups access to skills development, hands-on entrepreneurial experience, and educational and networking activities. Each Hub must provide entrepreneurial educational opportunities to academic investigators at all career levels about the design and conduct of technology development projects and the commercialization processes required for transition promising technologies to the next stage of commercialization (e.g., additional financing, spinout company development, or university licensing). The Hub should catalyze professional development by:

Training innovators to assess the commercial potential of their research discoveries and to develop comprehensive product development plans
Bringing together experienced entrepreneurs and scientists to provide guidance and mentoring
Providing the broader investigator community with access to forums, seminars, workshops, and related activities
Providing connections between research performing institutions and life science businesses, industries, and sources of private capital
Providing focused entrepreneur support and “hands-on learning” targeted at the needs of the innovator, so that scientists have the opportunity to engage in entrepreneurial activities. Cross-disciplinary (science, business, regulatory, reimbursement, etc.) career development is highly encouraged to achieve the goal of exposing innovators to the myriad processes required to translate discoveries into marketable products.

Applicants are encouraged to review examples of Healthcare Commercialization Programs, which are designed to teach innovators to identify valuable product opportunities resulting from academic research, and gain entrepreneurial skills through stakeholder discovery and guidance from development experts.

7) Sustainability Plan: Develop and implement a plan for ensuring that the capacity developed under their REACH award will be sustained at their institutions, including assimilation into existing or new innovation management strategies, academic entrepreneurship support functions, technology transfer or commercialization offices, and other supportive programs and policies at their institutions.

Each Hub should demonstrate the core competencies necessary to fulfill all the objectives of this FOA.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

(CLOSED) The Teagle Foundation – Education for American Civic Life

Slots: 1

Deadlines

Internal Deadline: Closed.

LOI: N/A

External Deadline: March 1, 2023

Recurring Info: August 1, 2023; December 12, 2023, etc. for 3-5 years.

Award Information

Award Type: Grant

Anticipated Award Amount: $100,000 – $300,000 over a 24-36 month period. The size of the grant will be based on the scope of the project.

Link to Award: https://www.teaglefoundation.org/Call-for-Proposals/RFPs/Education-for-American-Civic-Life-RFP

Process for Limited Submissions

PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the USC Research and Innovation (R&I) Application Portal: https://rii.usc.edu/oor-portal/.

Materials to submit include:

(1) Single Page Proposal Summary (0.5” margins; single-spaced; font type: Arial, Helvetica, or Georgia typeface; font size: 11 pt). Page limit includes references and illustrations. Pages that exceed the 1-page limit will be excluded from review.
(2) CV – (5 pages maximum)

Purpose

Through Education for American Civic Life, the Foundation seeks to elevate the civic objectives of liberal arts education by partnering with institutions offering bold and coherent initiatives that endow students with the content, skills, and sensibility to participate in a political system designed for self-governance. While progress has been made at many institutions of higher education to promote civic action and various forms of community service as part of the undergraduate experience, the Foundation is especially concerned with grounding such action and service in comprehensive civic knowledge through teaching, reading, debate, and discussion centered in the curriculum.

CRITERIA

The Teagle Foundation welcomes the participation of a diverse array of institutions—community colleges, liberal arts colleges, comprehensive and research universities—in this initiative. Grants of varying amounts, ranging from $100,000-$300,000 over a 24-36-month period, will be made to each funded project participating in this initiative. Requests from both single institutions and multiple institutions partnering together will be considered. The size of the grant will be based on the scope of the project. Proposals for planning grants in the range of $25,000 over 6-12 months are strongly encouraged.

Through this initiative, the Foundation seeks ambitious projects that confront gaps in undergraduates’ civic knowledge and prepare them for the intellectual demands of democratic participation. Successful proposals will seek to promote learning about the formation of the American republic, the crafting of its Constitution, the history of contention over the interpretation of the Constitution, the development of representative political structures, and the principles of democracy. Civic education is strongest when it is not treated as a theoretical or abstract subject but when it becomes part of the lived experience of students and links their work across disciplines. For this reason, the majority of our grants go to institutions that give students an opportunity to connect big questions in areas like governance, history, and law, to the local history and current conditions of the community outside the campus gates.

SPECIFIC AREAS OF INTEREST

The Education for American Civic Life Initiative is focused on funding in two particular areas: (1) anchoring significant questions in democratic thought in local history and community and (2) strengthening preparation for public service.

Anchor Significant Civic Questions of Democracy in Local History
Projects are anchored by a significant question concerning the past and present challenges of democracy in the community in which the college or university is located—whether this is a metropolitan center such as Newark, New Jersey, with a long history of successive migrations into and out of the city, or rural Virginia, site of a major Civil War campaign and the struggle over segregation and civil rights. Some of our partner institutions design first-year core curricula while others work within divisions such as an honors college or a pre-professional program. In both cases, faculty design a series of courses to ensure that students are prepared to be informed and engaged civic participants in their local and national communities. These programs explicitly help students grasp the lived experience—past and present—of their neighbors outside the campus gates as a valuable aspect of a civic education that builds on their education in areas like governance, history, literature, and law.
Strengthen Preparation for Public Service
The Foundation is committed to giving students the education they need to participate in public service, whether by formal post-college employment in the public sector or as public-minded participants in civic life. In addition to valuable curricular interventions, the Foundation supports programs that explicitly offer students a supported pathway to public service. Typically, Teagle-funded programs offer foundational courses in civic education followed by opportunities to learn about and work in public service. Strong initiatives have taken students through rigorous humanities seminars in democratic theory followed by opportunities to solve significant civic challenges and participate in public service internships.

REQUIRED ATTRIBUTES

Invest in Faculty Leadership and Learning
The Foundation believes in faculty leadership. All grants should name the faculty members that will lead the planning and implementation process. As colleges and universities work to deepen civic education, they come to recognize that faculty, who are often educated in a single specialized discipline, are likely to need their own learning opportunities to ensure that they become better equipped to teach the variety of texts presented and discussed in a strong civic curriculum. The Foundation is therefore invested in building learning opportunities for faculty focused on the knowledge and skills they need to give undergraduates a comprehensive civic education.
Focus on Undergraduate Education
All Teagle grantees are able to explain how their work reaches undergraduate students in the classroom. Successful proposals will seek to promote learning about the formation of the American republic, the crafting of its Constitution, the history of contention over the interpretation of the Constitution, the development of representative political structures, and the principles of democracy. We give priority to proposals designed to reach a significant proportion, if not all, of the undergraduate student body and that infuse civic education in and across the curriculum.
Sustainability
Successful applicants will clearly articulate how proposed programs are aligned with institutional priorities; how they will be enacted, as appropriate, through institutional governance structures; and how they will be sustained beyond the life of the grant. Projects are expected to move beyond additions to course catalogs and reflect content integration to support civic learning outcomes. Grants from the Teagle Foundation are made in the expectation that once the formal grant period ends, should the piloted efforts be successful, the costs associated with supporting the work will be absorbed by the participating institution(s).
Assessment
Proposals must provide clearly articulated goals for undergraduate civic learning and how they will be measured. The Teagle Foundation may wish to collaborate with grantees in an external evaluation to assess the short- and longer-term outcomes of funded projects, including follow-up studies three to five years after the conclusion of the funded projects.
Dissemination
Active dissemination efforts will be important to spread the knowledge and practices developed by grantees to higher education stakeholders. Dissemination might take the form of publicly available instructional materials; action-oriented toolkits or other publications; webinars; websites and blogs; and conference presentations and workshops.

SUBMISSION PROCESS

Requests for grant support will be considered following our two-stage application process. First, we ask that prospective grantees share brief (3-5 page) concept papers. After review of the concept papers, a limited number of applicants will then be invited to submit full proposals. For complete details on the submission process, please refer to information on how we grant.

We encourage interested institutions to submit a concept paper that names all the campus partners and sketches the project description, with an eye towards meeting the criteria discussed above. The guiding question to keep in mind while developing your concept paper (and if invited, your proposal) is: in what ways will your curricula be substantively different as a result of a grant? And how will those curricular innovations be sustained beyond the life of a grant?

Concept papers for this initiative will be reviewed three times per year with submissions due by December 1, March 1, and August 1. The Teagle Foundation’s fiscal year begins on July 1 and its Board of Directors reviews all grant requests when it meets in November, February, and May. If a proposal is invited, program staff will confer with applicants to determine the appropriate timeline for submitting a full proposal in line for potential review by the board. All concept papers should be submitted electronically at proposals@teagle.org. If invited, full proposals will be submitted through the Foundation’s online application system.

Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.

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