Slots: 1. Only one Thematic Collections Networks (TCN) proposal may be submitted by any one organization as the lead organization. Organizations may be involved in more than one collaborative effort as a non-lead proposal. Please specify that you are submitting for a TCN proposal when submitting to the OOR. Proposals for Partners to Exiting Networks (PENs) are not limited.
Deadlines
Internal Deadline: Contact ORIF.
External Deadline: October 14, 2022
Recurring Deadlines: Second Friday in October, Annually Thereafter
Award Information
Award Type: Grant
Estimated Number of Awards: 4 to 12
Anticipated Amount: 10,000,000.
Link to Award: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2015/nsf15576/nsf15576.htm
Who May Serve as PI: There are no restrictions or limits.
Process for Limited Submissions
PIs must submit their application as a Limited Submission through the Office of Research 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
Digitizing and mobilizing the Nation’s biological and paleontological collections represents a grand challenge and will require development of both technical and human resources to support the creation of an enduring digital alliance of collections and institutions. In all cases the primary focus of the digitization effort should be the physical specimens owned by the collection.
Proposals that address the goals of specimen digitization through innovative plans, strong collaborations among large and small institutions, and mechanisms to build upon existing digitization projects are strongly encouraged. Proposals that increase efficiency and numbers of specimens digitized will have a stronger priority for funding (e.g. by reducing the time and cost per specimen, or by developing new workflows). Current practices cannot achieve a goal of digitizing the existing collections within a ten year period and if this goal of the community strategic plan is to be achieved, there must be new approaches applied to the effort.
Thematic Collections Network (TCN) proposals will be submissions for two-to-four year awards to digitize existing specimens based on a particular research theme. This research theme may be a grand challenge for biodiversity, a part of a grand challenge, or another important research theme requiring information from existing collections. Specimens to be digitized should be of critical importance to the research theme and the criteria for the specimen assessment should be indicated in the proposal. The collaborating institutions will conduct the actual digitization of the specimens (including imaging and mobilization of the data).
Priority will be given to innovative projects that 1) fill gaps in the effort to provide online access to specimen data for existing biological and paleobiological collections, 2) integrate with other ongoing digitization activities and 3) increase the efficiency and lower the cost of digitization.
Visit our Institutionally Limited Submission webpage for more updates and other announcements.