The Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) plays a central role in the continuing success and development of the faculty’s research, scholarship, and creative endeavors through its leadership and support services in Research Administration and Research Development. A critical mechanism for cultivating research innovation is the development of interdisciplinary training programs that prepare students to become future leaders in cutting-edge, creative, and analytical approaches to discovery. To this end, the OVPR will be conducting an internal screening process in support of the National Science Foundation Research Traineeship (NRT) Program.
The last competition for the Integrated Graduate Research Traineeship (IGERT) program was held in 2013; no future IGERT competitions are planned. The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program is a new NSF graduate education initiative. This solicitation is active for one year but future NRT solicitations are anticipated.
The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program is designed to encourage the development of bold, new, potentially transformative, and scalable models for STEM graduate training that ensure that graduate students develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers. The NRT program initially has one priority research theme - Data-Enabled Science and Engineering (DESE); in addition, proposals are encouraged on any other crosscutting, interdisciplinary theme. In either case, proposals should identify the alignment of project research themes with national research priorities and the need for innovative approaches to train graduate students in those areas. NRT projects should develop evidence-based, sustainable approaches and practices that substantially improve STEM graduate education for NRT trainees and for STEM graduate students broadly at an institution. NRT emphasizes the development of competencies for both research and research-related careers. Strategic collaborations with the private sector, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), government agencies, museums, and academic partners that enhance research quality and impacts and that facilitate development of technical and transferrable professional skills are encouraged. Creation of sustainable programmatic capacity at institutions is an expected outcome. Proposals accordingly are expected to describe how institutions will support the continuation and institutional-level scaling of effective training elements after award closure.
Limited Submission
Because a limited number of applications can be submitted for this program, an internal screening process is required. If you are considering submitting an application for the program listed below, an on-line Notification of Intent to Submit must be completed by the requested Intent to Submit Deadline.
When submitting pre-proposals for the internal screening process, be sure to check the Guidelines for updates. Pre-proposals not adhering to these guidelines and instructions will be returned.
Program Requirements
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14548/nsf14548.htm
Limit: up to 2 (two) proposals. If an institution submits only one proposal, it can be in either DESE or another theme. If it submits two proposals, at least one must be in DESE.
Intent to Submit Deadline: April 11, 2014
Internal Screening Deadline: April 25, 2014
Sponsor LOI Deadline: May 20, 2014
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: June 24, 2014
For more information, contact: Larisa Zagorski at Larisa.Zagorski@uconn.edu