 Hi everyone. We are going to get started in about a minute. I'm going to say at 12 01, maybe 1202. We will get started. So just hang tight. Okay. I'm going to do it. It's 1201. So welcome everybody to this fantastic February webinar. Today, we are delighted to have Dr. Chin Nonye, Naquie Whitley, more commonly known as Dr. Chichi, with us to share information on NSF Epscore. That's the established program to stimulate competitive research track for research fellows program. Dr. Chichi is actually the NSF program lead for this track. So we are especially lucky that she graciously agreed to do this webinar, given that she is literally the expert on this topic. So in advance, my next slide, a few housekeeping things before we begin. I'm Brittany Vandewer, the communication and outreach specialist for New Mexico Epscore, and Epscore is a nationwide program funded by the National Science Foundation. I'll be your host for today's webinar, along with my partner and webinar host in crime, Ms. Selena Keneally, who will be working behind the scenes to make sure everything runs smoothly. So you should know this webinar is about an hour long. If you have questions at any point, please type them into the Q&A and Dr. Chichi will take them at the end of her presentation and we won't be recording that session. So you can ask anything. Almost nothing probably. Okay, so and then a recording of this and a transcript will be available to you afterward on our website and you can find that by going to www.nmepscore.org and clicking the webinar tab. Okay, so without further ado, as an NSF program officer, Dr. Chichi currently manages $107 million portfolio of 26 standard grants and cooperative agreements and focuses on building basic science research infrastructure promoting economic development and broadening participation in STEM. However, she is also a molecular biologist and her research of DNA repair and DNA signaling pathways offers insights into molecular biology of neuroscience, immunology and cancer biology. She earned her PhD in pathology at University of Chicago and we are absolutely over the moon that she was able to join us today. So welcome Dr. Chichi. Thank you for being here and take it away. Well, Brittany, thank you so much for the warm welcome and and the wonderful introduction. I do thank New Mexico EPSCORE, Brittany, Selena and all of you for joining me today. I look forward to sharing information about the EPSCORE Research Fellows program and I will start to share my screen. But before I do that, I'm going to put some links in the chat for you to grab. These are links that are in the presentation and the presentation will be provided to you after the the session is over. But I'm overjoyed to see so many folks joining us today. So now I will share forward. So hopefully some of this won't be too repetitive, but thank you for joining me today. We are from the National Science Foundation, the established program to stimulate competitive research, also known as EPSCORE. The information that I'll be providing today in this session is current as the state of February 7th. We'll talk about the EPSCORE Research Fellows mechanism as well as the program briefly. I'll also talk about some solicitation specific criteria by which proposals will be reviewed and then offer closing remarks. And I would love for this session to be primarily questioned and answered once you have an idea to have the opportunity to digest this information. Please note that I will be covering many aspects of the solicitation in the program, but you are responsible for reading the solicitation in its entirety and there's a lot of good stuff in there, so please be sure to do that. We'll be talking about, we'll now talk about the EPSCORE Research Fellows program. Its most recent solicitation number is NSF 23535, so if you just type that into your web browser, the solicitation will magically pop up. The opportunity provides $300,000 over two years and the deadline for it is, this year's cycle is April 11, 2023. But first let's talk about EPSCORE. The NSF EPSCORE program is a congressionally mandated program that means that it has to exist as mandated by Congress. It originated in 1978 with an overall mission to build research capacity and advance the capability of eligible jurisdictions to conduct competitive research. EPSCORE's investment strategies seek to build capacity across three main areas. In terms of STEM research, our investments are to promote discovery and innovation, to advance the education of a diverse and capable STEM workforce, and as a result of these investments positively impact the economic development of EPSCORE jurisdictions. The term EPSCORE jurisdictions refers to states, commonwealths, and U.S. territories that are eligible for funding from the NSF EPSCORE program in fiscal year 23. States, commonwealths, and territories are eligible for funding if the most recent five-year level of total NSF funding going to a specific jurisdiction is equal to or less than .75% of the total NSF budget. Please note that with the new Chips and Science Act from Congress, the eligibility for the EPSCORE program has been frozen for the next five years, and so for the next five years, there are 28 eligible EPSCORE jurisdictions, and these are the jurisdictions that are eligible for the EPSCORE research fellows mechanism. The EPSCORE research fellows opportunity arose in discussion with the broader EPSCORE community, and during those discussions, the program recognized an opportunity to catalyze the career trajectories of the next generation of research leaders. This opportunity amounted to providing time for these leaders to develop new or expand current research directions and to provide a pathway for strengthening research connections with partners nationwide. So the RAI track for EPSCORE research fellows mechanism was created to provide opportunities to non-tenured and now tenured investigators to further develop their individual research through extended collaborative trips to the nation's private governmental or academic research research centers. So in terms of private fellows can go to a company or private organization, governmental, you know, examples include national laboratories and academic research centers would be institutions of higher education or centers where there's research taking place. This mechanism will provide fellows the opportunity to learn new techniques to benefit from access to state-of-the-art equipment, facilities or reagents, strengthen collaborative partnerships, and shift or extend their research towards transformative directions. This mechanism provides experiences that will benefit and positively impact the recipient's career in years to come. And these benefits are also expected to enhance the research capacity of a fellow's home institution and or jurisdiction. So what goes in successful proposals? For this opportunity, successful proposals will present exciting, vibrant fellowship ideas that positively impact and potentially transform a PI's individual career trajectory. More broadly, it's expected that the fellowship will impact the research field, institution at home and home jurisdiction. All proposals should include the motivation and research context for the research to be conducted, well-defined, well-reasoned and well-organized research objectives that are driven by specific research questions or hypotheses, specific plans for the fellowship period, a discussion on how the benefits gained from the fellowship can be sustained beyond the funding period, a clear description of fellowship goals, performance metrics, and a timetable of activities. Successful proposals explain how or why the award will advance the research program. For example, how would the fellowship provide opportunities to the PI that would otherwise be unavailable? And what are the parameters for the partnership being established or extended? Successful proposals also describe how activities could lead to long-lasting impacts for both the PI's career and the PI's home institution or jurisdiction. So I'll go into more detail, but first I want to let you know what's new. You have a lot of changes in this year's solicitation. PI eligibility has been expanded to include non-tenured and tenured assistant and associate professor ranks or their equivalents. The budgetary limitations have also been expanded to allow for travel funds to be allocated for the host collaborator for specific categories. The fellowship provides opportunities for extended or periodic collaborative visits to the selected host site now for a minimum of one month. So before there was no minimum or maximum, well, there was a maximum, but there was no minimum and now it's one month. The RII Track for Fast Opportunity has been renamed to RII Track for at NASA. For this opportunity, all NASA centers are eligible to participate in the RII Track for at NASA Subtract and the other one. And the number of proposals allowed per institution for submission has been increased from three to four for both tracks. So if you're eligible for both tracks, you can submit four for each track. Please contact your sponsored research office to determine what the process will be to select proposals that will be submitted by your institution. Under this year's solicitation, there are two tracks, RII Track for NSF and RII Track for at NASA. For the RII or Research Infrastructure Improvement Track for NSF, the host site may be any research institution within the United States or its territories and any topic that NSF funds is eligible. So we are topic agnostic and if we funded at NSF, you can submit a proposal for it. For the RII Track for at NASA Opportunity, host sites are specific NASA research centers. The topics are limited to those described in the solicitation and there are specific institution types that are eligible. PI's interested in this opportunity can find the research. For RII Track for at NASA, awardees will have the opportunity to collaborate with NASA subject matter experts for the duration of the award. The subject matter expert will serve as a research collaborator, a technical monitor and will have support from NASA to conduct extended collaborative visits with the awardees. NASA EPSCOR supports matching faculty with collaborators in both NSF RII Track for NSF and at NASA Subtracts and has received over 150 research focus areas that are used to match research investigators to work on research of important priorities to NASA. For this Subtract only, research investigators must be U.S. citizens at some centers, so some require citizenship or at least lawful permanent residents. This does not apply for the RII Track for NSF Track. Research investigators are required to spend one to six months over a two-year period with NASA scientists or engineers and to initiate the match, the NASA EPSCOR office arranges an introductory meeting between research investigators and NASA scientists and engineers to start collaborations. All eligible research investigators who are interested in working on NASA's research focus areas should email their interest to the NASA EPSCOR email in the solicitation. In some cases, PI's may have a prior research collaboration with NASA scientists and engineers and this information should be shared with the NASA EPSCOR coordinator to proceed with that possible match. Please review updates posted on the NASA EPSCOR website and proceed with the what to do next link and that's provided in the solicitation. They ask that you start early to increase your success of being matched with the NASA scientist or engineer and you can always email your questions and your interest to the email in the solicitation. It starts with agency EPSCOR RII Track for atmail.nasa.gov. If an applicant holds a transitional fixed term postdoctoral appointment or a short-term appointment that will last less than three years, that applicant is not eligible for this opportunity unfortunately. Applications may only be submitted by a single PI and for both tracks, institutions can either be an institution of higher education or non-profit, non-degree granting organization. At institutions of higher education, an applicant may hold a non-tenured or tenured faculty appointment. This includes pre-tenured tenure track positions or a long-term non-tenure track position. Tenured faculty appointments may only be at the assistant and associate professor level. PIs must be in an eligible status by the proposal deadline. If you've been notified that your tenure status will change, you are still eligible if your tenure status changes after the proposal deadline. For RII Track for at NASA, there are five institution types that may apply. These include minority serving institutions, many of which are in New Mexico, two-year colleges, institutions primarily serving students with disabilities, women's colleges and primarily undergraduate institutions. Similar to the Track for NSF Track, faculty that have either long-term non-tenured track appointments, non-tenured tenure track appointments or tenure appointments up to the associate professor level are eligible. Please keep in mind that all of these institutions are also eligible for RII Track for NSF. Regarding budget requests, the proposal duration may be for up to 24 months and the total budget request should not exceed $300,000. The two-year duration is intended to provide flexibility in planning fellowship logistics. Please note that while applicants may spread up to six months of work over two years, this is not a two-year research project, the plan should focus primarily on the fellowship period. Budget requests may include up to six months of salary and fringe benefits to support the PI and one additional trainee-level participant, and the six months of support is per person, not per year. The support may be for academic calendar or summer months, and budget requests for tuition and insurance for the trainee may be included if it's appropriate. For the RII Track 4 at NASA program, the expectation is that the supported trainee will be available for the entire duration of the project to avoid multiple rounds of onboarding at NASA facilities. Budget requests for travel expenses for the PI and trainee-level researcher are no longer capped, so travel and lodging and materials and supplies no longer capped. Multiple trips between the home and host site are allowed. Please consult your home institution's travel policy when constructing the budget request for your travel expenses. Please note that no salary may be requested for any host site personnel. However, up to $10,000 may be requested for the host's collaborator to travel for the fellowship project, such as a visit to the home institution or participation in conferences where the collaborative work is presented. For RII Track 4 at NASA, applicants may also request a research infrastructure development or RID award from NASA EPSCWAR. NASA manages this process after the NSF award is issued, so please do not include $60,000 requests in budget requests to NSF. Funding from this mechanism is not transferable, and if a PI takes a new position at an institution that's not within an EPSCWAR jurisdiction, the fellowship award will be terminated. We'll talk now about some required documents that go along with the proposal submission. We'll ask that you provide letters as supplementary documents with your proposal submission, and at least one is required for each of the following categories. One letter should come from an appropriate supervisory administrator from the PI's home institution. This letter should confirm the institution's support of the PI's plans and practically verify that the PI will receive release time from other academic duties to complete the project that's proposed. This letter should also confirm the PI's employment status and tenure status at the home institution as it pertains to eligibility for this program. One letter should come from the identified primary research collaborator or collaborators at the co-site. This letter should confirm the collaborator's understanding of the goals of the fellowship and provide evidence that demonstrates the PI will receive support necessary to complete the proposed activities. For RII track 4 at NASA Subtract, this letter will be provided through the NASA EPSCWAR agency coordinator. The third letter should come from an appropriate administrative manager at the host institution. This letter should confirm that all necessary logistical arrangements will be provided to ensure that the project can proceed as proposed. These administrators may include examples such as site access, office space, cyber connectivities, and other provisions necessary for the fellowship. In rare cases where the PI believes that the primary research collaborator at the host site is also the appropriate administrative manager, they should contact myself or my colleagues at NSF for guidance. Additional letters from other parties may be submitted only if they are needed to verify specific tangible commitments that are related to the activities described in the proposal. If they don't meet the standard PI's will be required to remove the letters from their submission. For RII track 4 at NASA, fourth letter is required from institutions of higher education that are submitting as primarily undergraduate institutions. These institutions include accredited colleges and universities that award associates degrees, bachelor's degrees, master's degrees, and NSF supported fields. The letter will verify that the submitting institution has awarded 20 or fewer PhD or doctoral degrees in science and all NSF fields during the last two academic years. So all NSF proposals are evaluated under the two criteria of intellectual merit and broader impacts. For this opportunity, additional solicitation specific criteria will be included to highlight specific objectives. Reviewers will be asked when they review your proposal what evidence is presented to demonstrate the proposed research outcomes can be achieved within the constraints of the fellowship period and with the work being performed primarily at the host site. How will the fellowship have a transformative impact on the trajectory of the PI's research career goals during and after the funding period? Reviewers will be asked how the fellowship will yield tangible benefits to the home institution and or jurisdiction beyond the individual benefits to the PI. And reviewers will be asked what evidence is there that the home institution and the host site are each committing the necessary resources to lend confidence that the fellowship project will be successful in achieving its intended outcomes. And that's where your letters come in again. So if you have any questions or you need to contact us regarding the topics that I described today, please send me an email, give me a call, come to office hours. My colleagues are also available to answer questions. And I also have my colleagues at NASA that are there to assist with the matching process. We will also host office hours over the next two months to answer your questions. We had one last week. It was great. Please send your questions in advance if you like or just show up on that day. They are not recorded. And so you could ask any question that you'd like. If you have additional accommodations that need to be made, please email me in advance. I'll end with next steps for PIs interested in submitting a proposal to this opportunity. First, consult with your sponsor research office regarding internal competitions for submission to this opportunity. Next, identify a collaborator at a whole site or NASA center for RII track 4 at NASA. Review the research focus areas to find alignment with available opportunities and contact the NASA EPSCORE agency coordinator. Write the proposal narrative and obtain the letters early in the process. I can't stress this any more than early, early, early, early. Contact NSF and NASA points of contact regarding questions throughout the process. And submit your proposal through research.gov well before the deadline of April 11, 2023, especially because all of NSF is now transitioning its proposal submissions to through research.gov. And so it may take time for you to learn this new platform if you've not engaged it before. If you're interested in reviewing for this opportunity, please send your CV to an NSF point of contact myself. I have my email in the chat and you'll be asked to complete a reviewer survey in advance of the deadline. Thank you so much for taking this time to listen and for your participation. I look forward to seeing you in the coming months at office hours and we can transition to Q&A. So I'll stop sharing and we can stop recording and then I'll also put the info back in the chat. All right, so we're going to stop