Con Edison Social and Behavioral Research Award

Deadline Monday, October 31, 2022, 11:59PM

(Updated Nov. 2, 2022. Deadline extended to Nov. 20, 2022. See Update)

Submit your Application!

The CUNY Office of K-16 Initiatives is requesting proposals from social and behavioral research projects in support of Con Edison’s goal of increasing public awareness of gas safety and of the importance of reporting natural gas odors. Eligible projects are those that aim to better understand factors that may or may not prompt community members to contact Con Edison or call 911 when they detect a gas leak or gas odor.

Research areas may include but are not limited to:

• Exploring the question that has troubled the utility industry for decades: what does and does not prompt the public to notify a utility or 911 of a detected gas leak?
• Determining the efficacy of odor alarms vs. nuisance alarms
• Measuring the effectiveness of Con Edison’s current education campaign: Smell Gas, Act Fast
• Assessing the effectiveness of public health messaging:
  • In terms of language (i.e., conventional description of a “rotten egg odor” is not widely recognized)
  • In terms of tone (i.e., how to balance a message of urgency without being alarmist)
  • In terms of cultural competence (i.e., how to be inclusive of and relevant to all communities, especially in New York City and surrounding areas)
• Enabling utility companies to learn from other public health messaging
• Demonstrating how public awareness programs have guided and influenced human behavior

Full-time faculty researchers in the areas of public health, human and social behavior, and public affairs or any other relevant fields are encouraged to apply. We anticipate awarding 5-8 projects with funding levels of $25,000-$35,000. Awardees will be notified by December 1, 2022.

Program Guidelines

Program Template

Please direct any inquiries to:

Sarah McConnell

Deputy Director, K-16 Initiatives

sarah.mcconnell@cuny.edu https://k16.cuny.edu/

NSF 22-115

Dear Colleague Letter: Provisioning Advanced Cyberinfrastructure to Further Research on the Monkeypox Virus

August 18, 2022

Dear Colleague:

This Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) seeks to enhance and accelerate research intended to better understand the spread of monkeypox virus; to inform and educate about the science of virus transmission and prevention; and to encourage the development of processes and actions to address this global challenge.

Through this DCL, the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) within the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is promoting the availability of advanced research computing resources, networks, data resources, and research user support services of the Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem of Services and Support (ACCESS) program.

Monkeypox researchers nationwide are invited to make urgent requests for use of NSF-funded advanced computing resources via the ACCESS allocations process. Researchers developing proposals are also invited to engage ACCESS support services, which match researchers with cyberinfrastructure experts from the national Computational Science and Support Network to support the use of these computational resources.

NSF solicitations can be identified through searches of existing funding opportunities.

Questions about this DCL should be addressed to Tom Gulbransen, CISE/OAC, ACCESS Program Officer, 703-292-4211, TGulbran@NSF.gov.

The goals of the NSF Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program (NSF 22-611) are to enhance the quality of undergraduate science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education and to increase the recruitment, retention, and graduation rates of students pursuing associate’s or baccalaureate degrees in STEM. Achieving these, given the diverse nature and context of the HSIs, requires additional strategies that support building capacity at HSIs through innovative approaches: to incentivize institutional and community transformation; and to promote fundamental research (i) on engaged student learning, (ii) about what it takes to diversify and increase participation in STEM effectively, and (iii) that improves our understanding of how to build institutional capacity at HSIs. Intended outcomes of the HSI Program include broadening participation of students that are historically underrepresented in STEM and expanding students’ pathways to continued STEM education and integration into the STEM workforce. The solicitation for this program can be found at https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22611/nsf22611.htm

This FAQ was posted by NSF on August 18, 2022. Full details can be found at

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) for Improving Undergraduate STEM Education: Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSI) Program (NSF 22-611

The NSF Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) has issued an updated program solicitation (NSF 22-604) for the Launching Early-Career Academic Pathways in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences (LEAPS-MPS) program, whose main goal is to help launch the careers of pre-tenure faculty in Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) fields at institutions that do not traditionally receive significant amounts of NSF funding, such as some minority-serving institutions (MSIs), predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs), and Carnegie Research 2 (R2) universities. LEAPS-MPS awards are for beginning investigators to undertake research activities that will improve the competitiveness of their future grant applications to NSF programs. These research activities might include the acquisition of preliminary data or other research results, or the development of collaborations for research. LEAPS-MPS has the additional goal of achieving excellence through diversity and aims to broaden participation to include members from groups underrepresented in the Mathematical and Physical Sciences.

Proposals to this program must demonstrate the context of the work within or across disciplines supported by MPS, including Mathematical Sciences (DMS). Awards are for 24 months and are up to $250,000 total costs (direct plus indirect). MPS expects to invest up to $12,000,000 in FY 2023.

There are a few changes in the new solicitation with respect to the previous one. For example, PI eligibility is no longer restricted by US immigration status. Also, the LEAPS-MPS Impact Statement has been moved from the project description to supplementary documents to avoid confusion with Broader Impacts section of the project description.

Please see https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=50589 (this page has now been moved to https://beta.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/launching-early-career-academic-pathways, updated Nov. 11, 2022) for more details, including the full program description, eligibility, program specific solicitation requirements, and others.

The deadline for full proposal submission is January 26, 2023 (5 p.m. submitter’s local time).

Estimated Number of Awards: 32 to 48

Anticipated Funding Amount: $8,000,000 to $12,000,000

(Estimated program budget and number of awards are subject to the availability of funds and receipt of competitive proposals.)

It is planned to post FAQs over the next few weeks, and MPS is planning to run a LEAPS webinar later in Fall 2022. Please check the NSF Events website for updates on that.