NSF MRI seeks to improve the quality and expand the scope of research and research training in science and engineering by providing shared instrumentation that fosters the integration of research and education in research-intensive learning environments.

ORSP will conduct a review process to select up to three pre-proposals for advancement into full proposals to NSF for this limited funding opportunity. Pre-proposals are due to ORSP on November 20, 2015.

Key Dates (2015-16):
Wednesday, Oct. 21:            Date of this announcement

Friday, Nov 20:                     Internal pre-proposals due to jghale@olemiss.edu

Nov 16 – Nov. 19:                 ORSP will coordinate review of pre-proposals
Friday, Nov. 20:                    ORSP will announce which pre-proposals
to move forward
Nov 21. – Jan 5:                    Investigators expand selected pre-proposals into full proposals
Wednesday, Jan 6:               All full proposal documents (including transmittal) due to ORSP
Wednesday, Jan 13:             Full proposal deadline to NSF

Funding:          $100K – $4M for project periods of up to 3 years (acquisitions) or 5 years (development). Proposals of less than $100K are OK for mathematics, or social, behavioral, and economic sciences. For acquisitions: at least 70% of total project cost must fall under the Equipment category; grant funds may only be spent on equipment.

Cost Sharing:   Required at a level of (precisely) 30% of the total cost of the project (which translates to 42.86% of the requested amount).


Limitations:     UM may submit up to 3 proposals, of which only 2 may be for acquisition.

Format:            Use the UM ORSP MRI Internal Pre-Proposal document (MS Word doc) with filename “ORSP-MRI-Format-2015for16-v1.docx” for your pre-proposal, downloadable from http://research.olemiss.edu, which follows the format described in the solicitation. Include: Cover sheet (1 page); Project Summary (1 page); Abbreviated Project Description (5-7 pages); Budget and Justification (1 page); and Results from Previous NSF MRI Submission (1 page). Please read the entire Solicitation at http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5260.

The full NSF solicitation can be viewed at http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5260.

The guidelines in NSF Grant Proposal Guide 15-001 (dated Dec. 2014) apply for the NSF competition. http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=gpg

Recent UM History with NSF MRI

For 2015’s competition, ORSP received 2 development pre-proposal and 3 acquisition pre-proposals. Of these, 2 acquisition pre-proposals and 1 development pre-proposal were selected and developed into full proposals to NSF; 1 acquisition proposal was funded. 

The most recent NSF MRI awards to UM:

• 2015. Federal Award No 1532079, “MRI: Acquisition of a Raman Spectrometer for Research and Training at the University of Mississippi”, PI: Nathan Hammer; Co-PI: Charles Hussey. $201,666.
• 2013. Award No CHE-1338056, “MRI:  Acquisition of a GPU Cluster for Computational Science in Mississippi,” PI: Greg Tschumper; Co-PIs: Brian Hopkins, and Robert Doerksen.
• 2011. Award No DBI-1126379, “MRI: Acquisition of an Imaging Flow Cytometer for Multidisciplinary Organic and Inorganic Particle Research and Education,” PI: Cliff Ochs; Co-PIs: Richard Buchholz, Tamar|Goulet; Jason Hoeksema.
• 2009. Award No CBET-0923080, “MRI: Acquisition of a High Resolution Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer for the Mid-South Region,” PI: Jim Czizdiel; Co-PIs: Wei-Yin Chen, Gregg Davidson, Marge Holland, Cliff Ochs.