2008 Distinguished Research and Creative Achievement Award
Call for Nominations ~ March 1 Deadline

The Distinguished Research and Creative Achievement Award is designed to recognize a faculty member on the Oxford campus who has achieved national and/or international recognition in his or her field. Nominees should have distinguished careers and currently be engaged in scholarly and/or creative activity and should also demonstrate evidence of encouraging the scholarly and/or creative works of others. In addition, nominees should have participated in leadership roles in scientific and professional societies. Award recipients will receive a monetary prize and a personal plaque, and his or her name will be engraved on a permanent plaque.

To nominate a faculty member, send a letter to arrive by March 1 to the Chancellor’s Office, University MS 38677.  The letter should describe the nominee’s accomplishments and explain the significance and creativity of the nominee’s work to his or her field. A current copy of the nominee’s curriculum vitae should be included. Nominations should be accompanied by at least two letters of support from external collaborators, as well as from two past students of the nominee. Additional supporting letters are encouraged. Nominations may also be e-mailed to chancllr@olemiss.edu. Nominees must be an associate or full professor (including research associate professors or research professors who are not tenure-track faculty) and must have been continuously employed full-time by the University for a minimum of five years.

Stepping Up the Effort for COS Funding Alerts
Since last summer law student Dale Clemence has been working with ORSP staff on an intensive effort to upgrade and complete the information available about UM faculty in the COS Expertise database. (Journalism graduate student April Garza also worked on this project during summer 2007.) Most UM faculty, particularly new arrivals, have received attention — the strategy was to gather and input already-available information about UM faculty from sources such as web pages and online CVs, and then follow up with individual interviews to complete needed data on expertise and research interests.

Now Dale is preparing to take the COS project in a different direction. Soon he will begin offering individual visits to interested faculty to go over their online COS profile and set up targeted funding alerts based on their expertise and research interests. This capability is one of the primary reasons the ORSP subscribes to COS on behalf of our campus, and we hope to help faculty learn how best to take advantage of this powerful tool.

If you would like to have a visit from Dale to polish up your COS profile and/or set up funding alerts based on your research interests, please send an email to research@olemiss.edu with COS Visit in the subject line and your contact information in the body of the message. Dale will then contact you directly about scheduling. If you have questions or need more information, contact the COS Liaison in the ORSP, Linda Sperath (7482 or lsperath@olemiss.edu).

Don't Know About COS?
Check out our COS page, the January 2005, September 2006, and March 2007 newsletter articles, and/or the COS home page. COS is for all UM faculty in all academic disciplines and research areas.

National Endowment for the Humanities Regional Grants Workshop in Missouri March 24
The University of Central Missouri will be hosting a National Endowment for the Humanities grant workshop on March 24, 2008. Dr. Douglas Arnold, a senior program officer with NEH, will be delivering a two hour workshop in the morning. He will provide an overview of NEH funding programs, examples of recently funded projects, an overview of the review process, give details on the Endowment's current initiatives, and discuss some grant writing tips. In the afternoon, Dr. Arnold will be holding one-on-one appointment opportunities for researchers to meet and discuss their specific project ideas. UCM will also be holding a networking session for research administrators. Please see www.ucmo.edu/nehworkshop.xml for additional information and registration.

National Institutes of Health Regional Seminar in San Antonio March 25-26
It's not too late to register for the NIH Regional Seminar on Program Funding and Grants Administration to be held in San Antonio, Texas on March 25-26. The NIH Regional Seminar is intended to help demystify the application and review process, clarify federal regulations and policies, and highlight current areas of special interest or concern. NIH policy officials, grants management and program staff, as well as representatives from OHRP and OLAW will be making presentations. The seminar is appropriate for grants administrators, new and experienced researchers, and graduate students. This seminar is hosted by The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. For more information and registration, please visit http://research.uthscsa.edu/osp/nih_seminar.htm. Please note that the cutoff date for the hotel room block is March 1. You may also contact Jane Youngers at 210.567.2340 or by email at nihseminar@uthscsa.edu for further information.

National Institutes of Health Regional Seminar in Chicago June 18-20
June 18: eRA Commons Workshop, University of Illinois at Chicago
June 19–20: Program Funding and Grants Administration Seminar, Hyatt Regency Chicago
The regional seminar is intended to help demystify the application and review process, clarify federal regulations and policies, and highlight current areas of special interest or concern. The seminar serves the NIH mission of providing education and training for the next generation of biomedical and behavioral scientists. NIH policy officials, grants management and program staff, as well as representatives from the Office for Human Research Protections and the Office of Laboratory Animal Welfare, will interact with seminar participants and provide a broad array of expertise. The sessions are appropriate for grants administrators, new and experienced researchers, and graduate students. For more information and registration please visit the seminar website: www.research.uic.edu/seminar/NIH. Please note, the discount for early registration ends March 31, 2008.

NSF Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship Program (IGERT) ~
Deadline April 24 (preliminary proposals), Notice to ORSP by February 25
The IGERT program has been developed to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers who will pursue careers in research and education, with the interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, and technical, professional, and personal skills to become, in their own careers, leaders and creative agents for change. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education, for students, faculty, and institutions, by establishing innovative models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. It is also intended to facilitate diversity in student participation and preparation, and to contribute to a world-class, broadly inclusive, and globally engaged science and engineering workforce. IGERT traineeship projects involving research in any of the areas appropriate for funding by the NSF are eligible.
Limitation: An institution may submit no more than four preliminary proposals either as a single institution or as a lead institution in a multi-institution preliminary proposal. An institution may submit no more than three full proposals either as a single institution or lead institution in a multi-institution full proposal. A multi-institution proposal is defined as one that has at least one co-PI at a different academic institution than that of the PI, a sub-award to a different academic institution than that of the PI, or both.
Because submissions are limited, internal coordination by the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs (ORSP) is required. Those planning to apply (either as lead or as subcontractor) should notify Linda Sperath in the ORSP (7482 or lsperath@olemiss.edu) no later than February 25, 2008.
Sponsor Website: www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08540/nsf08540.htm
COS Record: fundingopps.cos.com/cgi-bin/getRec?id=72475

NSF Innovations in Engineering Education, Curriculum and Infrastructure ~ Deadline April 30
The National Science Foundation (NSF) seeks research proposals for the Innovations in Engineering Education, Curriculum, and Infrastructure (IEECI) to address basic issues related to engineering education in three broad areas:
1. Innovations in Teaching and Learning - Research in this area will address how students best learn the ideas, principles, and practices to become creative and innovative engineers, and how this learning is measured.
2. Strategic Supply-Chain Partnerships for Engineering and Technology Programs - Research in this area should help the community understand how to better attract a more talented and diverse student body, in particular U.S. citizens and permanent residents, to all levels of engineering study. This would also include research to understand how to increase student interest in engineering by leveraging partnerships among engineering schools, school districts, and exemplary nonprofit organizations to recruit and retain engineering students.
3. Insights into the Business of Engineering Education - In this area, the program will support projects to investigate potential models for the evaluation of and assessment of how successful teaching, advising, and mentoring leads to improved retention and graduation, and ultimately, to a sound business model for engineering education.
Sponsor Website: www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08542/nsf08542.htm
COS Record:fundingopps.cos.com/cgi-bin/getRec?id=64630

NSF Physical Anthropology Grants ~ Deadlines July 1, December 3
The Physical Anthropology Program supports basic research in areas related to human evolution and contemporary human biological variation. Research areas supported by the program include, but are not limited to, human genetic variation, human adaptation, human osteology and bone biology, human and nonhuman primate paleontology, functional anatomy, and primate socioecology. Grants supported in these areas are united by an underlying evolutionary framework, and often a consideration of adaptation as a central theoretical theme. Many proposals also have a biocultural orientation. The program frequently serves as a bridge within the National Science Foundation (NSF) between the social and behavioral sciences and the natural and physical sciences, and proposals are commonly jointly reviewed and funded with other programs.
Sponsor Website: www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5407&org=BCS&from=home
COS Record: fundingopps.cos.com/cgi-bin/getRec?id=4337

NSF Sociology Program Grants ~ Deadline August 15
The Sociology Program supports basic research on all forms of human social organization - societies, institutions, groups, and demography - and processes of individual and institutional change. The program encourages theoretically focused empirical investigations aimed at improving the explanation of fundamental social processes. Included is research on organizations and organizational behavior, population dynamics, social movements, social groups, labor force participation, stratification and mobility, family, social networks, socialization, gender roles, and the sociology of science and technology. The program supports both original data collections and secondary data analysis that use the full range of quantitative and qualitative methodological tools. Theoretically grounded projects that offer methodological innovations and improvements for data collection and analysis are also welcomed.
Sponsor Website: www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5369&org=SES&from=home
COS Record: fundingopps.cos.com/cgi-bin/getRec?id=4349

NSF Decision, Risk, and Management Science Program ~ Deadline August 18
The Decision, Risk and Management Sciences program supports scientific research directed at increasing the understanding and effectiveness of decision making by individuals, groups, organizations, and society. Disciplinary and interdisciplinary research, doctoral dissertation research, and workshops are funded in the areas of judgment and decision making; decision analysis and decision aids; risk analysis, perception, and communication; societal and public policy decision making; management science and organizational design. The program also supports small grants for exploratory research of a time-critical or high-risk, potentially transformative nature. Funded research must be relevant to an operational or applied context, grounded in theory, and generalizable.
Sponsor Website: www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=5423&org=NSF&from=fund
COS Record: fundingopps.cos.com/cgi-bin/getRec?id=4341

Find MORE on the ORSP Funding Opportunities Recent Announcements page

SEARCH using COS Funding Opportunities

New IRB Application Now in Use
The University of Mississippi Institutional Review Board (IRB) has announced that the IRB application form has been revised and the old form will no longer be accepted. The new form is available via the Compliance Forms page on the ORSP website. To access the new form, go to www.research.olemiss.educompliance/compliance_forms.html#irb and click on New Study Application Form. Please discard any copies you have of the old form. Contact the IRB Office if you have any questions (phone 7482 or email irb@research.olemiss.edu).

“Invent Your Future” Competition for Students
Noetic Technologies Inc. in Hattiesburg, MS is now accepting applications for the fourth annual “Invent Your Future!” invention competition.

• Open to any current students—graduate or undergraduate
• Invention can be from any industry
• Deadline for entry is February 29, 2008
• If selected to final competition, teams will make a 15-minute presentation and have a five-minute Q & A session
• Final competition to be held March 25, 2008, 8:30 am, at the University of Southern Mississippi (finalists will be reimbursed for travel costs)
• Prizes are $5,000 for First, $3,000 for Second, and $2,000 for Third

Visit www.noetictechnologies.com/inventyourfuture for additional information, rules, and entry form.

Travel Funds for Students in Space Science and Engineering
The Gerald A. Soffen Memorial Fund is pleased to announce the first of two 2008 Travel Grant application opportunities for undergraduate and graduate students pursuing studies in fields of space science and engineering. The Travel Grants, in the amount of $500, enable student recipients to attend professional meetings to present their research. The first 2008 Travel Grant application deadline is April 1, 2008.
Jerry Soffen, a biologist by training, led a distinguished career in NASA, including serving as the Project Scientist for Viking and as an architect for the NASA Astrobiology Institute.The Travel Grant continues Jerry’s dedication to educating and involving future generations in space science and engineering pursuits. 
Electronic application materials and instructions are located on the Soffen Fund website at nasa-academy.org/soffen/travelgrant/. Questions regarding the application or application process may be sent to travelgrant@nasa-academy.org.

Proposal Activity ~ UM faculty and staff submitted 24 external funding proposals during January 2008. For a complete listing, see the January 2008 Report page.

Award Activity ~ UM faculty and staff received 26 external funding awards during January 2008. For a complete listing, see the January 2008 Report page.

For complete information about the ORSP — mission, structure, services, responsibilities, and more — visit the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs page

The Office of Research and Sponsored Programs oversees funding for research, service,
education projects. These activities complement the fundamental aspects of The University of Mississippi’s mission and are among its most tangible contributions to the future. Funding for these activities is one of the best measures of a university’s success in engaging with national and international communities.

All of us who have sought funding to test our ideas know that it is difficult and that the communities to which we belong are highly competitive. That spirit of competition is critical and it contributes more than a little to the relief and excitement a researcher feels on receiving a funding award.

Listed below are our colleagues who have been notified of external funding awards in the last calendar month. Please join me in congratulating them. The news of their discoveries and the importance of their contributions are part of all of our futures and the future of Ole Miss.

Alice M. Clark, Ph.D.
Vice Chancellor for Research and Sponsored Programs

January 2008 Report: A list of awards received and proposals submitted by The University of Mississippi in the previous month.

January Proposals Submitted: 32 from 29 Principal Investigators

January Awards Received: 26 totaling $2,626,558

FY08 Year-to-Date Number of Active Sponsored Projects: 336

FY08 Year-to-Date Number of Active Investigators: 185