EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Track 4: EPSCoR Research Fellows (RII Track-4)

Sponsor: NSF
Internal Deadline: 01/12/2018
Institutional Submission Limit: 3
Sponsor Deadline: 03/13/2018
Program Website

The Office of the Vice President for Research is conducting a limited submission competition for the EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Improvement Track 4: EPSCoR Research Fellows (RII Track-4). There is a limit of three proposals from each submitting organization.

The University of South Carolina had two awardees in this competition last year, who were the only awardees from the state of South Carolina.

The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) is designed to fulfill the mandate of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to promote scientific progress nationwide. RII Track-4 provides opportunities for non-tenured investigators to further develop their individual research potential through extended collaborative visits to the nation’s premier private, governmental, or academic research centers. Through these visits, EPSCoR Research Fellows will be able to learn new techniques, benefit from access to unique equipment and facilities, and shift their research toward transformative new directions. The experience gained through the fellowship is intended to provide a foundation for research collaborations that span the recipient’s entire career. These benefits to the Fellows are also expected to in turn enhance the research capacity of their institutions and jurisdictions. PIs must hold a non-tenured faculty appointment or its close equivalent, either in the form of a not-yet-tenured tenure-track position or a long-term non-tenure-track position. Persons holding transitional (< 3 years) fixed-term postdoctoral appointments are not eligible for this program. An investigator may serve as PI on only one proposal submitted in response to this solicitation, and only single-PI proposals will be considered. PIs who have received awards under previous RII Track-4 competitions are not eligible.

The internal deadline for this competition will be Friday, January 12, 2018. (The NSF deadline is March 13, 2018.) Interested applicants must submit the following to the internal competition:

• Project Summary (1 page): Provide an overview which briefly describes: the vision and goals of the fellowship project; the role of the host site and its personnel in achieving the project’s vision and goals; a summary of the objectives and methods to be employed; the expected impacts of the proposed activities; and plans for sustaining the project’s impacts beyond the award period. In separate statements provide a succinct summary of the intellectual merit and broader impacts of the project. The summary must also identify the proposed host site and primary research collaborator(s).
• Project Description (2 pages): Provide a brief description of the proposed activities, focusing on how these activities will lead to long-lasting impacts for both your career and USC.
• Letters of Support (2): Provide a letter from your department chair or dean, confirming his/her support of the plans and verifying that you will receive release time from other academic duties to complete the project as proposed; and from the identified primary research collaborator (s) at the host site – confirming support of the proposed collaborative research activities. Proposals without one or both of these letters will not be considered in the internal competition.
• Biosketch: An NSF-formatted biosketch.

For the full solicitation, please see: https://nsf.gov/pubs/2018/nsf18526/nsf18526.htm.
Please send the above as a single PDF file to Beth Herron at bherron@mailbox.sc.edu by 5 pm on January 12.