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Deadline: Materials Innovation Platforms (NSF)

Grants.gov Announcement

Program Title:

Materials Innovation Platforms (MIP)

Synopsis of Program:

Materials Innovation Platforms (MIP) is a mid-scale infrastructure program in the Division of Materials Research (DMR) designed to accelerate advances in materials research. MIPs respond to the increasing complexity of materials research that requires close collaboration of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams and access to cutting edge tools. These tools in a user facility benefit both a user program and in-house research, which focus on addressing grand challenges of fundamental science and meet national needs. MIPs embrace the paradigm set forth by the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), which strives to “discover, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials twice as fast, at a fraction of the cost,” and conduct research through iterative “closed-loop” efforts among the areas of materials synthesis/processing, materials characterization, and theory/modeling/simulation. In addition, they are expected to engage the emerging field of data science in materials research. Each MIP is a scientific ecosystem, which includes in-house research scientists, external users and other contributors who, collectively, form a community of practitioners and share tools, codes, samples, data and know-how. The knowledge sharing is designed to strengthen collaborations among scientists and enable them to work in new ways, fostering new modalities of research and education/training, for the purpose of accelerating discovery and development of new materials and novel materials phenomena/properties, as well as fostering their eventual deployment.

The scientific focus of the MIP program is subject to change from competition to competition. The first MIP competition in 2015 focused on developing new bulk and thin-film crystalline hard materials. The second MIP competition, in 2019, focuses on the convergence of materials research with biological sciences for developing new materials.

Cognizant Program Officer(s):

Please note that the following information is current at the time of publishing. See program website for any updates to the points of contact.

  • Z Charles Ying, Lead MIP Program Director, telephone: (703) 292-8428, email: cying@nsf.gov
  • Guebre X. Tessema, Program Director, telephone: (703) 292-4935, email: gtessema@nsf.gov
  • Leonard Spinu, Program Director, telephone: (703) 292-2665, email: lspinu@nsf.gov

Applicable Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s):

  • 47.049 — Mathematical and Physical Sciences

Award Information

Anticipated Type of Award: Cooperative Agreement

Estimated Number of Awards: 1 to 3

The number of awards will depend on the availability of funds and the quality of the proposals.

Anticipated Funding Amount: $12,000,000

Awards totaling $15,000,000 to $25,000,000 over a five-year period are anticipated. The proposed budget must be commensurate with the scope of the project and thoroughly justified in the proposal. MIP funding is provided yearly. Pending the availability of funds, it is anticipated that $12,000,000 will be available in Fiscal Year 2019.

Eligibility Information

Who May Submit Proposals:

Proposals may only be submitted by the following:

  • Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) – Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members. Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of subawards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.

Who May Serve as PI:

There are no restrictions.

Limit on Number of Proposals per Organization: 1

One (1) per organization as lead institution. Potential PIs are advised to contact their Sponsored Projects Office regarding processes used to select proposals for submission.

The institutions that were awarded a MIP in the 2015 competition as the lead institution are not eligible to submit a MIP proposal as a lead institution in the 2019 competition.

Limit on Number of Proposals per PI or Co-PI: 1

Individuals may appear as Senior Personnel (Principal Investigator/Project Director, co-PI, and other faculty or equivalent with biographical sketches included in the proposal even though their names may not be listed on the proposal Cover Sheet) on only one MIP proposal.

Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions

A. Proposal Preparation Instructions

  • Letters of Intent: Not required
  • Preliminary Proposal Submission: Not required
  • Full Proposals:

B. Budgetary Information

  • Cost Sharing Requirements:Inclusion of voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited.
  • Indirect Cost (F&A) Limitations:Not Applicable
  • Other Budgetary Limitations:Not Applicable

C. Due Dates

  • Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.m. submitter’s local time):     February 04, 2019

Proposal Review Information Criteria

Merit Review Criteria:

National Science Board approved criteria. Additional merit review considerations apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information.

Award Administration Information

Award Conditions:

Additional award conditions apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information.

Reporting Requirements:

Additional reporting requirements apply. Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information.