skip to main content
US FlagAn official website of the United States government
dot gov icon
Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.
https lock icon
Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( lock ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

Explore Research Products in the PAR
It may take a few hours for recently added research products to appear in PAR search results.


Title: Perspectives on frontiers in electronic and photonic materials
Materials research provides the foundation for the development of many new technologies. Basic materials research in the United States is supported by several federal agencies, including the National Science Foundation (NSF), Department of Energy (DOE), and Department of Defense (DoD). Federal agencies play a critical role not only in funding research at universities and national laboratories, but also in forging collaborations with industrial partners. At NSF, the Division of Materials Research (DMR), in particular, is dedicated to advancing fundamental materials research through single investigator grants, as well as through research centers, such as the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers. To help identify and highlight important emerging areas of materials research, funding agencies often solicit input from the community by holding workshops and conducting outreach at meetings run by the Materials Research Society (MRS) and other professional societies.  more » « less
Award ID(s):
1748163
PAR ID:
10125475
Author(s) / Creator(s):
Date Published:
Journal Name:
MRS bulletin
ISSN:
0883-7694
Format(s):
Medium: X
Sponsoring Org:
National Science Foundation
More Like this
  1. ; (, 2023 Annual Conference and Exposition)
    Too few two-year technical and community colleges pursue funding from the National Science Foundation (NSF). Instead, they tend to rely on the U.S. Department of Education or the U.S. Department of Labor for federal grants. From the way grant funding opportunities are announced, to the processes used in reviewing proposals and making funding decisions, to the policies and procedures that govern submission of proposals and implementation of grants, NSF operates differently from other federal funding agencies that make grant awards. The Advanced Technological Education (ATE) Program is unique within NSF because of its focus on two-year colleges and workforce development, specifically for those who complete for-credit programs of study and earn credentials that enable program completers to enter the skilled technical workforce. NSF expects faculty to be involved in developing proposals and implementing projects funded by the agency. Meeting this expectation requires a paradigm shift for many community and technical colleges where the primary emphasis is on teaching and where there is seldom any expectation that faculty will contribute to college efforts to secure external funding from federal sources. In addition, in 2021, the overall NSF funding rate was 26% which presents daunting odds for success. However, 10 years of research demonstrate the effectiveness of an intervention that dramatically increases the funding rate for two-year colleges seeking funding from the NSF ATE Program. Since 2012, the Mentor-Connect initiative has been funded by the NSF ATE Program to help two-year college technician educators and related STEM faculty develop the grant-writing skills needed to meet NSF expectations and benefit from ATE funding. Over the past decade, 80% of Mentor-Connect participants have successfully submitted proposals. To date, the average funding rate for these proposals is 71%. This paper describes how the Mentor-Connect intervention works and for whom, what outcomes have resulted for participants who become grantees, and how two-year colleges and technician educators can benefit. 
    more » « less
  2. ; ; (, PLOS ONE)
    Zhang, Yuji (Ed.)
    In recent years, United States federal funding agencies, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF), have implemented public access policies to make research supported by funding from these federal agencies freely available to the public. Enforcement is primarily through annual and final reports submitted to these funding agencies, where all peer-reviewed publications must be registered through the appropriate mechanism as required by the specific federal funding agency. Unreported and/or incorrectly reported papers can result in delayed acceptance of annual and final reports and even funding delays for current and new research grants. So, it’s important to make sure every peer-reviewed publication is reported properly and in a timely manner. For large collaborative research efforts, the tracking and proper registration of peer-reviewed publications along with generation of accurate annual and final reports can create a large administrative burden. With large collaborative teams, it is easy for these administrative tasks to be overlooked, forgotten, or lost in the shuffle. In order to help with this reporting burden, we have developed the Academic Tracker software package, implemented in the Python 3 programming language and supporting Linux, Windows, and Mac operating systems. Academic Tracker helps with publication tracking and reporting by comprehensively searching major peer-reviewed publication tracking web portals, including PubMed, Crossref, ORCID, and Google Scholar, given a list of authors. Academic Tracker provides highly customizable reporting templates so information about the resulting publications is easily transformed into appropriate formats for tracking and reporting purposes. The source code and extensive documentation is hosted on GitHub ( https://moseleybioinformaticslab.github.io/academic_tracker/ ) and is also available on the Python Package Index ( https://pypi.org/project/academic_tracker ) for easy installation. 
    more » « less
  3. ; (, ASEE Annual Conference proceedings)
    Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) serve a high proportion of students from underrepresented minority groups, particularly within STEM fields. MSIs make up approximately 14 percent of all degree-granting, Title IV-eligible institutions for higher education, and they enroll approximately 30 percent of all undergraduates in the United States. However, in 2018, only 3 percent of all federal obligations for science and engineering research and development provided to institutions of higher education was distributed to MSIs. Federal funding agencies, such as the National Science Foundation (NSF), have recognized the need to diversify their funding portfolios to increase the engagement of under-participating institutions, including MSIs. With this in mind, a conference was held in February 2020, funded by NSF, with the goal to increase the number and competitiveness of proposals from MSI faculty to core programs within NSF’s Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE). While informative, the conference, along with the interest survey sent to potential participants, revealed multiple challenges and barriers MSI faculty face as they attempt to secure and conduct research funding. This work-in-progress paper focuses on the responses to an open-ended question of the conference interest survey focusing on barriers to securing research funding. 
    more » « less
  4. ; (, Journal of Comparative Physiology A)
    Abstract Curiosity-driven research is fundamental for neuroethology and depends crucially on governmental funding. Here, we highlight similarities and differences in funding of curiosity-driven research across countries by comparing two major funding agencies—the National Science Foundation (NSF) in the United States and the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG). We interviewed representatives from each of the two agencies, focusing on general funding trends, levels of young investigator support, career-life balance, and international collaborations. While our analysis revealed a negative trend in NSF funding of biological research, including curiosity-driven research, German researchers in these areas have benefited from a robust positive trend in DFG funding. The main reason for the decrease in curiosity-driven research in the US is that the NSF has only partially been able to compensate for the funding gap resulting from the National Institutes of Health restricting their support to biomedical research using select model organisms. Notwithstanding some differences in funding programs, particularly those relevant for scientists in the postdoctoral phase, both the NSF and DFG clearly support curiosity-driven research. 
    more » « less
  5. ; ; ; ; ; (, Oceanography)
    This article highlights efforts across four US federal funding agencies (National Science Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and Office of Naval Research), each with differing, yet complementary, priorities and approaches to increasing and retaining diverse talent in ocean science education and workforce development. To understand the success and impact of our endeavors, we call attention to the need for meaningful evaluation of supported programs, which requires collecting and analyzing robust demographic data. Finally, we underscore the important role of federal agencies working alongside professional societies, national boards, and academic institutions in effecting cultural change and creating environments where the talents of all ocean sciences students, researchers, practitioners, and faculty can be fully recognized and supported. 
    more » « less
  • Citation Formats
  • MLA
  • APA
  • Chicago
  • BibTeX
  • Save / Share this Record
  • Send to Email