2006 NASA EPSCoR Research Infrastructure Development

The Maine Space Grant Consortium was issued a 3-year Research Infrastructure Development (RID) award under the 2006 NASA EPSCoR program. Under this award we will provide competitive support for one research activity at the University of Maine (UMaine) and one at the University of Southern Maine (USM) to fully realize the potential of the research activities and associated faculty and student participants for national competitiveness. Each research activity will receive about $50,000 per year for three years.

NASA required RID proposals to include research topics that would receive funding if an award was made. Our proposal included candidate research topics identified by UMaine and USM. However, during the competitive process each institution may elect to cast a wider net to identify additional research topics beyond those included in the proposal.

We are in the early stages of finalizing a common competitive process for selecting proposals. When finalized each institution's Director of Research Administration will issue a announcement for proposals. Applicants must be sufficiently advanced in their project conceptualization to be able to present a 3-year developmental plan, including methods and outcomes that will support institutional efforts to enhance the competitiveness of the target area.  Each proposal must explain how the research program will contribute to NASA’s and MSGC’s research and education goals and outcomes and must address the following minimum areas: 

• Establish a collaborative team among research institutions, government agencies, and business and industry that are distributed throughout the State.

• Establish collaborative arrangements with mentors at one or more NASA centers

• Integrate research and education at the higher education levels.

• Establish strategies for increasing the participation of undergraduate and/or graduate students, women and underrepresented groups, including persons with disabilities, in the proposed research activities.

• Conduct outreach to the public, Private Sector, State Government including the Legislature to explain the research program, the benefits to the S&T community and to the State of Maine and to contribute to other efforts to inspire young students to consider careers in science and engineering careers.

• Develop a comprehensive evaluation and assessment plan including metrics and milestones to assess and evaluate demonstrable impacts and achievements on the science and technology enterprise, both during and after the full NASA EPSCoR award period.

• Develop a plan for long-term sustainability of the proposed research activity.  In this plan, applicants must describe clearly, with milestones, the strategy for sustaining the impacts and achievements in the science and technology enterprise subsequent to NASA EPSCoR support. Clear delineation of how the institution will support the program to national competitiveness is critical.

• Provide a budget that shows a balanced investment between NASA EPSCoR RID and institutional funds.

Applicants will be encouraged to include in their proposals strategies to support minority and underrepresented faculty and students and to set aside a portion of their budget to support faculty and students from one or more Maine institutions of higher education and non-profit research institutions such as Colby College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, College of the Atlantic, University of New England and Bigelow Laboratory for Ocean Sciences.  Such collaborations will not be forced but if they occur the collaborations must make sense in the context of the goals and objectives of the proposed research and the applicant’s institution’s research infrastructure building capacity strategy.

Finally, applicants will be encouraged to include in their proposals strategies for pre-college and public service activities in support of the research topics.  Such strategies will be supported by non-NASA EPSCoR RID funds.  To the extent such activities are included in the proposals, the activities must be stand alone projects to avoid any confusion in mixing NASA EPSCoR RID funds with other funds and related reporting of metrics and successes.

All proposals will be submitted for (a) postal reviews and (b) internal reviews by the Technical Advisory Committee (TAC).  Each applicant will have an opportunity to present his/her proposal to the TAC and will be provided copies of comments from postal reviewers without identification.  The TAC will review the proposals and recommend to the MSGC Board of Directors one proposal from each institution for RID funding.