Maine EPSCoR will become eligible to submit another proposal to the NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 solicitation during mid to late 2018. These are currently $20M awards over five years, and are limited to one per state at any one time. Maine EPSCoR at the University of Maine administers and implements the proposal development process and the awarded project, and the University of Maine is the fiduciary recipient for the award. The current Track-1 project, Sustainable Ecological Aquaculture Network (SEANET), directly supports over 300 research participants at 7 institutions throughout the state, and will finish in July 2019.
These grants are statewide infrastructure improvement awards, and as such, are not meant for individual faculty, small group, or individual institution type research projects. A Track-1 research project is required to pose and address a set of comprehensive, integrated, trans-disciplinary research questions within a single overarching theme, and lead to increased research competitiveness for the State. Multiple organizations collaborating on a single project team, in any combination of academic, for-profit, or non-profit types, is allowable and desirable.
The specific statewide research focus needs to be in alignment with one or more of Maine’s seven targeted technology sectors (marine technology & aquaculture; precision manufacturing; forest products & agriculture; biotechnology; information technology; environmental technologies; and composites & advanced materials), as defined in the 2017 Maine Innovation and Economy Action Plan.
The Maine EPSCoR office will begin the proposal development process with two informational sessions scheduled for 1-3 p.m. on February 1 at the University of Southern Maine in Portland in Luther Bonney Hall, Room 208, and 1-3 p.m. on February 2 at the University of Maine in Orono in the Margaret Chase Smith Policy Center, Large Conference Room, where the RII Track-1 program and proposal development process will be described in detail. All interested parties are invited to attend in person or virtually (please contact the Maine EPSCoR office at 207-581-2289 to make arrangements for videoconference, webcam, or conference call access).
These sessions will be followed by a concept paper and pre-proposal development process, with selected pre-proposals undergoing several layers of review (see attached process description). The submission of Maine’s Track-1 proposal to NSF will take place sometime between July and October 2018, with a tentative start date in July 2019, if approved for funding.
See https://umaine.edu/epscor/track-1-rii-development-process/ for current information, or feel free to direct any questions to the Maine EPSCoR Director: Shane Moeykens; phone: (207) 581-3399; E-mail: shane.moeykens@maine.edu.
For more information on NSF EPSCoR programs, see: https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/programs/epscor/index.jsp