interesting research grant opportunity

[ttweed@wildrockies.org (Tony Tweedale)]

>[Federal Register: February 10, 1998 (Volume 63, Number 27)]
>[Notices]
>[Page 6756-6757]
>>From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
>[DOCID:fr10fe98-93]
>
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>ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
>
>[FRL-5964-6]
>
>
>Investigator-Initiated Grants on Futures: Detecting the Early Signals
>
>AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
>
>ACTION: Notice.
>
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>SUMMARY: The purpose of this document is to solicit public comment on
>the appropriateness of the research topic, ``Futures: Detecting the
>Early Signals,'' described in the draft Request for Applications (RFA).
>The Agency's Science Advisory Board has recommended EPA should move
>towards using futures research and analysis in its programs and
>activities, particularly strategic planning and budgeting. The draft
>RFA is part of EPA's response to this recommendation. In the draft RFA
>EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) invites research grant
>applications to develop innovative, scientific approaches for solving
>current and future environmental problems and to improve our
>understanding of environmental risk.
>
>DATES: Comments are requested on the wording, scope, and
>appropriateness of the research topics presented in this draft RFA.
>Comments must be received on or before March 12, 1998. EPA plans to
>issue the RFA a month after the close of the comment period.
>
>FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions or comments regarding
>the solicitation process, contact Dr. Robert Menzer, telephone number
>(202) 564-6849, EPA (8701R), 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460,
>electronic mail address: menzer.robert@epamail.epa.gov. For questions
>or comments regarding the specific research topics, contact Dr. Roger
>Cortesi, telephone number (202) 564-6852, EPA (8701R), 401 M Street,
>SW, Washington, DC 20460, electronic mail address:
>cortesi.roger@epamail.epa.gov.
>
>SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: EPA's National Center for Environmental
>Research and Quality Assurance (NCERQA) is preparing to issue a
>solicitation for research on futures. Funding for this solicitation
>will be provided by EPA for a total of approximately $1 million. We
>plan to award 6-8 grants, each with a project period of 1 year, under
>this solicitation.
>    NCERQA will receive, process, and distribute the proposals to the
>peer reviewers; convene the peer review sessions in conformance with
>existing EPA guidelines; and record the review discussion for each
>proposal. No EPA employees will serve as peer reviewers.
>    The description of the request for applications is as follows:
>
>Futures: Detecting the Early Signals
>
>Background
>
>    The question often arises whether serious environmental problems
>could be detected so that preventive or remedial actions could be
>generated sooner than they had been heretofore. Early awareness of an
>environmental problem would result in the ability to cope with a less
>serious problem, one easier and cheaper to handle. The possibility and
>value of early detection of environmental problems were the subject of
>the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board's 1995
>report, Beyond the Horizon: Using Foresight to Protect the
>Environmental Future. The report discusses why thinking about the
>future is important, possible systems of inquiry, and recommends that
>``. . . EPA should move towards using futures research and analysis in
>its programs and activities, particularly strategic planning and
>budgeting . . .'' Specifically:
>    <bullet> ``As much attention should be given to avoiding future
>problems as to controlling current ones,'' and
>    <bullet> ``EPA should establish a strong environmental futures
>capability that serves as an early warning system for emerging
>environmental problems.''
>    In its planning process the Office of Research and Development
>(ORD) has committed itself to ``establish capability and mechanisms
>within EPA to anticipate and identify environmental or other changes
>that may portend future risk, integrate futures planning into ongoing
>programs, and promote coordinated preparation for and response to
>change.''
>
>Scope of Research
>
>    In this announcement EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD)
>invites research grant applications to develop innovative, scientific
>approaches for identifying future environmental problems. EPA, in order
>to perform its mission better, wishes to find ways to identify possible
>emerging environmental problems and to start working on them before
>headlines have emerged. This solicitation aims to try an approach to
>looking ahead in two areas: in the natural sciences and in socio-
>economics.
>    Specifically, EPA requests applications in:
>    A. Natural Sciences. The applicant should choose an area where
>there is scattered scientific data that could portend a future
>environmental problem, examine these scattered data, and write a
>synthesis giving possible interpretations. This paper should suggest
>which questions raised by the data need answering and which of these
>questions can be resolved by research. Key features in proposal
>evaluation will be: (1) the balance in the identified potential problem
>between seriousness of the problem and its ``Chicken Little factor,''
>and (2) the value of the possible proposed synthesis even if the
>suspected problem turns out to be minimal.
>    Examples of problems which might have profited from such early
>examination in the past include:
>    <bullet> acid rain
>    <bullet> stratospheric ozone depletion
>    <bullet> DDT and thin bird egg shells
>    <bullet> PCBs, environmental persistence and its effects
>    B. Socio-Economics. The applicant should examine possible changes
>in the way we (the USA, the industrialized nations, the world, etc.),
>in the next five to twenty years, will think, do things, live, consume,
>invent, reproduce, etc., and what effects these changes will have on
>environmental problems, on our mind set, on how we handle them, on the
>tools we will have available to handle them, on the costs and benefits
>of handling them, etc. Socioeconomic analyses can cover a variety of
>subjects (e.g., demographic changes, economic changes, environmental
>value changes, land use changes, etc.)
>    A key feature of the evaluation of the proposals will be the
>usefulness of the analyses and the analytical methods developed even if
>the views of what the future will bring turn out to be seriously wrong.
>The proposed studies and syntheses should, if possible, offer
>suggestions about what possible changes are important and identify such
>changes to the environment that could be monitored for early detection
>and correction.
>    It is anticipated that projects funded under this solicitation will
>involve literature investigation and analysis, discussions with
>colleagues, perhaps computer modeling, and crystal-ball gazing. The
>final product of the research will be a paper setting forth the
>problem, approaches to its solution, and an estimate of the resources
>needed to
>
>[[Page 6757]]
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>effect the solution (e.g., the outline of a research plan).
>    Funding: Approximately $1.0 million is expected to be available in
>Fiscal Year 1998 for award in this solicitation. The projected award
>may be up to $150,000 for one year. Applicants will be expected to
>budget for and participate in a workshop on environmental futures with
>EPA scientists, other agency officials, and other grantees in
>Washington, DC, to report on their research activities and to discuss
>issues of mutual interest.
>
>Eligibility
>
>    Academic and not-for-profit institutions located in the U.S., and
>state or local governments are eligible under all existing
>authorizations. Profit-making firms and other federal agencies are not
>eligible to receive grants from EPA under this program. Federal
>agencies, national laboratories funded by federal agencies (FFRDCs),
>and federal employees are not eligible to submit applications to this
>program and may not serve in a principal leadership role on a grant.
>    The final RFA will also include instructions to potential
>applicants on the specific format to be used for applications. These
>instructions will be similar to such instructions found in other EPA/
>ORD solicitations which may be reviewed on the Internet at http://
>www.epa.gov/ncerqa.
>
>    Dated: January 28, 1998.
>Henry L. Longest, II,
>Acting Assistant Administrator for Research and Development.
>[FR Doc. 98-3322 Filed 2-9-98; 8:45 am]
>BILLING CODE 6560-50-P
>
>
>
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>End of EPA-SAB Digest 62
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