or select your discipline:
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NSF's 10 Big Ideas, part 2
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My
previous column
on
NSF's
10 Big Ideas
provided an introduction to the rationale for and philosophy behind NSF’s multi-year research funding agenda.
NSF continues to issue solicitations based on the Big Ideas. I am offering a few highlights.
Harnessing the Data Revolution
is intended to enable new modes of data-driven discovery that will allow fundamental questions to be asked and answered at the frontiers of science and engineering. Multiple solicitations addressing teaming opportunities are open.
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- The National Endowment for the Humanities offers tuition-free summer programs for higher education faculty to study a variety of humanities topics. Stipends help cover expenses for the one- to four-week seminars and institutes. Applications are due March 1. Find more information.
- Join It's all about water: The hydroeconomy presented by Landon Marston, assistant professor of civil engineering, February 21 from 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m. in 137 Waters Hall. The talk is hosted by the Global Food Systems initiative.
- The Kansas Science Communication Initiative will offer KSCI Works sessions throughout the semester to build science communication skills.
- Nerd Nite and scicomm challenges: February 22, 12:00 noon to 1:00 p.m., Ackert 324
- Blogging: February 26, 12:00 noon to 2:00 p.m., Union Cottonwood Rm.
- Making videos: March 5, 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m., Waters 137
- Community partnerships: April 11, 12:00 noon to 1:30 p.m., Eisenhower 121
- Is your research related to the global food system? If so, please share it with us so we can feature it on our Global Food Systems website. Use our web form to submit your work — and see below for information on our Global Food Systems Focus Day on March 7.
- The National Science Foundation has continued to update guidance for proposers and awardees and answer post-shutdown questions. Find revised deadlines and other information on the agency's Resumption of Operations web page.
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Join Global Food Systems Focus Day
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Join us for
Global Food Systems Focus Day
Thursday, March 7.
This event will provide an
opportunity for researchers across the university to:
- Recognize and promote the broad array of research, educational, and extension activities in the area of food at K-State; and
- Plan the next steps for this important all-university research initiative.
The event is from
1:00 to 6:00 p.m. in the K-State Student Union KSU Ballrooms
and will include the following.
- Welcome and brief presentation by Vice President for Research Peter Dorhout
- A look at past efforts by GFS Coordinator Maureen Olewnik
- Overviews of projects and paths for continued research by 2015 GFS seed grant awardees
- A keynote talk
- Facilitated discussion about future efforts and directions
- Panel discussions with two successful interdisciplinary teams led by Melanie Derby in mechanical and nuclear engineering and Ruth Welti in the Division of Biology
- A poster session displaying interdisciplinary research activities
- Networking and social time — refreshments included!
Don't miss this opportunity! Please register by February 25.
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Agency news and trending topics
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New enrollments of international students at U.S. graduate schools fell for the second year in a row, according to a
survey from the Council of Graduate Schools
. First-time international enrollments fell by 1 percent from fall 2017 to fall 2018, following on a 1 percent decline the year before that. … The overall decline in first-time international graduate enrollments was due to drops at the master's level. The number of new international students enrolled in master's programs declined by 2 percent, while first-time enrollment at the doctoral level increased by 3 percent.Less research-intensive universities — many of which have come to rely on international students in master's programs as a key source of revenue — were hit hardest by the decline in new international master's students.
A newly released letter from a government watchdog has shed a little light on an ongoing U.S. government effort to scrutinize federally funded biomedical research for potentially problematic foreign involvement. The letter reveals that the National Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland, recently asked federal investigators to review 12 allegations of rule violations, mostly involving researchers at U.S. universities who allegedly failed to disclose foreign affiliations on their grant proposals.
Scientists who work for or receive funding from the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in Washington, D.C., are facing a ban on collaborating with researchers from dozens of countries deemed to pose security risks. The new policy, spelled out in two recent memos from DOE’s Deputy Secretary Dan Brouillette, are meant to thwart attempts by foreign governments to steal U.S.-funded research. But some scientists worry DOE may be overreacting to the espionage threat, and fear its approach could stifle progress in areas important to U.S. economic and national security.
For over a decade, the
NIH Data Book
has served as a helpful resource for describing funding trends on grants and contract awards, success rates, small business programs, peer review, as well as the scientific workforce. These data, presented as graphics and tables, have allowed you to get a better understanding of decisions made here at NIH. We are proud to announce a new edition is available for your 2019 reading list. Not only are the data you are familiar with still available and updated with Fiscal Year 2018 details, but now you will experience interactive visualizations and more configuration options to make it easier for you to find the information you need.
Two weeks out from the longest government shutdown in United States history—and with the possibility of another still looming—government employees are still scrambling to
mitigate impacts
on federal cybersecurity defenses. And the stakes are high. Furloughed cybersecurity employees returned to expired software licenses and web encryption certificates, colleagues burned out from working on skeleton crews, and weeks-worth of unanalyzed network activity logs.
In the United States, a fractured, inefficient, inconsistent system has built up over the past 70 years to protect research quality and integrity. Separate and sometimes overlapping mechanisms focus on distinct areas, such as oversight of trial participants and animal subjects, data management, financial transactions and declarations of interest.
President Trump signed an executive order Monday meant to spur the development and regulation of artificial intelligence, technology that many experts believe will define the future of everything from consumer products to health care to warfare. A.I. experts across industry, academia and government have long called on the Trump administration to make the development of artificial intelligence a major priority. Last spring, worried that the United States was not keeping pace with China and other countries, Jim Mattis, then the defense secretary, sent a memo to the White House imploring the president to create a national strategy on A.I.
Many government agencies have adopted open data policies, making their data freely available to all users online. At the same time, many agencies are experiencing substantial increases in the volume of data that they generate or collect. Simply upgrading existing systems is often not sufficient to ensure that large volumes of data remain accessible and can be analyzed efficiently; instead, agencies are transitioning to cloud infrastructures. Whereas some agencies seek to develop new in-house cloud platforms, many others are turning to commercial cloud providers. However, the ways in which agencies are partnering with these commercial entities vary considerably, as does the distribution of costs among agencies, cloud providers, and users. In some cases, users may need to pay to work with government data that were previously freely available.
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k-state.edu/research
researchweekly@k-state.edu
785.532.5110
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