My previous columns 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 and I will be highlighting some of these. 

The Quantum Leap: Leading the Next Quantum Revolution supports research into interactions of quantum systems and next-generation technologies for sensing, computing, modelling, and communicating through quantum mechanics. NSF19-559,  Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes , is intended to support development of large-scale interdisciplinary research projects to advance the frontiers of quantum information science and engineering.

There will be two types of awards : 12-month Conceptualization Grants ($100-150K) to support teams planning future Institute proposals and 5-year Challenge Institute awards ($5M/yr for 5 yrs) to establish and run Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes. Letters of intent are required for both types of proposals; those for Conceptualization Grants are due April 1 and Round 1 QLCI proposals on June 3. There also are preliminary proposals required for QCLI proposals (due August 1). Full proposals for Conceptualization Grants are due June 3. 

The interlocking and complementary nature of the 10 Big Ideas is exemplified in a new solicitation, NSF 19-556,  Signals in the Soil , which is a collaboration of NSF with USDA NIFA and United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) and awards will be co-funded with those agencies. The NSF ENG, GEO, BIO, and CISE directorates are all participating and the projects proposed must include research that could be reviewed in at least two NSF directorates or by one NSF directorate and NIFA. In this,  Signals in the Soil  resembles the former INFEWS program. 

MacArthur Launches New Round of Its 100&Change Competition

The  John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation  has announced the launch of a new round of its  100&Change  competition, through which a grant of $100 million will be awarded to help address a critical social challenge. Launched  in 2016, the competition to identify a problem and offer a solution that promises significant and durable change is open to organizations and collaborations working in any field, anywhere in the world. In the competition's inaugural round,  Sesame Workshop  and the  International Rescue Committee  were  awarded  $100 million over five years for a  joint  early childhood development project designed to address the "toxic stress" experienced by children caught up in the Syrian refugee crisis. The foundation also awarded $15 million each to three finalists —  Catholic Relief Services ,  HarvestPlus , and  Rice University 's  Rice 360° Institute for Global Health .

Smaller Pots for Women

New study of NIH funding says women over all get smaller grants than men, even when controlling for research potential.

“Publish or perish” is a law of academe. In the sciences, that law might as well be, “Get funding or perish.” And funding is harder and harder to get, with federal research dollars on the decline. Yet in this Darwinian climate, it’s not exactly survival of the fittest, according to new research that says women get smaller grants than men. The study , published in JAMA, looks at National Institutes of Health grants from 2006 to 2017. Female first-time principal investigators received a median grant of $126,615, across all grant and institution types during that period.

HIV prevention study finds universal “test and treat” approach can reduce new infections

New HIV infections declined by 30 percent in southern African communities where health workers conducted house-to-house voluntary HIV testing, referred people who tested positive to begin HIV treatment according to local guidelines, and offered other proven HIV prevention measures to those who tested negative. Local guidelines evolved during the study from offering HIV treatment based on immune health to offering immediate treatment for all.

AI Algorithms Are Now Shockingly Good At Doing Science

No human, or team of humans, could possibly keep up with  the avalanche of information  produced by many of today’s physics and astronomy experiments. Some of them record terabytes of data every day—and the torrent is  only increasing . The Square Kilometer Array, a radio telescope slated to switch on in the mid-2020s, will generate about as much data traffic each year as the entire internet. The deluge has many scientists turning to  artificial intelligence  for help. With minimal human input, AI systems such as artificial neural networks—computer-simulated networks of neurons that mimic the function of brains—can plow through mountains of data, highlighting anomalies and detecting patterns that humans could never have spotted.

A running list of how President Trump is changing environmental policy

The Trump Administration’s tumultuous presidency has brought a flurry of changes—both realized and anticipated—to U.S. environmental policy. Many of the actions roll back Obama-era policies that aimed to curb  climate change and limit environmental pollution, while others threaten to limit federal funding for science and the environment.

It’s a lot to keep track of, so National Geographic will be maintaining an abbreviated timeline of the Trump Administration’s environmental actions and policy changes, as well as reactions to them.

Open Access Is Going Mainstream. Here’s Why That Could Transform Academic Life.

Debate over the future of scholarly publishing felt remote to Kathryn M. Jones, an associate professor of biology at Florida State University — that is, until she attended a Faculty Senate meeting last year. There she learned that the library might renegotiate its $2-million subscription with the publishing behemoth Elsevier, which would limit her and her colleagues’ access to groundbreaking research. Horror sank in. Like other experimental scientists, Jones regularly skims articles published in subscription journals to plan future experiments. What would happen if she couldn’t access that body of important work with the click of a button?

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