NSF invites applications for the 2015 Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program, intended to fund the development or acquisition of major state-of-the-art instrumentation for research or research training in any NSF-supported field.
Proposal budgets may include requests from NSF in the range of $100,000 to $4 million for both acquisition and development applications, with 30% cost-sharing from another source of funding. Proposers may request an award period up to three years for acquisition proposals and up to five years for development proposals.
The University of Florida will be able to submit – or be included as a partner or subawardee in – no more than three (3) proposals. To promote instrumentation development, the MRI program continues to require that if an organizations submits or is included as a funded subawardee/subcontractor in three MRI proposals, at least one of the three proposals must be for instrument development rather than acquisition.
INTERNAL SUBMISSION PROCEDURES: Because of the limitation on the number and type of submissions, the following procedures will be followed for internal screening and selection:
- Interested College of Medicine PIs should submit pre-proposals (following the format/content guidelines below) to the COM Office of Research Affairs, ATTN: Todd Barnash (barnash@ufl.edu), by 5 PM Wednesday, October 15, 2014 for approval and subsequent transmission to the Office of Research.
- College-approved MRI pre-proposals will then be submitted to the UF Office of Research. An ad hoc committee will review the submissions and make selection recommendations to the VP for Research.
INTERNAL PRE-PROPOSAL FORMAT/CONTENTS: Pre-proposals should be no longer than five (5) single-spaced pages and contain the following information (items 1-6 should fit within the 5 pages):
- Category of application (acquisition or development);
- Brief description of instrumentation;
- Impact of instrumentation on current/future research and research training activities;
- Demonstrated need for the equipment;
- Qualifications of the persons who will use or development the equipment;
- Projected cost, including plans for covering the cost of operation and maintenance of the instrumentation, as well as plans to meet the 30% cost-sharing requirement; and
- A list of all NSF-funded research projects at UF that will benefit from the instrumentation, including PI name, department, project title, budget/project period, and award amount (this list is not counted as part of the 5-page limit).
Selected proposals will go forward to NSF by January 22, 2015.
For more information on candidate eligibility, the internal coordination details and a link to the full solicitation, please visit: http://my.research.ufl.edu/Applications/FundingOpportunities/ArticleDetail.aspx?id=38420