RASEI 2009/10 Seed Grant Competition RFP

In order to encourage innovative, collaborative research on renewable and sustainable energy (R&SE), the Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute (RASEI, formerly the CU Energy Initiative), through the financial support of its Leadership Council, is sponsoring a Seed Grant Competition. Only researchers who were (co-) authors on a poster presentation at the Research Symposium on October 21, 2009 may apply for seed grant funding through this competition.

Seed Grant Eligibility:
All University of Colorado-Boulder faculty members (including instructors and research faculty) who hold an appointment of half-time or more, and who are eligible to submit a grant as a principal investigator (PI) to the Office of Contracts and Grants, are eligible to submit a seed grant proposal as a PI.  Faculty, researchers, students and staff from CU-Boulder, other CU campuses, other institutions, and federal agencies may be included as collaborators in seed grant proposals. Please note that while joint projects are encouraged, there can only be one responsible PI for each application, and applicants may submit only one proposal as a PI. 

Since RASEI is a partnership between UCB and NREL, independent researchers from NREL may also apply for seed grants, with the understanding that requested funding must be used primarily to support students or postdocs employed at UCB.  Funding for NREL staff collaborations may be from programmatic funds or internal funds such as LDRDs.  Questions regarding this internal NREL funding should be directed to Dr. Ray Stults, Ray_Stults@nrel.gov.

Researchers at other federal agencies such as NOAA, NCAR, NIST and UCAR are encouraged to participate as collaborators on proposals submitted by UCB or NREL PIs.  Questions regarding internal NOAA funding for RASEI Seed Grants should be directed to Melinda Marquis, Melinda.Marquis@noaa.gov. 

Submission Instructions:
Proposals must be submitted electronically no later than midnight December 18, 2009 via this online form.

Note: The maximum total budget for research activities to be supported with funding from the University of Colorado may not exceed $50,000. Proposed budgets should reflect support of research activities primarily through researcher salaries, benefits, and basic supplies.  We are unlikely to provide funding for conferences, instruments or equipment. Indirect costs will not be charged to seed grants and should not be included in the budget. High quality proposals with budgets less than $50,000 will have slightly enhanced possibilities for being supported. For projects that involve collaborative research with the federal labs, it is expected that UC faculty, students and postdocs may perform a portion of their proposed research at the lab facilities. Direct funding for federal lab personnel must be identified separately in proposed budgets and is not included within the $50,000 for CU activities.  Seed grant funds will not be used to fund the federal lab portion of the project.

Earliest start date for proposals: June 1, 2010.
Duration: Up to 2 years.

Review Criteria
1. Intellectual merit of the proposal (15 points) – including relevance to renewable and sustainable energy issues, creativity and innovation, significance of goals and results, soundness of research plan, likelihood of successful completion of project.
2. Potential for additional/continued activity beyond the seed grant phase (10 points) - plans for continued activity may include applications for external support from federal, state or local government agencies, foundations, private companies, etc., and plans for continued research activities involving in-kind support, teaching activities, on-going scholarly work, etc.
3. Potential for developing new and productive collaborations between PIs or for strengthening existing collaborations (5 points) - projects involving collaborations with NREL, NOAA, NIST and NCAR researchers are highly encouraged.

Proposals in all areas and fields related to renewable and sustainable energy are encouraged, as indicated by the categories for poster presentations at the Symposium.  Additionally, proposals in the following areas may receive special attention:
• Performance based models of buildings, their components, and operations for energy efficiency
• Safety, reliability, and infrastructure supporting hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles
• Design of combined heat and power systems to take advantage of waste heat in any of automotive/transportation, industrial, and consumer areas
• Performance based, dynamic models of data center energy use and efficiency
• Increased efficiency of un-interruptible power supplies
• HVAC management models
• Developing alternative catalysts for generating hydrogen from water
• Advanced materials for photo-conversion, thermal conversion and transparent electrical and thermal conductivity previously not discovered or published extensively