Call for Proposals: Digital Technology Initiative Seed Grants

Submission deadline: Friday April 26, 2013

Description:

The Digital Technology Center is seeking proposals from University of Minnesota faculty members for seed projects in the following areas of digital technology:

• Signal Processing and Machine Learning
• Wireless Communications and Networking
• Big Data and Energy Informatics
• Robotics and Computer Vision
• Graphics and Visualization
• Digital Storage Systems

Proposals should promote and foster DTC inter-disciplinary and inter-departmental excellence in research, and document how the seed funds will facilitate larger efforts toward securing external funding on the proposed DTC/DTI topics. Educating students and post-doctoral associates for high-technology careers continues to be a DTC mission.

The DTI grant program requires that:

• Proposal teams include at least one DTC associated faculty member (not necessarily as the PI)
• Winning teams seek follow-on DTC support from external sources
• Follow-on grants are submitted through DTC administration

The upper limit for support per DTI grant is roughly $75,000. Up to four awards will be granted.

These one-year seed grants can be used to support graduate students, research associates, travel to facilitate collaborations, workshops related to the project, and up to 20% buy-out time during one academic semester, or, one-half summer month of the PI.

This will be the tenth year of the Digital Technology Initiative awards program. Winning proposals from previous years can be seen on the DTC website.

The DTC will host a DTI Project Forum on April 3. The forum will feature posters and short presentations from the 2012-2013 DTI seed grant winners. Those interested in applying for the current round of awards should attend this forum to learn more about these projects and the award process.

Eligibility:
All proposals must be led by a University of Minnesota faculty member. Each proposal team must include at least one DTC associated faculty member. Each UMN faculty member is limited to submitting one proposal as principal investigator. There is no limit to the number of proposals a UMN faculty member can be co-investigator on.

Proposal submission and deadline:
Deadline for submissions is Friday April 26, 2013. Proposals can be submitted as either PDF or Word documents to Cory Devor (devor@dtc.umn.edu).

Submissions
Proposals must contain:

• Name of Principal Investigator, their department, and contact information (i.e., campus address, phone number, and email address)
• Names of Other Investigator(s), their department(s), and contact information
• Project title
• Brief abstract (300 word limit)
• Description of project or event (2 page limit)
• Budget and budget justification (2 page limit)
• Follow on proposal summary for planned external funding (1 page limit)
• Current curriculum vitae (2 page limit; NSF style)
• The length limits will be strictly enforced.

Review Procedure:
Proposals will be peer reviewed by a panel appointed by and including the DTC Director. The review panel members are not involved in any DTI proposal in this round. Proposals will be selected on the basis of the quality of the proposed project, the impact of the proposed project in promoting the DTC mission, the reasonableness of the budget, the extent to which the project involves inter-disciplinary research, and the case made for follow on external funding opportunities. Part of the selection process will include each finalist meeting with the DTC Director to discuss the project objectives and external funding plans.

Funding Notification:
Award notification will be made by June 7, 2013.

Funds will be available immediately upon award, and through June 30, 2014. Funds not spent by June 30, 2014, will be returned to the DTC unless an extension is granted by the DTC Director.

These DTC funded seed grants will be made within the University. No indirect costs will be charged on the amounts awarded. Proposals will not need to be submitted through Sponsored Project Administration (SPA), and a PRF does not need to be completed.

Questions: Cory Devor (devor@dtc.umn.edu) 612-625-1716