Recent breakthroughs in biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics have considerably broadened the landscape of science and technology in the 21st century. A great deal the significant discoveries of this century will happen at the interfaces of these disciplines. One of the reasons that the College of Science at Mason was founded was to take advantage of the exciting research that occurs at the boundaries of the “established” disciplines to facilitate new science. In pursuit of this goal of exciting new, important research across these “boundaries” , the College will fund in 2009 two cross disciplinary initiatives to stimulate the establishment of cross disciplinary research teams to work on exciting new science.
Scope:
The Dean will dedicate $200,000 per year to this program starting in 2009, typically shared among 2 groups working on 2-year projects (so that each project can anticipate about $100,000 per year). This includes funding for research activities, summer salaries, postdocs, supplies, course buy-downs, data and other recurring costs. Minor equipment purchases would have to be justifiable within the scope of a 2-year program. It is expected that each successful initiative will lead to productive research leading to publications in peer reviewed journals and at least one full proposal to one or more Federal agencies or private corporations which will be developed and submitted in the second year. It is anticipated that these seed projects will lead to long term productive collaborations within the College.
Who can apply:
A successful proposal must be from a team of three faculty members from at least two departments in the College. The project must be an integrated team effort. Non-College participation from other Mason colleges is possible but will require approval of the respective Deans. Preference will be given to teams that have at least two junior faculty members.
The proposal should be no more than three pages in length. It should provide a good introduction in what the goal of the work is and why it would of significance if successful. The route to success should be described with descriptions of the roles of each team member what would the team expects to accomplish as the research progresses. The proposal should provide clear ways to assess progress of the proposal as the work proceeds (e.g. after the 1st year what should have happened if this work is successful etc).
Some of the criteria that will be used to evaluate the proposal will be:
- True integrated team effort
- Proper mix of theory, experiment or field work and computational modeling
- Knowledge of outside work and researchers in the topic being proposed.
- Innovative or original concept
- Sufficient scientific base
- Background and history of project personnel
When to apply:
Applications for the first round of projects will be accepted until Jan 5th, 2009. Awards will be announced in February 2009. Work on this round of proposals is to begin July 1, 2009.
Send proposals to Paul Schopf.
Process:
Proposals will be reviewed by a committee composed of Maria Dworzecka, Paul Schopf, Joel Schnur and additional faculty chosen from the College senior faculty. All interested groups are invited to send a 1-page summary (in language understandable to the non-specialist scientist) to any of the above committee members for early feedback.
More Help:
Joel Schnur is now meeting with many of the junior faculty to help start new cross disciplinary effort at Mason. A kick off “party” will be held this summer to help faculty meet one another as part of this process. Help and consultation from the Dean's office is available at any time. Please contact Maria Dworzecka, Paul Schopf or Joel Schnur for any questions.
