Funding opportunity: NSF's INSPIRE program

Thanks to NSF Biological Anthropology Program Director Carolyn Erhardt for the following announcement: 

NSF will be providing an informational webcast on INSPIRE (Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education) to be held on Tuesday, January 29, 2013 from 4:00 p.m. – 5:30 p.m. EST.  During the webcast, the FY 2013 INSPIRE solicitation (NSF 13-518) will be discussed, and INSPIRE program officers will interactively answer questions submitted by the online audience. (Check out the current list of INSPIRE Frequently Asked Questions.)

Information on accessing and registering for the free webcast will be available through the INSPIRE program website. Participants must be registered to view the webcast.

Summary of the INSPIRE funding opportunity: The INSPIRE awards program was established to address some of the most complicated and pressing scientific problems that lie at the intersection of traditional disciplines. It is intended to encourage investigators to submit bold, exceptional proposals that some may consider to be at a disadvantage in a standard NSF review process; it is not intended for proposals that are more appropriate for existing award mechanisms. INSPIRE is open to interdisciplinary proposals on any NSF-supported topic, submitted by invitation only after a preliminary inquiry process initiated by submission of a required Letter of Intent (LOI). In fiscal year 2013, INSPIRE provides support through the following three pilot grant mechanisms:

• INSPIRE Track 1. This is essentially a continuation of the pilot CREATIV mechanism from FY 2012, which was detailed for 2012 in Dear Colleague Letter NSF 12-011.
• INSPIRE Track 2. These are "mid-scale" research awards at a larger scale than Track 1, allowing for requests of up to $3,000,000 over a duration of up to five years. Expectations for cross-cutting advances and for broader impacts are greater than in Track 1, and the review process includes external review.
• Director's INSPIRE Awards. These are prestigious individual awards to single-investigator proposals that present ideas for interdisciplinary advances with unusually strong, exciting transformative potential.

All NSF directorates and programmatic offices participated in INSPIRE in FY 2012 and are continuing their participation in FY 2013.

LETTER OF INTENT (LOI) DUE DATES:

INSPIRE Track 2 Inquiries: Letter of Intent Due Date February 20, 2013

INSPIRE Track 1 Inquiries (also for Director’s INSPIRE Awards): Letter of Intent Due Date March 29, 2013

Full proposal submission is by invitation only, based on evaluation by NSF staff of the required Letter of Intent.