Office of Research update: October 2023

October 1, 2023

The Office of Research shares recently awarded funding, along with upcoming workshops and approaching grant deadlines — like the Oct. 16 deadline for the fall cycle of the Competitive Campus Grants program.

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The Office of Research is pleased to announce and would like to congratulate our Dearborn faculty members on receipt of the following external funding:

U-M Principal Investigator: Lei Chen
Project Title:  MRI: Track 1 Acquisition of an Accelerating Rate Calorimeter System for Multidisciplinary Research, Education and Outreach
Direct Sponsor: National Science Foundation
Total Sponsor Authorized Amount: $432,400.00

The project establishes a new experimental facility at the University of Michigan – Dearborn. The main element of the facility, the accelerating rate calorimeter (ARC), will be provided to the participating universities new opportunities to conduct research, education, and outreach in the area of management of thermal behavior of automotive batteries. The thermal behavior is a significant concern for the ongoing transition of the automotive technology to electric vehicles. The problems of degradation of battery’s performance at low and high temperatures, the danger of battery thermal runaway, overheating of fast chargers, etc. continue to be major challenges.

The universities participating in the project are major feeders of engineering workforce and hubs of fundamental and applied research for the automotive industry in the Southeast Michigan, which includes the Big Three automakers and many of their suppliers. The new facility will stimulate growth of research in the area of vehicle electrification and battery technology. The facility will be incorporated in instruction of at least ten graduate and undergraduate courses, thus helping to build skills of future engineers, who will lead the nation’s transition to electric mobility. Expanded research opportunities for students will be created. The facility will also enable outreach activities to promote diversity, equity and inclusion in the Detroit area to inspire STEM interest in K-12 students.

U-M Principal Investigator: Adam Sekuler
Project Title: Metro Detroit Community Engaged Filmmaking
Direct Sponsor: Community Foundation For Southeast Michigan
Total Sponsor Authorized Amount: $30,536

As part of a course at UM-Dearborn, this project engages students in the Dearborn community by producing a series of documentaries in collaboration with visiting filmmakers and Dearborn’s Arab American community.

U-M Principal Investigator: Michael Dabkowski
Project Title: Math Matches Summer Program
Direct Sponsor: City of Westland
Total Sponsor Authorized Amount: $3,000

Professor Dabkowski will provide Math Matches instruction for two weeks for the JBCVC Learning Lab.

Announcements

Competitive Campus Grants Fall Cycle Applications Due by 5 p.m. Oct. 16

UM-Dearborn tenured/tenure-track faculty can apply for the first cycle of Competitive Campus Grant programs for fiscal year 2024. The following Competitive Campus Grant applications are due by 5 p.m. Oct. 16.

  • Research Initiation and Development (RID) Grants aim to assist faculty and research staff with the development of innovative, collaborative research proposals that will advance the UM-Dearborn mission. The program supports proposals which will help place the principal investigator (PI) and the research team in a strong position to receive additional, external funding from federal agencies, foundations and/or industry.
    • Budget floor: $10,000; Budget ceiling: $20,000
  • UM-Dearborn Scholars (SCH) Grants are intended to support research, scholarship and creative activities in the arts. This program is intended for projects with funding needs not usually addressed by other support programs within or outside the university.
    • Budget floor: $6,000; Budget ceiling:$10,000
  • Thematic Research Planning (TRP) Grants are open to teams working closely together to solve problems that transcend the traditional boundaries associated with research programs, departments and colleges. Single PI proposals will *not* be considered — at least two different UM-Dearborn academic units should be involved, in addition to external partners. The aim of the program is to provide support for the development of competitive proposals to preliminary identified (by the team) external funding opportunities.
    • Budget floor: $15,000; Budget ceiling: $30,000

More information about the campus grants program and eligibility can be found on our Campus Grants webpage.

IRWG Funding Opportunities — Deadlines Extended to Nov. 1

The Institute for Research on Women and Gender (IRWG) hast extended the application deadline to Nov. 1 to their Faculty Seed Grant and Catalyze Research Award programs. University of Michigan faculty with research projects related to gender have the opportunity to apply for funding from IRWG through the following grant programs:

  • Faculty Seed Grants (Open Topic) support disciplinary and interdisciplinary faculty projects on women, gender, and sexuality. Support may be requested for individual activities, such as research assistance, research-related travel, or research materials or used to support collaborative projects, such as pilot studies or initial research efforts. IRWG affiliated tenure-track, non-tenure track, clinical faculty, research faculty, and librarians at the University of Michigan are eligible to apply.
  • Catalyze Research Award: Gender & Firearms grants invite applications for faculty research projects exploring gender and firearms, broadly understood. Funds may be requested for new projects or to add a gender or firearm injury prevention component to an existing study. Tenure-track, non-tenure track, clinical faculty, research faculty, and librarians at the University of Michigan are eligible to apply.

More information about funding opportunities from IRWG can be found on their funding webpage.

MICHR Funding Opportunity: Statewide Building Capacity for Research and Action Request for Proposals Fall 2023

The Community Engagement (CE) program within the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research at the University of Michigan provides funding to academic and community partners engaged in clinical and translational research. The CE Program is issuing an opportunity to fund community-engaged research partnerships and projects addressing community-identified health priorities within the state of Michigan, the Statewide Building Capacity for Research and Action (SBCRA).

Applicants may request 1) up to $5,000 for activities to develop or sustain partnerships, 2) up to $10,000 for pilot research projects with local impact, or 3) up to $15,000 for pilot research projects addressing regional and/or statewide needs. Regional projects should impact two or more counties in Michigan, and statewide projects should impact two or more regions. Examples of activities that can be funded under SBRCA include, but are not limited to:

  • Building relationships between partners (e.g., exploring the involvement of potential partners, determining how the partnership will adopt and use CEnR5 or CBPR6 principles)
  • Developing a steering committee (e.g., defining roles and responsibilities, developing communication, and decision-making guidelines)
  • Conducting assessment(s) to inform research plans (e.g., collecting data through focus groups or community meetings to inform the research question)
  • Analyzing existing data to help inform future research (e.g., conducting collaborative analysis, review, interpreting previously collected data)

View the application. Applications are due by 5 p.m. Friday, Nov. 3. Applicants will be notified of funding decisions mid-December 2023. For questions about this funding opportunity, please contact Community Engagement at [email protected]. 

IRB Liaison & Upcoming Human Subjects Information Session

Effective Feb. 1, 2023, Elizabeth Molina became the new IRB-HSBS staff liaison for UM-Dearborn. 

Elizabeth will hold regularly-scheduled virtual sessions for anyone interested in learning more about working with human subjects and/or the IRB application and approval process. The next session this fall semester will be held from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Oct. 18. .

Any UM-Dearborn faculty, staff, or students with questions about the IRB process can also contact Elizabeth by email at [email protected], by phone at 734-936-1943 or by dropping into the monthly Zoom sessions offered. Additional information about working with human subjects can be found at the IRB Health Sciences and Behavioral Sciences website.

MIDAS AI Summit and Tutorials

MIDAS and the Michigan AI Laboratory will jointly offer a training series to researchers across disciplines who are incorporating Generative AI in their research. Each half-day session will consist of lectures, demonstrations, and hands-on tutorials for using Generative AI in research. Learn more on the Transforming Your Research with Generative AI - Tutorials webpage. Current planned sessions include:

  • Oct. 18: Code Smarter, Not Harder: Harnessing Generative AI for Research Programming Efficiency
  • Oct. 27: Integrating Generative AI into Your Research Workflow
  • Nov. 29: Making Generative AI Better for You: Fine-tuning and Experimentation for Custom Research Solutions

Reminder: Resources for Using SciENcv

Effective Oct. 23, NSF will require all biosketch and current & pending support documents for senior personnel to be prepared using SciENcv. The fillable pdf forms will not be accepted after this date. We recommend that you take the time to register with ScieENcv and begin to create your documents in that system if you expect to be involved in a proposal to NSF in the near future.

U-M Library Services has put together this guidance page to help you get started. You can also request a one-on-one Zoom session with Dearborn Office of Research staff to walk you through this process. Science Experts Network Curriculum Vitae (SciENcv) is a researcher profile system for all individuals who apply for, receive or are associated with research investments from federal agencies. SciENcv allows researchers to document their education, employment, research activities, publications, honors, research grants, & other professional contributions to create multiple SciENcv profiles in official biographical sketch formats funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the National Science Foundation (NSF), and the Institute of Education Sciences (IES). In addition, the SciENcv application can be used to create the official NSF Current and Pending Support document.

Any researcher can register for SciENcv and create multiple biosketches, for different research projects or different funding agencies. You can find much more information about how to use SciENcv on their FAQs page. The central Office of Research and Sponsored Programs and U-M Library have resources and previous workshops available on how to create a biosketch in SciENcv specifically focused on NSF and NIH. These resources are available linked below:

If you have questions about SciENcv, need additional support, or would like to schedule one-on-one assistance with setting up your SciENcv profile and documents, please email our office at [email protected].

Research Events in October:

The Office of Research website is also updated regularly with research-related events and announcements, so we would encourage you to bookmark our landing page and subscribe to our Research News email list. 

Research Resource Highlight: OVPR’s Visualization for Research Toolkit

Every month, the Office of Research will feature a resource and/or tool that is available for researchers. This month we are featuring the Office of the Vice President for Research’s Visualization for Research Toolkit.

Last month, OVPR’s Office of Research Development hosted a workshop, “Visualization for Research, Part I” presented by Steve Alvey that discussed best practices for developing conceptual figures and other visualizations that communicate research in clear, compelling ways. This was the first part in a series of research visualization workshops.

As part of the workshop, resources were shared that included a Visualization for Research Toolkit (requires UMICH Dropbox account to access). The toolkit includes starter samples of shapes & lines, text, colors and a six-color data viz palette that can be used in research visualizations. If you missed the workshop and want to learn more, you can watch the recording and/or view the slides (via UMICH Dropbox account). Subscribe to the Research Blueprint for future resources and events offered by OVPR.

Upcoming Funding Opportunities

The Office of Research publishes a list of selected funding opportunities, organized by college, every month on our website under Announcements. In addition, yearly grant calendars organized by subject area provided by Hanover Research are available there as well. Contact the UM-Dearborn Office of Research if you would like more information about submitting a proposal to any of the programs.

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