Young Faculty Award

The summary for the Young Faculty Award grant is detailed below. This summary states who is eligible for the grant, how much grant money will be awarded, current and past deadlines, Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) numbers, and a sampling of similar government grants. Verify the accuracy of the data FederalGrants.com provides by visiting the webpage noted in the Link to Full Announcement section or by contacting the appropriate person listed as the Grant Announcement Contact. If any section is incomplete, please visit the website for the DARPA Microsystems Technology Office, which is the U.S. government agency offering this grant.

Young Faculty Award: The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is soliciting research from single-author grant proposals for research and development in the areas of interest to MTO. The participation is limited to non-tenured Assistant Professors with tenure-track positions at U.S. institutions of higher learning and a Ph.D. degree obtained in the year 1996 or later. US citizenship or permanent residency is highly preferred. The objective is to encourage new faculty members at institutions of higher education in participating within DARPA/MTO programs. The Young Faculty Award (YFA) is expected to provide MTO with revolutionary research ideas that are critical to future technology developments. DARPA intends to award grants to young university faculty proposing innovative research that can be expected to lead to revolutionary advances of the state-of-the-art. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice. DARPA seeks innovative proposals in the following areas: 1. Electronics 2. Photonics 3. Micro-electro-mechanical systems 4. Architectures 5. Algorithms Additional information on these technology areas is provided in the Areas of Interest section of the RA 06-39 Proposer Information Pamphlet referenced below. PROGRAM SCOPE The Young Faculty Award initial research should focus on a clearly defined problem which can be answered in a 12-18 month effort. However, MTO expects that this effort will be a precursor and proof of concept to a larger problem that is sufficiently important and challenging to warrant a full scale DARPA program of 3-5 years. The DARPA/MTO YFA proposal process is structured in the following manner. The competition will be carried out in three rounds. In the first round, applicants will submit a three (3)-page abstract to be evaluated by MTO. In round two, the authors of approximately 50 selected abstracts will be invited to attend a DARPA/MTO workshop where they will be given the opportunity to share their ideas with MTO Program Managers. In the third round, applicants will be asked to submit a final ten (10)-page proposal outlining the program idea, technical challenges, research outline and brief justification of the funding level. MTO intends to fund approximately ten (10) of these concept proposals at an average level of $150,000. Upon final selection, the authors will be given the opportunity to discuss teaming, should it be required. The technical POC for this effort is Henryk Temkin, fax: (703) 696-2206, electronic mail: RA [email protected]. DARPA MTO YOUNG FACULTY AWARD WORKSHOP DARPA will host a workshop in support of the YFA program on November 16-17, 2006 at a location in the vicinity of Arlington, Virginia. The purpose of this workshop is to provide information on the MTO in general, and the YFA program in detail, facilitate additional discussion on technical topics of interest to the proposers, address questions from YFA proposers, and provide a forum for proposers to present their capabilities. Attendance at the workshop will be by invitation only, based on the proposal abstracts submitted to the YFA RA. Approximately 50 authors will be invited. Should the facility allow, DARPA reserves the right to invite additional authors. Should an invited author be unable to attend, request may be made for an alternate to attend. Materials presented at the workshop, along with answers to selected questions asked during the workshop, will be posted on the DARPA website and will be accessible through http://www.darpa.mil/mto/solicitations/. Workshop Registration Instructions: Workshop registration information will be supplied along with the workshop invitation. There will be no registration fee for the YFA Workshop. Citizenship and Permanent Resident Instructions for Workshop participants: All US Citizens must submit a US Citizenship Verification form to attend this conference. Foreign nationals who are current permanent residents must complete and submit a DARPA Form 60 "Foreign National Visit Request." These documents can be found on the workshop registration website, and should be faxed to (703) 816-5444 (Attention: Andrea Monts) prior to the meeting. Workshop Point of Contact: Andrea Monts, 703-807-2858, [email protected] GENERAL INFORMATION Proposers must obtain a pamphlet entitled "RA 06-39, Young Faculty Award, Proposer Information Pamphlet" which provides further information on the submission, evaluation, and funding processes, proposal abstract and proposal formats, and other general information. This pamphlet may be obtained from the FedGrants website: http://www.grants.gov/, World Wide Web (WWW) at URL http://www.darpa.mil/ or by fax, electronic mail, or mail request to the administrative contact address given below. Proposal abstracts and proposals not meeting the format described in the pamphlet may not be reviewed. Proposal abstracts must be submitted to https://www.tfims.darpa.mil/baa or http://www.grants.gov/ on or before 4:00 p.m., local time, Tuesday, October 3, 2006. Proposal abstracts received after this time and date may not be reviewed. DARPA will respond to selected proposal abstracts with a recommendation to submit, or not submit, a full proposal, along with an invitation to a DARPA/MTO workshop for the selected (approximately) 50 authors. This procedure is intended to minimize unnecessary effort in proposal preparation and review. Regardless of the recommendation, the decision to submit a full proposal is the responsibility of the proposer. Proposal abstracts or full proposals submitted after the due date stated in the respective submission guidelines will not be evaluated for this award. In addition, full proposals submitted by proposers that did not participate in the abstract phase will not be considered. Proposals must be submitted to https://www.tfims.darpa.mil/baa or http://www.grants.gov/ on or before 4:00 p.m., local time, Tuesday, December 5, 2006. Proposals received after this time and date may not be reviewed. Restrictive notices notwithstanding, abstracts and proposals may be handled, for administrative purposes only, by a support contractor. This support contractor is prohibited from competition in DARPA technical research and is bound by appropriate nondisclosure requirements. Awards made under this RA are subject to the provisions of the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) Subpart 9.5, Organizational Conflict of Interest. All facts relevant to the existence or potential existence of organizational conflicts of interest, as that term is defined in the FAR 9.501, must be disclosed. The disclosure shall include a description of the action the offeror has taken, or proposes to take, to avoid, neutralize or mitigate such conflict. Proposals selected for funding are required to comply with provisions of the Common Rule (32 CFR 219) on the protection of human subjects in research (http://www.dtic.mil/biosys/downloads/32cfr219.pdf) and the Department of Defense Directive 3216.2 (http://www.dtic.mil/whs/directives/corres/html2/d32162x.htm). All proposals that involve the use of human subjects are required to include documentation of their ability to follow Federal guidelines for the protection of human subjects. This includes, but is not limited to, protocol approval mechanisms, approved Institutional Review Boards, and Federal Wide Assurances. These requirements are based on expected human use issues sometime during the entire length of the proposed effort. For proposals involving "greater than minimal risk" to human subjects within the first year of the project, performers must provide evidence of protocol submission to a federally approved Institutional Review Board (IRB) at the time of final proposal submission to DARPA. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received and to make awards without discussions. All responsible sources capable of satisfying the Government's needs may submit an abstract proposal which shall be considered by DARPA. Input on technical aspects of the proposals may be solicited by DARPA from non-Government consultants /experts who are bound by appropriate non-disclosure requirements. Non-Government technical consultants/experts will not have access to abstract proposals that are labeled by their offerors as "Government Only". Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and Minority Institutions (MIs), are encouraged to submit abstract proposals and join others in submitting abstract proposals; however, no portion of this RA will be set aside for these organizations participation due to the impracticality of reserving discrete or severable areas of this research for exclusive competition among these entities. All administrative correspondence and questions on this solicitation, including requests for information on how to submit an abstract and proposal to this RA, should be directed to one of the administrative addresses below; e-mail or fax is preferred. DARPA intends to use electronic mail and fax for correspondence regarding RA 06-39. Proposal abstracts may not be submitted by fax or e-mail; any so sent will be disregarded. DARPA encourages use of the WWW for retrieving the Proposer Information Pamphlet and any other related information that may subsequently be provided. EVALUATION CRITERIA Proposal abstracts and proposals will not be evaluated against each other since they are not submitted in accordance with a common work statement. Evaluation of proposal abstracts and proposals will be accomplished through a technical review using the following criteria, listed in descending order of relative importance: (l) overall scientific and technical merit; (2) potential contribution and relevance to the DARPA mission; (3) cost reasonableness and realism. Proposers will be notified of selectability as soon as the proposal evaluation process is completed. The Government reserves the right to select for award all, some, or none of the proposals received and to make awards without discussions. The administrative addresses for this RA are: Fax: (703) 696-2206 (Addressed to: DARPA/MTO, RA 06-39), Electronic Mail: [email protected] Mail: DARPA/MTO, ATTN: RA 06-39 3701 North Fairfax Drive Arlington, VA 22203-1714 This announcement and the Proposer Information Pamphlet may be retrieved via the WWW at URL http://www.darpa.mil/ in the solicitations area.