GERMINATION: Germination of Research Questions for Addressing Critical Societal Challenges | 21 594

Opportunity Information: Apply for 21 594

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate for Engineering created the GERMINATION program to strengthen how engineers and scientists learn to come up with the kinds of fundamental research questions that can lead to real, transformative societal impact. The opportunity is built around the idea that many of today s hardest problems are not limited by a lack of talent or technical tools, but by the need for better ways to train researchers to identify the right questions early on, especially questions that connect core engineering science to urgent public needs. NSF frames this in the context of major pressures from a growing and aging global population and the resulting strain on food systems, energy, water, land use, and natural resources, alongside the need to protect planetary ecosystems. It also highlights modern challenges such as climate change, cybersecurity, privacy, fairness in connected and data driven systems, and the resilience and protection of critical infrastructure.

Rather than directly funding technical research solutions to any one of those problems, GERMINATION funds the educational and training approaches that help researchers generate those solution oriented research ideas in the first place. The program seeks proposals that design, test, evaluate, and implement pedagogical frameworks, platforms, and/or environments that teach participants (for example students, trainees, or researchers, depending on the project design) how to formulate high value research questions with the potential for transformative outcomes. NSF points to the rapid STEM response to COVID 19, including the unprecedented speed of vaccine development, as proof that the research community can mobilize quickly and effectively when the right questions are identified and pursued; GERMINATION is meant to help cultivate that kind of question formulation capability for other global challenges.

The solicitation supports two complementary tracks. The GERMINATION Innovation track is intended for new, previously unexplored approaches. These awards fund projects that create and pilot novel pedagogical methods or training environments explicitly aimed at improving how participants generate research questions that could lead to transformative advances. Proposals to the Innovation track must be submitted using NSF s EArly concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposal type, signaling that NSF expects high risk, early stage concepts that may not yet have extensive preliminary evidence but are promising and potentially game changing.

The GERMINATION Expansion track is aimed at approaches that already have evidence behind them. Expansion awards support further development, implementation, and scaling of proven or promising strategies that have been piloted and shown efficacy. The emphasis here is on growing successful models beyond a single institution, moving to regional or national scale, and often building new collaborations and networks to make broad implementation feasible. In practical terms, that means an Expansion project should look less like a brand new experiment and more like a thoughtful scale up plan: adapting materials for wider use, building partnerships, creating implementation supports, and evaluating impact across a larger and more diverse set of participants or institutions.

From an administrative standpoint, this is a discretionary NSF grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number 21 594) in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category, under CFDA 47 041. NSF anticipated making about 10 awards under this opportunity. The posting lists an award ceiling of 0, which typically indicates that specific budget limits are not stated in the summary field and applicants should rely on the full solicitation and the relevant NSF proposal type guidance (notably EAGER requirements for Innovation) for budget expectations and constraints. The opportunity was created June 24, 2021, with an original closing date of October 29, 2021. Eligibility is listed broadly as Others with clarification in the full eligibility text, meaning applicants needed to consult the solicitation for precise organizational eligibility rules and any limitations.

Overall, GERMINATION is best understood as an NSF Engineering investment in the upstream part of the research pipeline: improving the training systems, learning environments, and pedagogical models that help the STEM community consistently generate rigorous, ambitious, societally relevant research questions, and then spreading the most effective approaches from pilots into scalable models that can be adopted widely.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "GERMINATION: Germination of Research Questions for Addressing Critical Societal Challenges" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.041.
• This funding opportunity was created on Jun 24, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Oct 29, 2021. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 10 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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