DSRI DISCOVER Seed Grant

Congratulations to the following projects that were awarded funding!

Anping Chen, Stephen Leisz, Nathan Mueller, Edwin Chong: “Geospatial Data and High Tech Innovation to Address Agricultural and Rural Livelihood Challenges in Mainland Southeast Asia”

Caitlin Mothes, Sara Bombaci, Liba Pejchar: “Aligning Biodiversity Conservation and Social and Environmental Justice Initiatives Through the Development of a Landscape Connectivity Pipeline”

Jesse Burkhardt, Jeff Pierce, Emily Fischer, Yawen Guan: “Predicting Global Wildfire Smoke Exposure”

Mahmoud Shakouri, Ziyu Jin, Yanlin Guo: “Integrating Advanced Sensor Networks and Artificial Intelligence for Real-Time Monitoring and Durability Assessment of Concrete Infrastructure”

CSU’s Data Science Research Institute (DSRI) is pleased to announce a request for proposals for seed grant funding for DISCOVER: Data Science Integration for Collaborative and Versatile Research

We are seeking multi/inter/transdisciplinary research proposals for building new collaborations in the field of data science with an emphasis on real world applications. The primary objective of this call is to foster new collaborations and position the DSRI affiliate faculty to be competitive for larger scale funding in data science research. In particular, we seek proposals that address established and emerging areas of data science including, but not limited to:

  • Digital humanities.

  • Data driven life sciences.

  • Agriculture and big data.

  • Foundational tools in machine learning and artificial intelligence.

  • Data engineering.

  • High-performance computing for data science.

Approximately $100,000 is available to support research under this call. Awards under this mechanism are expected to range from $15,000 to $50,000. Cost sharing from departments and colleges is highly encouraged with the target 50%-25%-25% (DSRI – college – department).

 

The submission deadline for proposals is Feb. 1, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. MT 

 

For more information, please refer to the complete Request for Proposal pdf here.

Proposal Guidelines pdf
Budget Template Excel Workbook

How to submit a proposal

  1. Go to the CSU InfoReady website found here.
  2. From the opportunities list found at https://colostate.infoready4.com/, locate the “CSU-DSRI DISCOVER” opportunity, and click on the title to open the opportunity page.
  3. From the opportunity page, click “Apply”.
  4. Use your CSU eID and password to log into InfoReady Review.
  5. Complete and upload all required components. You can save your application as a draft prior to submission.
  6. Be sure to submit your application. Applications left as “draft” will not be reviewed.
  7. Please note, the system will not accept applications after 5:00 pm on the due date.

FAQs

Find a list of frequently asked questions regarding different aspects of the DSRI DISCOVER seed grant RFP below. If you have a specific question that isn’t answered, please reach out to Michael Kirby ([email protected]) for more information. 

All projects should have data science as the main topic. Topics that have data science as the central theme but do not fall into one of the outlined data science areas are still encouraged to apply. Novelty and nuance are integral to seed grant opportunities. 

While the full funding range is available to all applications ($15,000 – $50,000) cost sharing is highly encouraged. Cost sharing will enable more projects to be funded and have more funding assigned to each project. 

Collaboration with disciplines that do not traditionally practice data science methods or research is highly encouraged. Using high-performance computing and DSRI’s HPC Riviera are encouraged, but not necessary for the entire project. Investigators should reach out to DSRI with specific questions about HPC usage, access, or introductions. 

All dates AFTER the proposal due date (Feb. 1, 2024 at 5:00 p.m. mst) are anticipated and not final. Projects can deviate slightly from the anticipated dates, but should follow the given timeline closely. Once dates are established for the project, they are final. 

All proposals are required to be new and novel. Existing projects will not be considered for this proposal. 

In InfoReady there is a setting that you can enable a proxy to submit an application on your behalf. If you have any questions on this process, please reach out to Dinaida Egan ([email protected])