Proposals

Biological Risks – Operational Decision Support

The agriculture and food supply chain is an infrastructure and organizational backbone that includes complex production, processing, and dense transportation network with millions of distribution points providing food, medicine, and other products to U.S. costumers. With a multitude of animal and plant pathogenic organisms and diseases emerging and re-emerging worldwide, characterizing and visualizing accidental/intentional introduction of these threats; and, prioritizing the risk from these threats through trade and travel are imperative. Therefore, CBTS is issuing this call for white papers for research and development of data-mining algorithms, machine translation, deep learning, artificial intelligence, and other information technology tools to better contextualize, characterize, and visualize emerging biothreats where they intersect with U.S. supply chains. 

White paper goals, paper formatting requirements, review criteria, and funding limitations are outlined in the Call for Proposals, Biological Risks – Operational Decision Support. Applicants should submit a proposal of no more than seven pages, single spaced, including references, tables, graphs, and other supplementary material, in PDF format by 11:59PM CST on Wednesday, March 10, 2021. Each proposal should describe the research question to be studied, the data and methods to be used, and the composition of the research team that will be carrying out the project, along with a conflict-of-interest statement describing any financial or other interests of the research team that might bear on the proposed work. Proposals from early-career researchers and under-represented groups are especially welcome.  

Proposals should be emailed (file size no larger than 24 MB) to cbts@ag.tamu.edu.  

Investigators should also review the CBTS Proposal Guide. This document contains more detailed information regarding proposal format, evaluation criteria, flow down clauses, and eligibility requirements. Awards are up to $250,000 per year in total costs (two year maximum), to include investigator salary support, graduate student support, and indirect costs.

Necessary Documents

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Economics of Supply Chain Risk (CLOSED)

This solicitation is currently closed.

To promote research on the determinants and effects of lengthy global supply chains, which often span several continents, the CBTS is carrying out a research project on “The Economics of Supply Chain Risk” in collaboration with the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER)  This initiative will bring together researchers in various subfields of economics – international trade, industrial organization, labor economics, organization economics, productivity economics, and regulation — to study issues of current importance and to frame the future research agenda.

This initiative will support up to eight distinct research projects on global supply chain risk.  Studies of industries that support the National Critical Functions (NCFs) that have been identified by DHS are of particular interest. These functions, which involve supply, distribution, management, and connection in a number of industries, are described here:

https://www.cisa.gov/sites/default/files/publications/national-critical-functions-set-508.pdf

Topics are in the Call for Proposals, Economics of Supply Chain Risk. Researchers interested in studying these topics, or others that relate to supply-chain risk, should submit a proposal of no more than five pages, single spaced, including references, tables, graphs, and other supplementary material, in PDF format by 11:59pm EST on Wednesday, December 2, 2020.  

Each proposal should describe the research question to be studied, the data and methods to be used, and the composition of the research team that will be carrying out the project, along with a conflict of interest statement describing any financial or other interests of the research team that might bear on the proposed work. The Call for Proposals (see link below) provides more details and examples of potential research topics. White Paper Templates (see link below) are provided on the CBTS website. Proposals from early-career researchers from members of under-represented groups are especially welcome.  

To Apply to CBTS:

Investigators applying for CBTS funding should refer to the CBTS website and in particular, review the CBTS Proposal Guide (see link below) and use the White Paper Template (see link below). These documents contain detailed information regarding proposal format, evaluation criteria, flow-down clauses, and eligibility requirements.

CBTS will provide support through sub-awards of up to $60,000, including indirect costs, to recipients’ institutions. CBTS may accept proposals from accredited U.S. higher education institutions, for-profit organizations, and organizations that meet the definition of a non-profit entity in OMB Circular A-122, excluding those described in section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code that engage in lobbying activities. It may not support proposals from federal government agencies or federally-funded Research and Development Centers.

Proposals should be sent by email (file size no larger than 24 MB) to cbts@ag.tamu.edu. Questions about submissions to Texas A&M/CBTS should be directed to Dr. Heather Manley Lillibridge (heather.manley@tamus.edu).

To Apply to NBER:

Investigators and research assistants on NBER-supported projects must be eligible to be paid as NBER employees; the NBER will not make sub-awards. Funding on NBER projects includes direct costs of $15,000 in investigator salary support and $9,000 in graduate student support. NBER grants are net of indirect costs. Proposals should be uploaded to

http://conference.nber.org/confsubmit/backend/cfprop?id=SCRf20p

For those submitting proposals to NBER, questions can be directed to Ms. Elisa Pepe (epepe@nber.org).

Investigators should only apply through the appropriate mechanism, and not through both.  

In addition, please see the “FAQ + Answers” document below for more information.

Necessary Documents