The Center for Emergent Materials, Ohio State’s NSF MRSEC program, is beginning the renewal process and is considering IRGs to be included. This is a collaborative effort, and mandatory IRG presentations will take place during the Electronic and Magnetic Nanoscale Composite Multifunctional Materials (ENCOMM) meeting times in November and December.
If your research group is considering putting together a potential Interdisciplinary Research Group (IRG), please read about the process below and visit CEM’s website here: http://cem.osu.edu/news/cem-renewal-proposal-identifying-interdisciplinary-research-groups/
The message below was sent out in early October from the Directors of the Center for Emergent Materials (CEM), the Electronic and Magnetic Nanoscale Composite Multifunctional Materials (ENCOMM) and the Institute for Materials Research (IMR) regarding the upcoming renewal process for the CEM, Ohio State’s NSF MRSEC program.
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The CEM, currently composed of two IRGs, has just completed four years of its six year term; it is now time to start preparing a proposal for a second six-year cycle of funding. The Ohio State materials community has the breadth to generate a compelling proposal for a Center larger than our current composition; we envision proposing up to four IRGs for the renewed Center.
We anticipate that the white paper for this competition will be due in one year, so now is the time to begin working toward identifying and building the IRGs that we will propose. We find that one of the most challenging aspects of putting together a successful IRG proposal is forming a team that meets the MRSEC programs expectations: researchers collaborating to conduct cutting-edge research of such scale and complexity that it can only be accomplished in a center environment.
CEM’s renewal process, which we emphasize is separate from the proto-IRG or other seed funding competition, will commence in October 2012 with presentations to the materials community by prospective IRGs in which they outline their proposed scientific project. These presentations will take place during the ENCOMM meetings to be held Wednesday afternoons from 4:15-5:15 in PRB 4138. These meetings will run through the end of the calendar year. Proposals to be one of the IRGs that comprise the eventual NSF proposal will be due to the CEM on January 4, 2013. (Proposals will be submitted to Stephanie Arend, arend.24@osu.edu; more details on the proposal process will be available on the CEM website soon.)
The goals of these meetings will be to help teams identify and recruit key team members, provide feedback on the proposed project goals, scientific approach and team composition, and to make them more competitive for the MRSEC program.
We encourage prospective IRGs to start preparing immediately, and to contact Amanda Zuurdeeg at zuurdeeg.3@osu.edu to schedule a date for the presentation. Please don’t hesitate to contact me (hammel@physics.osu.edu) if you have questions.
As we are using multiple listservs to ensure broad dissemination you may receive more than one copy of this email. We apologize if so.
Best regards,
Chris Hammel, CEM Director
Zeke Johnston-Halperin, ENCOMM Director
Steve Ringel, IMR Director