Program News and Announcements

22 May 2024

ROSES-24: F.19 Research Initiation Awards Final Text and Due Date

F.19 Research Initiation Awards (RIA) aims to broaden the base of institutions involved in the NASA’s science mission directorate (SMD) research and technology development ecosystem. The program has two principal objectives:

1. Enable investigators with no prior or recent research funding to pursue research at institutions underrepresented in the SMD ecosystem to initiate activities that, over the course of a two-year period, will provide the foundation for a competitive, sustainable, and productive program of research.
2. Enable undergraduate students affiliated with the proposing investigator to perform cutting-edge research in an SMD-relevant field. Funding for undergraduate students is a required element of the proposed project.

RIA has the following eligibility requirements:

• The proposing institution may not be a “Doctoral University with Very High Research Activity” (i.e., an R1 institution) according to the Carnegie Classification guide.
• Second, the principal investigator (PI) may not have received federal funding as PI of a project that is related to the proposed research activities within the last five years (with exceptions described in Section 2.2).

RIA proposals must be relevant to SMD research goals. The proposed candidate investigation(s) may be analytical, experimental, observational, computational, theoretical, or use data analytical approaches. An RIA award, including indirect costs, must not exceed $300,000 for a duration of 24 months, and the funding may be split in uneven amounts for each of the two years. This program will evaluate proposals using dual-anonymous peer review.

Proposals are due 15 August 2024. A proposer's overview webinar is scheduled for 6 June 2024, from 1p – 2:30p Eastern (10a – 11:30a Pacific). Those who register beforehand will receive a Zoom calendar invitation that will be updated with connection information. To submit questions prior or during the webinar, please register for the event and use the event’s Q&A dashboard to submit and upvote questions anonymously

Please direct any questions concerning F.19 RIA to Maggie Yancey at hq-smd-ria@mail.nasa.gov.