May Newsletter

New Ideas Open Doors

The weather may be cooling down, but the summer funding cycle is just beginning to heat up. This months newsletter will feature upcoming deadlines and updates in the grant world. As many of you know, old debates have surfaced on Capitol Hill about social science research. WIPAR is committed to bringing you updates about

how these chances may impact your funding searches.

As always, please let us know how we may assist you.

Happy Grading!

The Team at WIPAR

Another Wonderful Semester Coming to an End

Upcoming DeadlinesWilliam T. Grant Research GrantsDeadline: May 5, 2015Click Here for More Information

National Institute of JusticeResearch and Evaluation on Trafficking in PersonsDeadline: May 27, 2015Click Here for More Information

Funding Opportunities National Institute of Justice Research and Evaluation on Victims of Crime Deadline: June 26, 2015Click Here for More Information

Global Studies Foundation Faculty Travel Grants Deadline: July 1, 2015Click Here for More Information

National Endowment for Financial Education Grant Program Deadline: June 2, 2015Click Here for More Information

House Committee Planning Budget Cuts to Social SciencesWhile the NSF will see an overall increase in funding this year from the U.S. Government, the SBE could take a critical hit during 2016 funding cycles. A new funding bill, titled the America COMPETES Act, was introduced after a more than five-hour drafting session in the House Science, Space and Tech-nology Committee.

The COMPETES Act increases NSF’s funding by $253 million, bringing it to a total of $7.6 billion over-all, but the legislation proposes redistribute new and current funding towards its STEM-oriented divi-sions. The bill adds more than $100 million each to the offices for biology, computing, engineering, and math and physical sciences.

The COMPETES Act also sets suggested funding levels for the NIST, and the DOE-S, and affects fund-ing budgets for climate and energy research.

While the 2015 version does not explicitly attack the NSF grant-making process, it does include a new policy provision that would require the science foundation to issue a written explanation of how a grant award meets national interest.

The bill has yet to be voted on in the House.

Academics are finding an Ally in Crowd-funding Ventures as Research Budgets Continue to Shrink. Although the money being raised through crowdfunding sites such as Kickstarter and GoFund-Me are only a portion of the $435 billion spent on research and development in the U.S., more researchers are scientists are turning to academically-oriented crowdfunding sites like Experiment.com, Petridish.org, and RocketHub.com with their universi-ty’s permission.

This growing asset is helping academics and scientists in underfunded areas of research like social science and geology. However, the growing popularity of crowdfunding raises concerns about oversight and standards for data collection and protocols. There are also questions about how to regulate projects that fall under a variety of potential classifications such as genetic modi-fication or drone building.

Yet, academics say crowdfunding is becoming more relevant to the industry, and helps young, new researchers find funding as government resources become harder to acquire. In the 1960s, the government supported two-thirds of the country’s research and development. Present day statistics say that funding has shrunk to one-third overall— with companies, philanthropic or-ganizations and other private sources making up the remainder of the market. With the help of crowdfunding, researchers may now be able to more adequately pull funding money into their programs.