Education, Outreach and Communication

EDUCATION, OUTREACH
and COMMUNICATION

Extending Science and Technology
Education Across Kentucky

We provide support funding for individuals and organizations across the state seeking to engage students and citizens in Advanced Manufacturing STEM topics.

Download Application Forms

Help spread the message of STEM.

KY NSF EPSCoR provides funding to support STEM Education, Outreach and Communication events and activities across Kentucky.

$10,000
max request

Supports Advanced Manufacturing
Outreach

Synopsis

Program Description

KY NSF EPSCoR Grants and Awards are intended to support high-risk, high reward projects that increase the number and diversity of STEM-skilled students and worker pipeline in Kentucky, with emphasis on Additive Manufacturing, AgriTech, and Robotics. KY NSF EPSCoR Seed-Funding is part of the NSF EPSCoR RII Track-1 Award: Kentucky Advanced Manufacturing Partnership for Enhanced Robotics and Structures, Cooperative Agreement No. 1849213.

Education, Outreach and Communication (EOC) Grants provide seed-funding of up to $10,000 to execute state-level STEM programming for K-12 students, educators, and administrators related to KY NSF EPSCoR Advanced Manufacturing research initiatives. EOC funding can be used to support workshops, conferences, professional development, after-school programming, curriculum development, virtual training and demonstrations, camps, and more. It is a prerequisite that proposing EOC projects align to KY NSF EPSCoR’s Advanced Manufacturing theme.

The work supported by an EOC must be aligned with KY NSF EPSCoR’s current KY NSF EPSCoR research themes. EOC applicants are required to submit a statement on how the majority of proposed programming will relate to one or more of the following topics:

Additive Manufacturing
Sensing
Robotics
Plant-Based Materials
Workforce Development

A Note on Hosting Events: If you are proposing supporting a conference, workshop, symposium or other similar meeting with an EPSCoR EOC award, please be advised that you will need to disclose within the project description and budget justification of your application:

if there are any other pending or committed sources of financial support for the activity, and if so, identify and differentiate specifically what each source would pay for, and
indicate if you anticipate collecting a registration fee.

Eligibility

Individuals and collaborative groups at Kentucky’s private and public academic institutions, as well as Science & Technology businesses and non-profits with an operating presence in Kentucky are eligible to submit proposals. Void where prohibited.

Each institution that applies for financial assistance from the KY NSF EPSCoR must have a formal institutional plan to provide appropriate training and oversight in the responsible and ethical conduct of research (RCR) for all paid participants in the proposed research project. KY NSF EPSCoR must receive certification that participants on supported project have completed appropriate training consistent with their established institutional policies.

Any proposal submitted to KY NSF EPSCoR and declined for funding can be modified and resubmitted the following grant year but if declined more than once, cannot be submitted again.

Submission of Proposal

To Submit a Proposal upload the following:

The proposed budget as a Microsoft Excel spreadsheet (.xlsx extension only)
A combined PDF file of the complete proposal
- Proposals should be submitted electronically as a single complete pdf document with any graphics embedded in the document no larger than 25MB and should adhere to the following order: (1) Cover Sheet (2) Project Summary (3) Project Description (4) Budget (5) Budget Justification (6) Current & Pending Support (7) Biosketch.

Important Dates

Proposals Due: 11:59 PM EST, May 15, 2021

Awards Announced: June 1, 2021

Award Year: July 1, 2021 – June 30, 2022

General Terms & Conditions

Restrictions

Only one proposal per investigator per program per year.

Foreign travel cannot be proposed.

Requests for computers cannot be proposed.

Requests for SWAG items such as t-shirts, gifts, souvenirs, and other memorabilia cannot be proposed.

Funds cannot be awarded for time beyond KY NSF EPSCoR’s Award Year.

Funds may not be used for more than one month of faculty salary support.

Applications to all EPSCoR programs can include requests for federally-negotiated institutional F&A/indirect costs. Maximum budget request amounts indicated apply to direct costs. F&A costs can be added to these direct cost maximums.

Review Criteria

Proposals will be reviewed by a committee including representatives from the KY NSF EPSCoR Central Office, plus research faculty with relevant expertise. When evaluating proposals, KY NSF EPSCoR reviewers will be asked to consider what the proposers want to do, why they want to do it, how they plan to do it, how they will know if they succeed, and what benefits could accrue if the project is successful. These issues apply both to the technical aspects of the proposal and the way in which the project may make broader contributions. View our rubric here

Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts are the two merit review criteria that NSF expects proposers to fully address in their proposals. The definitions of the two criteria, as noted in NSF PAPPG Ch. III Section A, are listed below:

Intellectual Merit: The potential to advance knowledge, and
Broader Impacts: The potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes

Reporting Requirements

KY NFS EPSCoR must comply with NSF EPSCoR reporting requirements. Therefore, each awardee will be required to comply with expenditure report deadlines and submit a narrative outcomes report to the central office once the project is complete. Awardee PI and students can fill out the required reports here: KY NSF EPSCoR Reporting Documents 1 – 4.