December 10, 2025

Please join the Office of Research Development in congratulating the faculty members who have received Fall 2025 Faculty Development Awards and University Small Research Grants. 

Eight Faculty Development Award proposals were awarded funds totaling $19,336. 

The fall 2025 FDA awardees are: 

Nine University Small Research Grant proposals will receive funds totaling $37,272. 

The fall 2025 USRG awardees are: 

Congratulations to all awardees! 

Faculty Development Awards and University Small Research Grants are awarded each fall and spring by the Office of the Vice President for Research through the Office of Research Development. 

Faculty Development Awards support travel expenses to present research, scholarly or creative work or a performance at an international meeting or to visit an external funder or sponsor. University Small Research Grants are seed grants to support small research projects, scholarly activity, and other creative efforts. Both programs are meant to catalyze a faculty member's RSCAD career success. As such, new faculty and faculty from disciplines with minimal outside support are given priority for both awards, as are trips or projects that enhance awardees' abilities to compete for extramural funding. All proposals are peer-reviewed and discussed in a panel. Unsuccessful applicants are given feedback on how to improve their proposals. 

The FDA and USRG reviewers were Mary Lou Marino, Office of Research Development; Ramasamy Sakthivel, Office of Research Development; Gina Becker, Office of Research Development; Rebecca Bender, Modern Languages; Anthony Ferraro, Health and Human Services; Jon Hunt, Architecture, Planning and Design; Craig McGill, Special Education, Counseling and Student Affairs; Tom Sarmiento, English; Joel Spencer, Geology; and Shirley Tung, English. The contributions of the reviewers are highly appreciated.  

Kansas Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol is an annual event where undergraduate students from the state’s public universities present their research to legislators and state officials through a poster session. Showcasing projects from a wide range of disciplines, the event highlights the valuable role of undergraduate research in addressing issues important to Kansas and demonstrates how higher education contributes to the state’s civic, economic, and community development. Each university may select up to five outstanding projects to represent their institution.
 
The 2026 Kansas Undergraduate Research Day at the Capitol will be February 26, 2026 from 2-4pm in the 2nd Floor Rotunda.

Applications are now open and available here.

The deadline for applying is January 26, 2026 at midnight.

The University Award for Distinguished Undergraduate Student in Research has been established to recognize outstanding individual contributions in research for the purpose of the discovery and creation of new knowledge at K-State. The award is for an undergraduate student who has demonstrated excellence in research in any field of study.
Nominations are now being accepted for the 2026 Distinguished Undergraduate Student in Research Award.

The Distinguished Undergraduate Student in Research Award recipient will receive an engraved plaque and prize of $1,000.00. This award will be presented at the Spring Campus-Wide Undergraduate Research Symposium, held on Thursday, April 23, 2026.

Students who are eligible for this award may be nominated by KSU faculty, students, staff, or administrators. Any questions can be directed to the Scholar Development and Undergraduate Research team at SDUR@k-state.edu.

More information and the link to nominate can be found here.

Finalists for this award will be invited for an interview. The deadline for nominations is February 15, 2026.

The University Distinguished Faculty Award for Mentoring of Undergraduate Students in Research has been established to recognize outstanding individual contributions to the development of undergraduates in research projects at Kansas State University. Nominations are now being accepted for the 2026 University Distinguished Faculty Award for Mentoring of Undergraduate Students in Research.

The University Distinguished Faculty Award for Mentoring of Undergraduate Students in Research recipient will be awarded a plaque and prize of $4,000.00. This award will be presented at the Spring Campus-Wide Undergraduate Research Symposium, held on Thursday, April 23, 2026.

Faculty who are eligible for this award may be nominated by K-State faculty, students, staff or administrators. Any questions can be directed to the Scholar Development and Undergraduate Research team at SDUR@k-state.edu.

More details about the awards and the nomination form are available here.

The deadline for nominations is February 15, 2026.

Registration for the Spring Undergraduate Research Symposium is now open! The Symposium offers undergraduate students a valuable opportunity to showcase their research and to practice communicating their findings to a broad audience.  This year the symposium will be part of One K-State Research Week (April 17-24).

This year’s Symposium will be held on Thursday, April 23rd, 2026 with registration open from now until March 27, 2026.

Registration can be found here. 

NSF webinars & office hours:

If you would like to serve as a reviewer and panelist for proposals submitted to the U.S. National Science Foundation’s Test Bed: Toward a Network of Programmable Cloud Laboratories (PCL Test Bed), please complete the reviewer interest survey. Responses are due no later than Dec. 15, 2025. Please share this form with interested colleagues.

Complete the reviewer interest survey here.

The PCL Test Bed supports the development and operation of a national network of AI-powered, remotely accessible laboratories to accelerate scientific discovery, enhance reproducibility and improve access to advanced research tools in science and engineering. For more information about PCL Test Bed, please review the program solicitation. 

If you would like to serve as a reviewer and panelist for proposals submitted to track 2 of the U.S. National Science Foundation Verticals-enabling Intelligent Network Systems (NSF VINES) program, please complete the reviewer interest survey. Responses are due no later than Jan. 9, 2026. Please share this form with interested colleagues.  

Complete the reviewer survey here.

The NSF VINES program supports research and innovation to enhance wireless communications and intelligent network systems for faster, more reliable user-to-cloud connections, while promoting U.S. leadership in telecommunications and emerging potential NextG vertical industries. For more information about NSF VINES, please review the program solicitation. 

The U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (NSF TIP) recently published a Roadmap for Workforce Development: Building Pathways and Innovations for the Critical and Emerging Technology Workforce (Workforce Development Roadmap) that aims to offer an actionable agenda to invigorate and empower the ambition of all Americans to join the workforce in critical and emerging technology sectors, including artificial intelligence, biotechnology and quantum technology, or related jobs. NSF TIP is seeking community input on the Workforce Development Roadmap.

As advances in critical and emerging technologies continue to rapidly expand and traditional industries adopt new technologies, the demand for a skilled or semi-skilled technical workforce is increasing across all economic sectors. Addressing the gap between the demand for, and the availability of, a labor force requires bold investment in workforce development that prepares individuals for higher-skill, higher-paying jobs that enhance economic mobility. The Workforce Development Roadmap lays out an investment framework to address this need through cross-sector collaborations and partnerships, innovative community-specific solutions, and expanded access to experiential learning and other training pathways.

NSF seeks input from individuals and organizations across all sectors on the Workforce Development Roadmap. Responses will be accepted until Jan. 15, 2026, in the Workforce Development Roadmap form, by emailing TIPWorkforce@nsf.gov, or by mailing your response to the attention of Mary Crowe, 2415 Eisenhower Avenue, Alexandria, VA 22314, USA. Respondents can choose to provide feedback on one or more questions of interest or relevance to them. Each question is voluntary and optional. The response to each question has a 4,000-character limit, including spaces.

New deadlines are posted for the Agriculture and Food Research Initiative (AFRI) Competitive Grants Program Foundational and Applied Science (FAS) Program Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) to ensure that potential applicants can get technical assistance from NIFA staff. Please do not submit a duplicate application if one was already submitted if there are no changes. If an application has already been submitted and the applicant was not able to receive technical assistance from NIFA staff, the applicant may revise and resubmit prior to the new deadline. If an applicant did not submit an application, they may submit prior to the new deadline.

Learn more.

NIH is working to reestablish dates for grant and contract submissions, determine how to communicate details related to missed review meetings, reschedule dates for training, and other activities that were scheduled to occur during and immediately following the period of the government shutdown.

As of today, NIH can confirm that they will be rescheduling all October and November grant application submission deadlines (specific dates to be announced in a future Notice). By delaying due dates that occurred both during the lapse in funding and in the week following, applicants will have access to NIH staff and the help desks as they develop their applications.

Peer review meetings that were scheduled to take place between October 1 and November 14 have been cancelled and will be rescheduled, details to come. Additionally, council meetings that were scheduled to take place between October 1 and November 14 were cancelled and will be rescheduled, details to come.

During the shutdown, the eRA system remained open and available to accept application submissions. As such, eRA is currently reviewing service desk ticket requests from entities and individuals that needed assistance with login and passwords. eRA staff will address the tickets on a first come, first serve basis. Please note that due to the volume the response time may be longer than usual.

The eRA system was also available for recipients to submit Research Performance and Progress Reports, Federal Financial Reports, etc. The email reminders and submission confirmations were held and will be sent out in the coming weeks. If you submitted any reports during this time, no additional action is required unless you are contacted by NIH staff.

NIH will provide additional information, including a Notice on NIH operations during a continuing resolution, as soon as it is available.

Read the full memo.

NSF is now operating under a continuing resolution that runs until January 30, 2026.

They are prioritizing the most pressing issues, including restoring the capacity to make awards and ensuring continued management and oversight of existing awards. 

Please visit the recently updated Resumption of Operations at NSF page on NSF.gov for information and answers to frequently asked questions.

Registration for the 2026 ARPA-E Energy Innovation Summit is officially open. The 2026 Summit will take place April 7-9 at the newly opened Gaylord Pacific Resort & Convention Center in San Diego, CA. Don’t miss the opportunity to make the most of America’s premier energy innovation event. 

We all know that, one way or another, energy affects every part of human existence, and its absence can have the hardest impact of all. ARPA-E and our partners in energy innovation are here to ensure the energy we need to survive and thrive is affordable, reliable, and secure.

Join nearly 3,000 leaders in energy innovation for three days of working together to overcome the toughest energy challenges facing the world today. The agenda will include expert-led breakout panels, the fan-favorite ARPA-E Fast Pitches, and the Technology Showcase featuring over 400 groundbreaking ARPA-E-funded technologies.

Visit the Summit Website for more information about registration, partnership opportunities, and the Summit agenda. 

Frontiers plays a critical role in educating and training researchers through comprehensive education and training programming in a wide variety of settings and for the full spectrum of learners. While the primary focus of this core is providing education on how to conduct and advance translational research, additional training in entrepreneurship, implementation and dissemination research, engaging with participants and communities, informatics, and participant recruitment is also available to trainees, scholars, faculty and collaborators.

Education and Trainings include:

- 2026 – 2027 TL1 Predoctoral
- Mock Study Sections
- Frontiers CTSI Annual Research Symposium

More information along with dates and deadlines can be found here.