August 27, 2025

Welcome to the new semester!

Summer offered a time to recharge, but the Office of the Vice President for Research remained busy — settling into new spaces, improving processes and keeping pace with shifts in federal funding.

While the funding landscape will likely continue to bring challenges, I am confident in the resilience and creativity of our faculty and staff. Through collaboration, creativity and renewed energy, we will continue to advance our research goals and strengthen our status as a next-generation land-grant university.

Thank you for your dedication and partnership. I look forward to all that we will accomplish together this year.

Kind regards,

-Hans

Please join us in celebrating the retirement of Julie Johnson, who has served as an Assistant Vice President for Research Compliance as well as the Responsible Official for Select Agents and Biological Safety Officer for the Biosecurity Research Institute. Throughout her career at Kansas State University, Julie has provided invaluable expertise, leadership, and dedication in support of research safety and compliance. Her work has strengthened the university’s research enterprise and left a lasting impact on our community.

A retirement reception will be held on Wednesday, September 3 from 3:00 pm to 4:30 pm, in the Tointon Great Room at the K-State Alumni Center. Remarks will be given at 3:30 pm. This will be an opportunity to recognize Julie’s many contributions and to wish her well in the next chapter of her life.

We hope you can join us in honoring Julie and celebrating her years of service to K-State.

This fall, the Office of the Vice President for Research is excited to continue hosting our monthly networking poster sessions for K-State researchers. Faculty can enjoy light refreshments and wine while discussing ongoing research and projects. 

The first session will take place from 4-6 p.m. September 11, 2025, on the 5th floor of Hale Library. The focus of this event is enabling technologies, a core area of Next Gen K-State's Opportunity Agenda. 

Register to attend or display your research poster during one of the fall 2025 sessions.

Please note the recommended poster size is 36x48 inches. We cannot guarantee optimal poster display outside of these dimensions.

Learn more about the event series.

NSF webinars & office hours:

As required under Executive Order 14303 dated May 23, 2025, federal grant funding agencies are required to publish their respective implementation of the Office of Science and Technology Policy's “Gold Standard Science” principles.

As of August 26, 2025, two agencies have released their guidance.

• The National Science Foundation (NSF) has published its implementation guidance here.
• The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published its implementation guidance here.

On July 8, 2025, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, or USDA, implemented new research security directives as part of the “America First Memorandum for USDA Arrangements and Research Security.”   These directives establish compliance obligations for all USDA-funded research activities, particularly those involving international collaborations or foreign nationals.

Compliance obligations include:

Research Security Training: All covered individuals must complete research security training not more than one year prior to the date of application. This training must be recertified annually for the duration of the award. 

Covered individuals include principal investigators, project directors, co-principal investigators, and any individuals who contribute significantly to the development or execution of a project funded by the USDA. 

Malign Foreign Talent Recruitment Programs: Individuals must certify that they are not participating in any malign foreign talent recruitment programs. This certification must also be renewed annually during the period of the award. 

The new policies require a thorough review of existing research collaborations with foreign entities and impose new procedural considerations for future foreign collaborations.

Kansas State University offers research security training to help covered individuals fulfill these requirements.  The training, titled “Research Security Training (Combined),” is available through CITI.  For more information about accessing the CITI training, please see our CITI training page.

Thursday, Aug. 28, 2025

Please join the U.S. National Science Foundation "Preparing Your Translation to Practice (NSF TTP) Proposal" virtual question and answer session. 

In this webinar, NSF program officers will address questions on submitting a proposal to the NSF TTP program. The NSF TTP solicitation has a deadline that closes on Sept. 16, 2025, and again on Jan. 20, 2026.

Register here.

Thursday, August 28, 2025

During this office hour, the IIS program staff will talk about the newly released Computer and Information Science and Engineering Core Solicitation: The Future of Computing NSF 25-543. The IIS Office Hours are for researchers interested in learning about programs and policies in the Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) in the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate (CISE) at NSF. Office Hours are designed to give current and potential investigators a window into IIS. Attendance at office hours is voluntary and designed to help investigators gain information that can help them strengthen their proposals. Sessions will be closed-captioned.

Please note that the office hours are designed to answer questions for a broad range of researchers and not inquiries about specific proposals. If you would like to talk about a specific proposal you are considering submitting or which was already reviewed, please email the relevant program. This will connect you with program officers with whom you can ask questions.

Register in advance for this webinar.

The U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science is pleased to announce that the Office of Science Graduate Student Research (SCGSR) program is now accepting applications for the 2025 solicitation 2 cycle. The SCGSR program provides supplemental awards to outstanding U.S. graduate students for conducting part of their graduate thesis research at a DOE national laboratory in collaboration with a DOE national laboratory scientist. The goal of the program is to prepare graduate students for scientific and technical careers critically important to the mission of DOE’s Office of Science. The research opportunity will advance the graduate students’ overall graduate theses while providing access to the expertise, resources, and capabilities available at the host DOE national laboratories. In addition, SCGSR awardees may have the opportunity for short international research visits to select prestigious centers to broaden their horizons.

SCGSR application assistance workshops will be held on September 11, 2025, (register on Zoom for the first workshop) and October 9, 2025, (register on Zoom for the second workshop). The first workshop will provide a general overview of the program and application requirements. It will also include time for attendees to discuss their potential research topics and their alignment with the SCGSR priority areas with managers of each participating program office. At the second workshop, staff members will guide attendees through the application process, answer general questions, provide guidance on proposal writing, and lead discussions with scientists and former awardees. Additionally, the program manager will host virtual office hours every Friday starting on September 26, 2025 via this Zoom link.

Students will perform graduate theses research at U.S. Department of Energy national laboratories. Applications are due on Wednesday, November 5, 2025.

This four-week virtual course is designed to help faculty shift their mindset around research funding and explore sustainable, alternative strategies beyond large federal grants. Through guided content, live coaching, and a supportive peer community, participants learn how to identify diverse funding sources, reframe their research for new audiences, and build actionable plans that align with their institutional goals and academic mission.

Whether you’re facing budget cuts, working in a discipline with limited grant options, or seeking a more practical funding approach, this course will help you move from uncertainty to clarity and momentum.

The first course starts October 6, 2025. Register now for $495. Please note, K-State will not cover attendance costs.

NIH will begin accepting applications for the Extramural Loan Repayment Program (LRP) on September 1, 2025. Awardees can receive up to $100,000 in qualified educational debt repayment with a two-year award.

To learn more about eligibility requirements, application dates, and the benefits of receiving an LRP award, be sure to visit the LRP website, check out our overview video, and attend one of our upcoming events:

October 7, 2025 – LRP Technical Assistance Webinar

November 6, 2025 – LRP Ask Me Anything Session

Please note that the deadline to apply is November 20, 2025.

The U.S. National Science Foundation announced a pilot to accelerate the translation of emerging technologies for national security applications. This pilot will identify and advance promising research and develop associated talent pipelines, with a focus on specific regions of the country.

The multiyear initiative will be led by LMI (NSF Award # 2530262), doing business as NobleReach Foundation, through its Science to Venture platform and will engage two NSF Innovation I-Corps (NSF I-Corps™) Hubs. The hubs will be structured around four pillars: commercialization assistance, local capability building, talent network development and capital catalyzation. NSF will invest in end-to-end support spanning rigorous portfolio analysis and tailored roadmaps for high-potential university technologies; train-the-trainer curricula and toolkits that institutionalize proven commercialization methods; pathways linking entrepreneurs, mentors and subject-matter experts to research teams; and a blended capital strategy that crowds in philanthropic, public and private investments to de-risk early translation stages.

Read the full announcement here.