2014 Call for R&D Projects at UT Austin

Call for research proposals on Digital Media, Advanced Computing, Mathematics, and Nanotechnology

Deadline: 4 Jul 2014

The UT Austin|Portugal Program (CoLab) has announced its 2014 call for research projects based at The University of Texas at Austin.

➡︎ UPDATE: The projects selected for funding have been announced.

CoLab seeks to enhance Portuguese scientific and technological capacity and to extend international research collaborations of leading Portuguese universities and scientific institutions. These long-term international collaborations are executed in conjunction with UT Austin in four academic areas:

• Digital Media
• Mathematics
• Advanced Computing
• Emerging Technologies (Nanotechnology)

Funding is limited to, and intended for, collaborative research between faculty members and researchers at UT Austin and Portuguese universities.

For complete information, please download the Call for Research Proposals.

This call is a complement to the separate FCT call for R&D projects based in Portugal.

Frequently Asked Questions

1. Principal Investigator (PI) of the project

The PI should be from UT Austin, whereas the co-PI can be from a Portuguese institution.

2. Collaboration between UT Austin and Portuguese institutions

Projects should be a collaborative effort involving researchers at UT Austin and at Portuguese institutions.

3. Budget management and distribution

The PI at UT Austin will manage and distribute the budget according to the project submitted. Although there is no dedicated funding line specifically for Portuguese researchers, part of the budget may be allocated to Portuguese researchers or students to, for example, bring them to UT Austin for short or long-term periods.

4. Limit for proposals submitted

There is no limit on the number of projects per PI at UT Austin or per co-PI in Portugal.

5. Number of PIs and co-PIs

Each project should have no more than two PIs at UT Austin and no more than two co-PIs at Portuguese institutions.

6. Budget

A budget should be included in the application and clearly specify the amount dedicated to each activity. An overhead cost of 26% should be included as well as travel expenses (e.g., flight, accommodation, and per diem). The budget limit of $50K to $100K includes overhead and is for the entire duration of the project. There are no matching funds from the Portuguese institutions; i.e. the grant is intended to support the teams at UT Austin and Portugal.

7. Call open at UT Austin and call open by FCT in Portugal

Both calls are somewhat different in how they are managed. You are welcome to apply for both grants with different (but complementary) proposals, although it is not mandatory to do so. The FCT call exclusively funds researchers from Portuguese institutions partially matched by local funds at UT Austin. The UT Austin call does not result in dedicated funds to partnering Portuguese faculty, although these may be funded by the PI at UT Austin as mentioned in #3 above. The application processes for both calls are different and independent from each other. The deadline for submitting an application is June/24 for the FCT call in Portugal and July/4 for the call at UT Austin.

8. Applications to both calls (FCT and UT Austin)

The submission of identical proposals to both calls is prohibited. The intent is for the proposals for the UT Austin call to be different from those for the FCT call. The proposals can, however, be in complementary areas.

9. Research team

Although the Pi and co-PI should submit detailed CVs, it is not mandatory to include a detailed CV for each team member in the proposal. The name and affiliation of each team member other than the PI and co-PI is sufficient.

10. Course release

This call will not fund release time for faculty from their course duties.

11. Proposal page length

Proposals should be no longer than 5 pages (double-spaced). References and detailed CVs of the PIs and Co-PIs do not count toward this limit.

12. Office of Sponsored Projects

Since the UT Austin|Portugal Program was approved by the OSP and is the funding source for this RFP call, there is no need to submit the proposals to OSP before applying to the call.