The Scientific Exchange Program (SEP) leverages the latest developments in cross-cutting agricultural priorities, research, and technologies to educate a new generation of agricultural scientist to promote trade, trade policy, trade capacity building, and food security. The collaborative nature of the SEP leadership training and research programs improves agricultural productivity, systems, and processes in partnering emerging market economies through the transfer of new science and agricultural technologies. SEP focuses on a cohort of Fellows who spend up to 12 weeks at the U.S. academic institution (host institution) and work directly with U.S. scientists in their fields. For fiscal year 2024, USDA/FAS is seeking proposals that (1) promote the mentorship and leadership role of women researchers and scientists in food systems and, (2) that strengthen the science and evidence-base for the role and needs of women in food systems, including as it relates to climate change.

• COMMUNITY EMPOWERMENT AWARD – Recognizes an organization that has showcased exemplary leadership in championing diversity, equity, and inclusion within innovative technology and manufacturing innovations spaces.
• EXCELLENCE IN ENGINEERING AWARD – Recognizes an individual engineer’s outstanding contributions to product design, development, or optimization, recognizing their visionary thinking, technical prowess, and unwavering commitment to driving innovation and transformative ideas.
• INNOVATION OF THE YEAR – Recognizes groundbreaking technology that has caused significant disruption within its industry.
• RISING STAR AWARD – Recognizes an early-stage startup for its innovation, creativity, and position as the next great hardtech company to emerge in the region.
• SMALL & MEDIUM-SIZED MANUFACTURER OF THE YEAR – Recognizes a corporation or business that has made an impact on manufacturing through community focused efforts and significant financial investment throughout the region.

The Department of Energy (DOE) announced $15 million in new funding for projects that will advance deployment of technologies critical to achieving net-zero greenhouse gas emissions in the transportation sector. The funding will drive innovation in equitable clean transportation and is aligned with strategies detailed in the U.S. National Blueprint for Transportation Decarbonization. The funding is administered through the Vehicle Technologies Office (VTO) within DOE’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE). Topic areas in VTO’s Fiscal Year (FY) 2024 Technology Integration funding opportunity include:

• Clean Cities Outreach, Engagement, and Technical Assistance
• Training on Zero Emission Vehicle and Infrastructure Technologies for Critical Emergency Response Workers
• Clean Transportation Demonstration and Deployment.

The Solutions for Lasting, Viable Energy Infrastructure Technologies (SOLVE IT) Prize aims to empower communities to identify and implement innovative clean energy solutions in a way that works for their unique needs and challenges. The prize will award competitors with a demonstrated history of productive work with communities. Competitors will work collaboratively with stakeholders interested in community-scale (neighborhood-, town-, or city-scale) planning around clean energy to engage their communities, build a network of support for clean energy or decarbonization projects, and develop plans for carrying out these projects.

We’re a hands-on lab for tech providers, developers, educators, & researchers committed to fostering resilient cities by cross-pollinating ideas, pioneering new technologies, & democratizing data. Are you a start-up, established tech provider, tech developer, researcher, educator, real estate owner or operator? We invite you to join us in the pursuit of sustainable solutions for our cities.

Introducing the nf.c Climate Lab: a semi-annual, no-cost incubator program designed to spark growth for organizations building a healthier planet. The nf.c Climate Lab is an opportunity for climate organizations to learn expert growth marketing strategies for the climate industry while building internal growth marketing capacity for your team. Most importantly, you’ll receive 1:1 consulting support from nf.c (valued at $2,500) at no cost.

The Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Program is designed to encourage development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative approaches to STEM graduate education training. The program seeks proposals that a) explore ways for graduate students in STEM master’s and doctoral degree programs to develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers, or b) support research on the graduate education system and outcomes of systemic interventions and policies. IGE projects are intended to generate the knowledge required for the customization, implementation, and broader adoption of potentially transformative approaches to graduate education. The program supports piloting, testing, and validating novel models or activities and examining systemic innovations with high potential to enrich and extend the knowledge base on effective graduate education approaches. The program addresses both workforce development, emphasizing broad participation, and institutional capacity-building needs in graduate education.

The challenge seeks to support scalable youth-led solutions that:

• Reduce the impacts of climate change, and/or empower others to act on climate change
• Address root causes of the issue
• Demonstrate ability to drive impact and potential to scale
• Collaborate with others to accelerate or broaden impact
• Utilize innovative approaches

They are looking for bold solutions that reduce impacts of climate change and/or empower others to act on climate change. Examples of solutions may include behavioural change, technology solutions or scaling of technology solutions, education, nature-based solutions, community actions or collaborations.

Areas

The solutions should drive impact in at least one of the following areas:

• Actively contribute to carbon reduction, carbon sequestration, and/or the transition to clean, renewable energy
• Support or empower local people who are undertaking climate action to improve their community, strengthen resilience and limit the effects of climate change
• Promote meaningful collaboration across stakeholder groups such as communities, businesses, and governments, to advance climate change solutions and resilience measures
• Support initiatives that develop job skills, improve educational outcomes, and provide access to opportunities within the green economy
• Limit the negative human, environmental, or societal impacts brought on by climate change

Phase 1 of the CPRG program provides flexible support to states, local governments, tribes, and territories regardless of where they are in their climate planning and implementation process. Planning grant recipients are using the funding to design climate action plans that incorporate a variety of measures to reduce GHG emissions from across their economies in six key sectors (electricity generation, industry, transportation, buildings, agriculture/natural and working lands, and waste management).

Oak Ridge National Laboratory will host the second US QIS Summer School facilitated by the US Department of Energy National Quantum Information Science Research Centers from July 15 to 26, 2024.

The summer school is an in-residence learning experience for outstanding graduate and undergraduate students and early-career scientists seeking hands-on experience with quantum science and technology in a laboratory setting. The curriculum will be taught at a graduate level.

Curriculum Topics:

• Topological approaches to quantum computing
• Cold atoms and ion traps
• Error mitigation and error correction
• The current state of the quantum information science field
• Applications of quantum technologies, quantum materials, and quantum sensing

The objective is research, development, and demonstration activities that will yield new communications and control technologies to enhance the security of electric distribution systems. Particularly with respect to the grid’s capability to prevent, detect, and respond to inadvertent and/or malicious disruptions to critical information flows. A demonstration of the developed solution under the evolving system architecture—including changes occurring on the grid edge—needs to be performed to validate electric utility acceptance. A successful demonstration will lend confidence that the innovation will perform as expected, will increase information security on the grid, and will not interfere with the function of the energy delivery control system. Research findings leading to valuable insights and best practices regarding the design, configuration, and use will be broadly shared with the utility community creating a pathway to accelerate deployment.

This funding opportunity announcement (FOA) is being issued by the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy (EERE) Solar Energy Technologies Office (SETO) to invest in innovative research and development (R&D) that accelerates the large-scale development and deployment of solar technologies to support an equitable transition to a decarbonized electricity system by 2035 and decarbonized energy sector by 2050. This Small Innovative Projects in Solar (SIPS) FOA solicits seedling R&D projects for both photovoltaic and concentrating solar thermal power technologies.