PRE-APPLICATIONS FOR NEW APPLICANTS
Pre-applications will be accepted throughout the year; however, before submission, investigators are encouraged to talk with the Program Manager regarding the appropriateness of the intended research. The process is designed to save effort in preparing a formal project application. Pre-applications are two to three pages of narrative that describe research objectives and approaches, as well as programmatic relevance. No budget information or biographical data need be included; nor is an institutional endorsement necessary. Pre-applications must be submitted to the Energy Biosciences email account (Energy.Biosciences@science.doe.gov) to be considered for FY 2010 funding. Please keep in mind that this is a basic, hypothesis-driven research program, and that only a limited number of pre-proposals will be encouraged for full application submission due to funding constraints.
FY 2010 funding opportunities focus on the Photosynthetic Systems program. In addition to the program description (see “Description” page), five challenges as outlined by the Report of the Basic Energy Sciences Workshop on Solar Energy Utilization provide example areas of emphasis: 1) Understanding and controlling the weak intermolecular forces governing molecular assembly in natural photosynthetic systems; 2) understanding the biological machinery for cofactor insertion into proteins and protein subunit assemblies; 3) adapting combinatorial, directed-evolution and high throughput screening methods to enhance natural photosynthetic system to increase the efficiency of solar fuels production; 4) characterize structural and mechanistic features of natural photosynthetic complexes to identify desirable design motifs; and 5) determine physical and chemical rules that underlie biological mechanisms of repair and photoprotection.
RENEWAL APPLICATIONS FOR FY 2009 FUNDING
Renewal applicants should not submit pre-applications as described above; rather, applicants should submit a full proposal no later than November 14, 2008. Full renewal applications must refer to and follow the submission guidance in the Office of Science annual notice for renewals, Notice 09-02 . Please note: Renewal applications must be submitted via Grants.Gov.
