UPDATE 6/17/13: The deadline for the Letter of Intent has been extended to 5:00 pm Eastern Daylight Time, June 21, 2013. Funding limits have also been clarified. For collaborations between institutions, the DOE-funded team limit is $350,000 per year for applications addressing only the TES and/or RGCM research topics and $500,000 per year for applications addressing the ASR research topics.

On Wednesday, May 15, the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science opened a Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) to accept applications for Office of Biological and Environmental Research (BER) grants for research in support of the Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) Green Ocean Amazon (GOAmazon) field campaign taking place from 2014-2015 in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. Under this FOA, the DOE Atmospheric System Research (ASR), Regional and Global Climate Modeling (RGCM), and Terrestrial Ecosystem Science (TES) programs will support research using data collected as part of GOAmazon to evaluate and improve the representation of these coupled processes in the climate models. The FOA will be listed as DE-FOA-0000919 on the DOE Office of Science announcements website.

In view of the mutual interest in the GOAmazon science goals of both U.S. and Brazilian science agencies, this FOA is coordinated with announcements issued from the Brazilian state research funding agencies FAPEAM (Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Estado do Amazonas, or Amazonas Research Foundation) and FAPESP (Fundação de Apoio à Pesquisa do Estado do São Paulo, or São Paulo Research Foundation). As described in the FOA, applications submitted in response to this FOA must be collaborative with a Brazilian research scientist employed by an institution qualified to submit proposals and receive funding from either FAPEAM or FAPESP. Lab-funded principal investigators may participate as a collaborator using existing lab funding. Applications must be truly collaborative in the conduct of research, including definition of goals, approach, and work plan; separate budgets must be submitted in which the DOE is clearly distinguished from the Brazilian component. This call is coordinated with corresponding calls for proposals on the FAPEAM and FAPESP websites, and the joint collaborative applications must be submitted both to DOE and the applicable Brazilian Foundation(s).

In order to plan for reviews and potential reviewers, a Letter of Intent (LOI) identifying applicants and Brazilian collaborators is requested and highly recommended. The LOI should be submitted by 5:00 PM Eastern time, June 17, 2013. Potential RGCM applicants are highly encouraged to establish teams in collaboration with interested Brazilian investigators eligible for funding from either of the Brazilian foundations.

If you have any questions, please contact me, Renu Joseph (renu.joseph@science.doe.gov).

Renu Joseph