North Dakota NASA EPSCoR is currently funded ($375,000; $125,000/year) through a NASA Research Infrastructure Development (RID) grant. This RID grant is funded from May 1, 2007 through April 30, 2010. This RID grant includes three main components that include:

1. Seed grants. Faculty from North Dakota's research universities (UND and NDSU) are eligible to submit NASA-relevant seed grant proposals to this program. A seed grant is designed to give a PI initial funding for a research topic that is relevant to NASA and its strategic objectives. The goal is for the research to mature so the PI can submit a competitive proposal to one of NASA's regular grant programs (http://nspires.nasaprs.com/external/
2. Graduate student research. UND and NDSU faculty can also submit proposals to fund one or more graduate students. This is a typical GRA-style award and provides funding for NASA-related research, often associated with a faculty project. A tuition waiver is not included with this award.
3. Travel grant. A small amount of funding is available for faculty travel to NASA field centers and/or NASA-related conferences. The goal of this funding is to encourage North Dakota faculty to collaborate directly with NASA researchers in the development of future research proposals.

Requests for Proposals (RFPs) for the three grants are issued every August to the UND and NDSU communities. Announcements will be made in a variety of ways at each university as well as on this web site. Award lengths are typically 9 or 12 months and must be completed by the end of August of the following year.

Research Focus Areas: (RFAs. ND NASA EPSCoR encourages faculty to submit proposals that align with this program's RFAs, which currently include: 1) astronomical/planetary science research, and 2) planetary space suit research. The purpose of the RFAs is to promote faculty research that will lead to long-term and sustainable research efforts that attract significant amounts of NASA funding to North Dakota.

1. Astronomical/planetary science research - UND has a growing expertise in asteroid near-infrared spectroscopic research and has attracted ~$750,000 in NASA research funding to North Dakota since 2004. In addition, the UND Observatory is being upgraded with multiple Internet-controllable optical and radio telescopes that offers new research infrastructure to both faculty and students. Solar astronomy is also another emerging research area at UND. PIs are encouraged to participate in similar research efforts or to propose research programs in other areas of astronomy and planetary science. This RFA supports the activities of NASA's Science Mission Directorate and Strategic Goal #3 of the 2006 NASA Strategic Plan.
2. Planetary space suit research. In conjunction with the North Dakota Space Grant Consortium, planetary space suit research has been a developing research focus in North Dakota since 2005. This research is directly relevant to NASA's Vision for Space Exploration and applies to future lunar and Martian human exploration. This work is also consistent with Strategic Goals #4 and #6 of the 2006 NASA Strategic Plan. We strongly encourage new PI's to become a part of this effort via either collaborative or new research endeavors.

The long-term goal of North Dakota NASA EPSCoR is to develop four or five RFAs that will significantly expand in North Dakota, in terms of NASA funding, institutional expertise, and graduate student participation. If you are a faculty at UND or NDSU, contact Dr. Paul S. Hardersen at (701) 777-4896 if you have any ideas or suggestions about future RFAs.