Principal Investigator Development in Sustainability Grant

The Principal Investigator Development in Sustainability Grant offers funding for early to mid-career researchers to collaborate across disciplines or industries for 6-12 months. This initiative aims to foster innovation in sustainability through mentorship and training in new research directions. Eligible applicants must hold a faculty position at a U.S. Ph.D.-granting institution and have a sabbatical planned starting in 2025, focusing on green and sustainable chemistry.

Purpose
This award will provide funding to early or mid-career investigators (Associate+) to spend 6-12 months in the laboratory of a private company, a national laboratory, or an academic laboratory in a different institution, with the goal of establishing robust collaborations across industry-academia or across disciplines and taking advantage of the mentorship of a faculty member distinct from their prior mentors.
Description
There is ample evidence that transformative innovations relevant to sustainability require cross-disciplinary collaboration and training, as well as connections between academia and industry. Yet, once a faculty establishes a research group, it becomes challenging to change course and identify opportunities for the application of one’s research when they require knowledge in tangential or sometimes orthogonal fields, such as chemistry and toxicology, synthetic chemistry and synthetic biology, catalysis, and computational chemistry, to name a few. Furthermore, it also becomes challenging to develop robust collaborations with colleagues in industry that allow a two-way exchange of innovation gaps and innovative research products. Such pivots are challenging for multiple reasons, including the fact that faculty would be required to relocate to another facility to acquire the desired training and establish collaborations. To this end, this grant is intended to stimulate and de-risk bold, cross-disciplinary training and collaborations that result in research that is readily applied to sustainability challenges.

Eligibility

Applicants must:Hold a current faculty position at a U.S. Ph.D.-granting institution of higher educationHave a sabbatical planned (not necessarily approved) that will start within 2025Have identified opportunities for a sabbatical position in a company, national lab, or institution other than your own where you will be able to receive training and experience in a new research direction that will allow you to pursue interdisciplinary research and teaching directly related to green and sustainable chemistry.