OpportunityTitle: Advancing Digitization of Biological Collections
AdditionalInformationOnEligibility: *Organization Limit: Proposals may only be submitted by the following:   -Non-profit, non-academic organizations: Independent museums, observatories, research labs, professional societies and similar organizations in the U.S. associated with educational or research activities.   -State and Local Governments: State educational offices or organizations and local school districts.   -Universities and Colleges - Universities and two- and four-year colleges (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members. Such organizations also are referred to as academic institutions.   -&lt;br /&gt;When a consortium of eligible organizations submits a HUB proposal, it must be submitted as a single proposal with one organization serving as the lead and all other organizations as subawardees. Separately submitted collaborative HUB proposals will not be accepted and will be returned without review. Organizations ineligible to submit to this program solicitation may not receive subawards. &lt;p class=&quot;Default&quot;&gt;All collaborative TCN proposals submitted as separate submissions from multiple organizations must be submitted via the NSF FastLane system. Chapter II, Section D.4 of the Grant Proposal Guide provides additional information on collaborative proposals.
Description: This program seeks to create a national resource of digital data documenting existing biological collections and to advance scientific knowledge by improving access to digitized information (including images) residing in vouchered scientific collections across the United States. The information associated with various collections of organisms, such as geographic distribution, environmental habitat data, phenology, information about associated organisms, collector field notes, tissues and molecular data extracted from the specimens, etc. is a rich resource for providing the baseline from which to further biodiversity research and provide critical information about existing gaps in our knowledge of life on earth. The national resource will be structured at three levels: a national hub, thematic networks based on collaborative groups of collections, and the physical collections. This resource will build upon a sizable existing national investment in curation of the physical objects in scientific collections and contribute vitally to scientific research and technology interests in the United States. It will be an invaluable tool in understanding the biodiversity and societal consequences of climate change, species invasions, natural disasters, the spread of disease vectors and agricultural pests, and other biological issues.
GrantorContactEmailDescription: If you have any problems linking to this funding announcement, please contact
GrantorContactText: NSF grants.gov support&lt;br/&gt;grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov&lt;br/&gt;
CloseDateExplanation: Full Proposal Deadline(s): December 10, 2010