Department of Energy Highlights Future Research and Funding Opportunities for Biological and Environmental Research
←
→
Page content transcription
If your browser does not render page correctly, please read the page content below
Department of Energy Highlights Future Research and Funding Opportunities for Biological and Environmental Research Lewis-Burke Associates LLC – April 21, 2020 Please see below an update and advance intelligence on recent activities, emerging priorities, and future opportunities within the Department of Energy (DOE) Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program. This analysis is based on information from the virtual BER Advisory Committee (BERAC) meeting held on April 16, 2020, discussions with program managers, and the release of a new National Academies report on the bioeconomy. Office of Science Reorganization Effective April 12, 2020, the Office of Science has a new organizational chart and some new positions, which mostly affect the top level of the organization. A new position was created—a Principal Deputy Director for Science Programs, led by Harriet Kung, who was the Director of Basic Energy Sciences (BES). All six major Office of Science program offices, as well as workforce development, now report to Dr. Kung. Linda Horton is now the Director of BES and continues to serve as the Acting Director of the Materials Sciences and Engineering Division. Steve Binkley remains the Principal Deputy Director with responsibility over strategic planning, budgeting, management, and special initiatives, including accelerator R&D and isotope production. The Deputy Director for Resource Management was eliminated and those positions were distributed between Dr. Kung and Dr. Binkley. The graphic below shows the new organizational chart. Source: DOE Office of Science.
Office of Science Strategic Priorities As Lewis-Burke has reported previously in more detail, the Office of Science currently has 13 major research initiatives. Seven were launched several years ago while six are proposed as new initiatives for fiscal year (FY) 2021. In FY 2020, the Office of Science dedicated 12 percent of its total budget and 33 percent of its research budget to these initiatives. In FY 2021, these research initiatives are expected to make up 14 percent of the Office of Science’s total budget and approximately 40 percent of its research budget. Below is the list of each major research initiative. NOTE: BER is participating in the bolded items. BER Budget and Appropriations Update In FY 2020, Congress appropriated $750 million for BER, an increase of $45 million or 6 percent. While the FY 2021 President’s budget request proposes a cut of $233 million or 31 percent compared to FY 2020, this is similar to proposals from the last three years and will again be rejected by Congress. See the table below for a more detailed breakdown of BER funding by major program area.
Source: DOE Office of Science.
BER Research Priorities
Regardless of final funding allocations, the top BER research and funding priorities in FY 2021 will be:
• “Fully support the fourth year of the DOE Bioenergy Research Centers
• Expand secure biosystems design research to understand the fundamental genome structure
and functional relationships that result in specific, stable and predictable, new, and beneficial
traits in model plant and microbial systems
• Continue bioimaging, measurement and characterization approaches using QIS materials for
dynamic in situ sensing
• Start new efforts in translating biodesign rules to functional properties of novel biological
polymers or programmable design of novel biomaterials.
• Continue core research in earth and environmental systems science, with activities focused on
scientific analysis and modeling of the sensitivity and uncertainty of Earth system predictions to
atmospheric, cryospheric, oceanic, and biogeochemical processes
• Continue support of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model
• Continue operation of the three BER scientific user facilities: the Joint Genome Institute, the
Atmospheric Radiation Measurement Research Facility, and the Environmental Molecular
Sciences Laboratory.”
Additional details on major funding priorities and funding opportunities for biological and earth and
environmental sciences as well as early career and graduate student research opportunities are
provided below.
Biological Systems Science
Funding Priorities and Opportunities
BER is still formulating FY 2021 funding opportunities, and new investments will be based on
congressional funding guidance in FY 2021 appropriations bills likely to be released later this summer,
but preliminary priorities focused on the New Biology and Quantum Information Science Initiatives are
below. NOTE: The first funding opportunity will be open to research universities while the other two will
likely be Lab-only calls with the opportunity for university research collaborations.
• Novel Biological Polymers: A new funding call to support DOE’s Plastics Innovation
Challenge. BER plans to fund new research efforts in biological-based polymer recycling and
upcycling research. Specifically, building on knowledge gained from breaking down plant cell
wall polymers for bioenergy, BER would like to explore engineered microbial and fungal systems
for polymer recycling.
• New Quantum Enabled Bioimaging Approaches for Bioenergy: The level of future investment
will depend on funded proposals in FY 2020 for the Lab-only funding call on bioimaging and
relevant investments in new DOE National Quantum Science and Technology Centers which will
be awarded this summer. The focus is on quantum science-based concepts for bioimaging and
measurement and characterization capabilities for analyses of biological processes relevant to
bioenergy, bioproduct, and biomaterials research. Specifically, these activities would support
developing QIS materials for imaging and characterization and to advance design of sensors and
detectors based on correlated materials for real-time biological and environmental sensing
technology. This information is considered crucial for developing an understanding of the impact
of various environmental and/or biosystems designs on whole cell or community function.
• Secure Biosystems Design: Additional funding to continue Lab-led efforts to develop high-
throughput, genome-scale design to understand and enhance the stability, resilience, and
controlled performance of DOE-relevant plant and microbial systems. The goal is to prevent
unauthorized or accidental release of modified organisms, and if there is a release to have built
in features that mitigate impact outside the lab.
Impact of COVID-19
While a few BER workshops and user meetings have been canceled due to COVID-19, BER is turning to
virtual meetings to move forward with many peer and panel reviews to continue making new research
awards as well as decisions on continuation of existing awards. Below is a list of reformed or canceled
activities due to COVID-19 for the Biological Systems Science Division:
Earth and Environmental Systems Sciences
The Climate and Environmental Sciences Division has been renamed the Earth and Environmental
Systems Sciences Division. This change is intended to reflect the full breadth of science and research
capabilities that go beyond climate modeling and include all earth system-relevant atmospheric and
ecosystem processes, including ecology, to improve predictive tools that can address environmental and
energy-related challenges, especially extreme weather events.
BER’s overall research priorities include:
• A continued focus on Terrestrial-Aquatic Interfaces (TAI), which are considered key to
understanding earth system models;
• Starting in FY 2021, there will be more of a focus on coastal issues and in particular issues
related to resiliency, especially with sea level rise, modeling interdependencies between water
and energy, understanding the impacts of those interdependencies to energy and water
infrastructure and predicting potential thresholds for failure. BER’s focus will be on modeling
the impact of sea level rise in watersheds and deltas and better understanding of coastal
atmospheric science related to land and sea breezes.
• A continued interest in improving predictive understanding of how watersheds function, and
how these systems respond to disturbances, in particular changes to water availability and
quality, land use and vegetation cover, and contaminants.
• Rolling out a second and improved version of the Energy Exascale Earth System Model (E3SM)
with improved resolution and new capabilities for exploring cryosphere-ocean dynamics’
impacts of climate variability on Antarctic ice shelf melting, continental ice sheet evolution and
sea level rise, and the effects of changing water cycles on watershed and coastal hydrological
systems.
• Working with the Advanced Scientific Computing Research program within the Office of Science
to identify artificial intelligence, scientific machine learning, and data analytics software and
hardware needs for future earth systems modeling.
• Continue expanding partnerships with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA), the National Science Foundation (NSF), National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA), the U.S. Geological Survey, and the National Geospatial Agency—all agencies part of the
U.S. Global Change Research Program.
Funding Opportunities
Similar to Biological Systems Science, BER is still formulating FY 2021 funding opportunities for the Earth
and Environmental Systems Science program, but likely funding opportunities in FY 2021 include:
• Atmospheric System Research: This funding solicitation will likely seek proposals that use
observations, including DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement user facilities, to advance
fundamental understanding of the cloud, aerosol, precipitation, and radiation processes across a
range of scales to improve the predictability of the Earth’s radiative balance and hydrologic
cycle. Similar to last year’s solicitation, research topics are likely to include aerosol, warm
boundary-layer atmospheric, convective cloud, and Southern Ocean cloud and aerosol
processes. Approximately $10 million should be available to fund between 15 and 24 awards
ranging from $150,000 to $750,000 over two to three years. In FY 2020, BER received 87
proposals, and the peer review to select proposals will occur May 11, 2020. Last year’s funding
solicitation is available at https://science.osti.gov/-
/media/grants/pdf/foas/2019/SC_FOA_0002034.pdf.
• Earth system modeling: This funding call will likely support the development, coupling and
testing of global climate model systems. The focus is on developing and applying a
computationally advanced climate and Earth system model to investigate the challenges posed
by the interactions of climate change with energy and related sectors. This includes
atmospheric dynamics, clouds and chemistry; ocean dynamics and biogeochemistry; sea-ice and
dynamic land-ice systems; land hydrology and biogeochemistry; and representations of human
activities that have important interactions with climate. About $6 million should be available to
fund around 10 awards for $200,000 a year over three years. In FY 2020, BER received 70
applications and the peer review to select proposals will occur on May 28, 2020. Last year’s
funding solicitation is available at https://science.osti.gov/-
/media/grants/pdf/foas/2020/SC_FOA_0002230.pdf.
Research Priorities
Consistent with the five-year strategic plan spanning 2018-2023, the main research priorities are:
1. Integrated Water Cycle: The focus is on studying relevant processes involving the atmospheric,
terrestrial, oceanic, and human system components and their interactions and feedbacks across
local, regional and global scales, with the goal of improving the predictability of the water cycle
and reducing associated uncertainties in response to short- and long-term perturbations.
2. Biogeochemistry: The focus is on developing a robust predictive understanding of coupled
biogeochemical processes and cycles across spatial and temporal scales by investigating natural
and anthropogenic interactions and feedbacks—and associated uncertainties—within Earth and
environmental systems.3. High Latitude: The focus is on understanding and quantifying the drivers, interactions, and
feedbacks both among the high-latitude components and between the high latitudes and the
global system to reduce uncertainties and improve predictive understanding of high latitude
systems and their global impacts.
4. Drivers and Responses in the Earth System: The focus is on advancing next-generation
understanding of the drivers of the Earth system and their effects on the integrated Earth-
energy-human system.
5. Data-Model Integration: The focus is on developing a broad range of interconnected
infrastructure capabilities and tools that support the integration and management of models,
experiments, and data across a hierarchy of scales and complexity to address the other four
scientific grand challenges.
Planned workshops to inform future priorities are moving forward, but have been modified to virtual
meetings due to COVID-19 including:
Bioeconomy
Dr. Maureen McCann, a Professor of Biological Sciences at Purdue University and BERAC Member,
provided a briefing on the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (NAS) recent
report on “Safeguarding the Bioeconomy.” Dr. McCann was a NAS Committee Member for the
study. The full report is available at https://www.nap.edu/catalog/25525/safeguarding-the-
bioeconomy.
The NAS study was requested by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), which had an
interest in understanding not only the value and promise of the U.S. bioeconomy, but also the risks. The
leading questions posed by ODNI that the report addresses are:
• How do we define the bioeconomy?
• How can we measure the value and components of the U.S. bioeconomy?
• How can we measure U.S. bioeconomic leadership and where the U.S. currently leads?
• What security risks are associated with the U.S. bioeconomy?
• What are the specific cybersecurity and data concerns?
• In what ways can we forecast the bioeconomy?The NAS report found that the U.S. is still a leader in the bioeconomy, but there are worrying
trends. The U.S. continues to lead the world in total R&D investment, but not relative to the size of its
economy. The U.S. leads in the production of publications in the biological and medical sciences and in
the number of international patents, but there has been a relative decline, especially when compared to
China. The U.S. also continues to lead the world in scientific training, but more than 30 percent of
students are international on temporary visas, with a majority from China.
The NAS concludes that U.S. bioeconomy leadership relies on investment, openness, and a skilled
workforce. In particular, it relies on the continued commitment from the federal government to world-
leading investment in science and in particular life sciences. Some of the U.S. risks NAS identified to that
leadership position include insufficient U.S. government R&D investment, an inadequate workforce, an
ineffective or inefficient regulatory and intellectual property environment and a lack of public trust or
conflict with public values.
To address these risks, some of the report’s leading recommendations, which impact DOE and BER
specifically, include:
• Recommendation 1: “For purposes of demarcating the scope and reach of the U.S. bioeconomy
and establishing a uniform framework for valuing the bioeconomy and its assets, the U.S.
government should adopt the following definition of the U.S. bioeconomy:
The U.S. bioeconomy is economic activity that is driven by research and innovation in the life
sciences and biotechnology, and that is enabled by technological advances in engineering and in
computing and information sciences.”
The graphic below provides additional context on the scope of the bioeconomy and how it
should be defined.Source: NAS.
• Recommendation 2: “The U.S. Department of Commerce and the U.S. National Science Board
should expand and enhance data collection efforts relevant to the economic contribution of the
U.S. bioeconomy as defined by this committee.” The six segments that currently represent the
bioeconomy and NAS recommended should be better measured include:
▪ “genetically modified crops/products;
▪ biobased industrial materials (e.g., biobased chemicals and plastics, biofuels,
agricultural feedstocks);
▪ biopharmaceuticals and biologics and other pharmaceuticals;
▪ biotechnology consumer products (e.g., genetic testing services);
▪ biotechnology R&D business services, including laboratory testing (kits), and
purchased equipment services (e.g., sequencing services); and▪ design of biological data-driven patient health care solutions, that is, precision
medicine inputs (exclusive of patient care services per se and drugs counted
elsewhere).”
• Recommendation 3: “The Executive Office of the President should establish a government-wide
strategic coordinating body tasked with safeguarding and realizing the potential of the U.S.
bioeconomy. To be successful, this coordinating body should be presided over by senior White
House leadership, with representation from science, economic, regulatory, and security
agencies. It should be responsible for relevant foresight activities and informed by input from a
diverse range of relevant external stakeholders.”
• Recommendation 4: “To maintain U.S. competitiveness and leadership within the global
bioeconomy, the U.S. government should prioritize investment in basic biological science,
engineering, and computing and information sciences. In addition, talent development, at all
levels, to support these research areas should be a high priority for future public investment.”
• Recommendation 4-1: “The U.S. government should continue to support policies that attract
and retain scientists from around the world who can contribute to the U.S. bioeconomy,
recognizing that open academic engagement has been strongly beneficial to the U.S. scientific
and technological enterprise, even as it inherently offers potential benefits to other countries as
well. Policies intended to mitigate any economic and security risks posed by foreign researchers
in U.S. research institutions should be formulated by U.S. security, science, and mission agencies
working closely together, and through ongoing engagement with a group of recognized scientific
leaders. Having this group able to be fully briefed on the threat environment will greatly
facilitate these discussions, since access to classified, proprietary, or other nonpublic
information may be needed.”
• Recommendation 7: “To protect the value and utility of databases of biological information, U.S.
science funding agencies should invest in the modernization, curation, and integrity of such
databases.”
• Recommendation 9: “Through such entities as the World Trade Organization and the
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, as well as through other bilateral
and multilateral engagements, the U.S. government should work with other countries that are
part of the global bioeconomy to foster communication and collaboration. The goals of such
international cooperation would be to (1) drive economic growth, (2) reinforce governance
mechanisms within a framework that respects international law and national sovereignty and
security, and (3) create a level playing field.”
Early Career and Graduate Student Research Opportunities
DOE’s Early Career Research Program supports all six programs in the Office of Science, including
biological, earth, and environmental science. This is an annual solicitation usually released by January
and the topics change each year. In FY 2019, DOE made 73 awards with 46 from research
universities. To be eligible for an award, a researcher must be an untenured, tenure-track assistant or
associate professor at a U.S. academic institution. University-based researchers typically receive about
$150,000 per year to cover summer salary and research expenses over 5 years. The FY 2020 funding callrecently closed on March 30, 2020. In FY 2020, the topic area for biological sciences was “fundamental
systems biology-driven research on the roles of microbiomes in biogeochemical cycling processes.” For
earth and environmental sciences, the topic area was “earth and environmental systems modeling
focused on coastal systems.” For more information, the last funding call is available at
https://science.osti.gov/-/media/grants/pdf/foas/2020/SC_FOA_0002173.pdf. The FY 2021 funding call
is expected in November 2020.
DOE’s Office of Science Graduate Student Research Program is also open to all of Office of Science
programs, and includes biology, earth and environmental sciences topic areas. The program provides a
$3,000 monthly stipend to support graduate students’ theses at a DOE lab. There are two opportunities
to submit proposals each fiscal year. In 2019, 49 students from 39 institutions were selected in the first
round.
The first round of FY 2020 applications are due May 6, 2020, and the second round will be due
November 2020. The four biology topics include:
• computational biology and bioinformatics,
• biomolecular characterization and imaging science,
• plant science for sustainably bioenergy, and
• soil microbiology.
The three earth and environmental science topics include:
• environmental systems science,
• atmospheric system research, and
• earth system modeling.
More information on the program is available at https://science.osti.gov/wdts/scgsr.You can also read
