Grant Details

The goal of this competition is to produce one or both of two types of finished products:

1. Databases which may be a new large scale database, a substantial expansion or revision of an extant database, or the merging of extant databases. Databases might include traditional relational data in digital form, collections of historical data, images, video recordings, administrative data/records or any other form of structured sets of data. The database must be accompanied by a usable interface that allows for the application of extant analytic tools or analytical tools that are developed as part of the project. Within this competition, the justification for the database rests on the potential it provides for enabling “data intensive SBE research”, which is amenable to utilization by substantial numbers of investigators. Central to the evaluation of proposals are the types, scope and potential significance of the research such a database would afford. For the purpose of this competition, data-intensive research is defined as research involving data resources that extend well beyond the storage requirements, computational intensiveness or complexity that is currently typical in SBE areas of research. Proposals should make clear how the proposed activities will enable promising SBE research that would not otherwise be possible. The investigations enabled by such data intensive research may be within or between any new or existing SBE field or fields. It may involve linkages between SBE science and other fields of science, although this is not required.

2. Analytic tool(s) which would serve to enhance database use to address significant research questions within the SBE sciences. While a strong proposal would produce a tool of general utility it is required that the applicant link and discuss the tool within the context of a specific named database or set of databases. The tool must be made readily available to a broad research community at no more cost than is necessary to cover the expenses of its provision.

Successful proposals will describe products that will have significant impacts by enabling new types of data-intensive research. These products should be fundamental and generalizable rather than narrow and specific. Database proposals should define/identify a resource that can be used to answer scientific questions that could not otherwise be addressed. Analytic tool development proposals should be directed towards the same goal of enabling researchers to address new and significant SBE science questions. Investigators are encouraged to think broadly and to create a vision that extends intellectually to more than one SBE area of research potentially linking to other fields of science as well. Proposals should describe the bodies of data and other significant attributes regarding data structures, metadata, analytics, or tools needed to facilitate research. Investigators are encouraged to think creatively about data and consider new data collections, repurposed existing data, and new approaches to data as appropriate for the research questions of interest. Novel approaches are encouraged. Proposals should have a well-defined work plan with steps sufficiently detailed to enable a clear understanding of specific work activities and milestones.

An explicit goal of this competition is to establish broad and large scale databases with relevant analytic tools which will be utilized by a large number and wide range of researchers. It is anticipated that successful proposals may extend well beyond a single discipline. The relevance of the proposed work should be of interest to a broad intellectual community by virtue of its potential or actual generalizability or extendibility.