DOE Call for Funding: Biological and Environmental Research (BER) Program

Today, the Department of Energy (DOE) released the first fiscal year (FY) 2022 funding call for its Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program. The $14 million funding opportunity announcement is an annual funding call focused on atmospheric system research.  Applications are open to universities, industry, federal agencies, and nonprofit research institutions, although in the past research universities are primarily funded.  Pre-applications are required and are due on November 3.  

 

Research will mainly focus on interactions between clouds, aerosols, and precipitation processes and interactions.  Specifically, the funding call is looking for proposals that address:

• aerosol-cloud interactions that affect the Earth’s energy balance and water cycle;
• aerosol processes affecting cloud lifecycle, properties, and/or processes; 
• convective cloud processes, including the occurrence, frequency, lifecycle, precipitation, and microphysical and macrophysical properties of convective clouds; and
• high-latitude atmospheric processes.

 

Unlike last year, there will be no studies of the warm boundary layer, or the later of atmosphere closest to ground-level.  Grant applications should include observational, data analysis, and/or modeling studies that use data from DOE-sponsored observations, including those collected at DOE’s Atmospheric Radiation Measurement (ARM) user facility.

 

Funding is to be awarded competitively, on the basis of peer review, and is expected to be in the form of three-year grants with total award amounts ranging from $200,000 to $900,000.  The rate of success is approximately 36 percent.