Category: Engagement Latest

Request for Proposals

Proposals are due at 4 p.m. April 14, 2023. View pdf version of RFP

URI Plastics is accepting applications for the 2023-2024 Plastics Seed Grants Program via the Division of Research & Economic Development. The URI Plastics supports initiatives that apply research and creative activities to solving or better understanding plastic pollution problems and issues at local, state and regional levels.

2023 URI Plastics Seed Grants

Available funding ranges from $10,000 to $40,000 of direct support and we anticipate supporting 3-5 proposals. Modification in the number of and/or funding for individual proposals may be made based on final program budget allocations. Competitive proposals will support collaborative teams for research and scholarly activities and enable innovative partnerships to support the pursuit of external funding beyond the scope of this project. The only restrictions are that proposals must meet the guidelines set forth in this invitation. 

URI Plastics is hosting information sessions and office hours. Attendance is optional. These sessions and hours are opportunities to discuss ideas, find possible connections and address any questions for developing and submitting proposals. 

Info Sessions (1 hour zoom session)
Please refer to plastics website (https://plastics.uri.edu/about/funding/) for more info and links for these sessions. 

• March 10, 2-3PM
• March 28, 12-1PM

Office Hours (zoom drop in):

Please refer to plastics website (https://plastics.uri.edu/about/funding/) for more info and links for these sessions. 

• April 3, 2-3PM (zoom)
• April 4, 2-3PM (zoom)

ELIGIBILITY & REQUIREMENTS

All full-time URI faculty from any discipline with any type of continuing appointment (tenured and tenure-track faculty, research faculty, clinical faculty, research scientists) may serve as investigators for these grants. Participants must come from at least two colleges to demonstrate interdisciplinary collaboration. Faculty are limited to serving as Principal Investigator (PI) on only one proposal. Faculty may serve as a co-investigator on more than one proposal. Anyone who is separating from the University in the year immediately following the award is not eligible to participate in this program.

Proposal must demonstrate research translation – how it may be applied to solving or better understanding problems and issues at local, state or regional scales. To this end, collaboration at varying levels with external stakeholders is strongly encouraged for successful awards. Acceptable stakeholders include non-profits, government agencies, community organizations and industry.

Proposals must include an education component, which can involve undergraduate or graduate students in research, or it can incorporate learning in the classroom. URI Plastics Seed Grant program funds cannot be used to support projects in fulfillment of advanced degrees, time needed for preparation of extramural grants, or to pay for reprints of published work. Funds may be used to support projects for instructional development only to the extent that the project is essential to the preparation of one or more proposals for extramural funding.   

PROPOSAL PREPARATION

Applicants must submit a clear and concise proposal that is understandable to members of the review committee who may not be familiar with the applicant’s discipline or area of specialization. The review committee will include URI and external members. Proposals are to be single-spaced, with minimum 12-point type and 1-inch margins

I. PROJECT ABSTRACT (150 words or less)

II. PROJECT NARRATIVE (maximum of 3 pages)

Introduction: Provide a succinct statement of the objectives of the proposed work and background information that places the proposed project in a broader scholarly context. The proposal should be understandable to peers who may not have expertise in the discipline. 

Significance and innovation: Demonstrate how research may be applied to solving or better understanding problems and issues at local, state or regional scales. Discuss the importance of the research or scholarly activities and the short- and long-term benefits to the faculty member’s research program and to society.  

Work plan: Describe what you plan to do and how you will complete the work. The work plan should describe and justify experiments, fieldwork and so forth. Include a brief timetable that indicates when each task will be performed during the grant period, thus illustrating achievability of the project. Describe how you will integrate learning experiences in the field, lab or classroom for students (undergraduate and/or graduate).

Plan for submission of extramural proposals: Discuss what extramural funding programs will be pursued as a result of completing the proposed work.

III. LITERATURE CITED SECTION OR BIBLIOGRAPHY (as appropriate)

IV. BIOSKETCHES/CVs (maximum of 2 pages)

A biosketch, curriculum vitae or resume should be included for all key personnel. These should include publications relevant to the proposed project. For those familiar with SciENcv, this format is welcome as well (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sciencv/)

V. BUDGET

A budget must be submitted using the form provided. The budget form is available on the application website: https://uri.infoready4.com/CompetitionSpace/

Personnel Costs Allowed: 

• Faculty Summer Salary is allowable only for faculty on nine-month appointments to work on the proposed project. Salary may not be used for time spent writing extramural grant proposals. The maximum amount of summer salary is $4,000 for one applicant and $8,000 for two or more principal investigator’s/co-principal investigators. Note that total summer re-contracting from all funding sources may not exceed 27.8% of the faculty’s academic year salary
• Graduate Student and Undergraduate Support for graduate research assistants and undergraduate student hourly help during the academic year or summer. Support must be calculated using current rates, which are available at: https://web.uri.edu/research-admin/files/Student-wages-and-tuition-rates-2019-2025.pdf 
• Salary for other personnel such as postdocs, co-principal investigators or engaged partners may be included. Co-principal investigators must be named on the Cover Sheet and the itemized budget. 

To calculate non-faculty personnel salaries (i.e. Graduate Students, Undergraduate Students, Other) multiply the number of hours by the appropriate hourly rate.  FICA for graduate and/or undergraduate student(s) summer salary is calculated by multiplying the total number of hours by 0.0765.  FICA does not need to be included with faculty salary.

Equipment – Equipment (>$5000 unit cost) that is not normally available through department budgets or other University sources may be purchased using grant funds. Cost-sharing is encouraged, but evidence of a cost-sharing plan must be included with the proposal (e.g., letter of support from the principal investigator’s Dean).  A quote for each equipment request must be included with the Budget Justification.

Supplies – For artistic, laboratory, and fieldwork, computer, media and telecommunications expenses, etc. may be requested. List each type of supply separately. Funds may not be used for purchase of routine expenses, e.g., office supplies, equipment repair, calibration, and/or maintenance, or for other purposes unless they specifically relate to the proposed project.

Travel – Funds to defray the cost of travel to study sites and/or to collect data may be requested. Provide the actual fare if traveling by public carrier (air, rail, bus, etc.). If traveling by a privately owned vehicle, use the authorized standard per-mile rate. For each trip identify the destination(s) and indicate the number of days per destination per trip. The most reasonable, economical lodging available in close proximity to the work location should be identified. The university’s travel policy is available at http://www.uri.edu/controller/policies.html. Calculate expenses on a per-trip basis and enter totals for Mileage, Out-of-State Travel, Other Travel, and Foreign Travel in the spaces provided.

Other Costs – Funds not covered by the above categories, such as lab rental fees, may also be included, and must be clearly justified (see above).

VI. BUDGET JUSTIFICATION (maximum of 2 pages)

Applicants must submit a separate budget justification that indicates how each item contributes to the intended goals of the grant program. It is essential that the applicant make a direct connection between the requested budget items and the aims of the research. Conventions of particular disciplines that require a specific expenditure should be clearly explained and justified. Full amounts requested may not be awarded subject to availability of funds. 

REQUIREMENTS AND CONDITIONS

1. If use of the URI Plastics Seed funds result in the development of items eligible for patent or copyright, or the production of any books, etc., the University patent and copyright policy shall apply (see University Manual 10.40.10 through 10.44.10). 

2. Publications that result from a URI Plastics Seed Grant must include an acknowledgement of this support, and a copy of the publications must be delivered to the Office of Research Development soon after publication.  

3.  All funds must be expended between July 1, 2023, and July 1, 2024. 

4. Awardees are required to provide the Director of URI Plastics with a final report on activities supported by the grant no later than three months after the end of the grant. Failure to submit a report will result in the recipient being ineligible to apply for future funding from the URI Division of Research & Economic Development. 

5. Awardees are also required to provide to the Director of Research Development one copy of each proposal submitted for extramural funding that resulted from the Seed grant. This should be submitted within a year of the end date of the Seed grant.  Failure to submit at least one such proposal will result in the faculty or staff member being declared ineligible to apply for future funding from the URI Division of Research & Economic Development.

6. Awardees must attend a showcase event on the outcomes of funded seed projects that will be held at the end of the 12-month timeframe to engage with internal and external stakeholders. Participation is a condition of receiving an award. Funded research teams will receive support to provide effective presentations.

EVALUATION CRITERIA

Funds will be awarded through a competitive review process conducted by Division of Research & Economic Development leadership. Proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria: 

• Clarity of the description of the work proposed and evidence of the project’s achievability
• Potential for application in society (ie. to improve understanding, address an issue, utilized by or connected to local to regional resources) 
• Prospect of securing external funding beyond the scope of this project.
• Strength of the collaborating research team and partners. 
• Proposal presentation (adherence to formatting requirements). 

APPLICATION SUBMISSION 

Applications are to be submitted via the InfoReady system at:

https://uri.infoready4.com/CompetitionSpace/

Check the FAQ for clarifications about the solicitation. Questions about the program may be directed to Kathleen Shannon at kshannon11@uri.edu.

Questions about the InfoReady system may be directed to Dr. Karen Markin, director of research development, at kmarkin@uri.edu or 874-5971.

URI College of Business faculty discussed microplastics in the textile industry for URI Alumni’s Faculty Office Hours event. The panel, which consisted of Dr. Izabela Luiza Ciesielska-Wrobel and Dr. Seray Ergene, and moderator, Dr. Karl Aspelund analyzed the impacts of microplastics on the environment and implications for policymakers, industry leaders, and consumers.

Microplastics are plastic particles that are smaller than 5,000 micron and are found primarily in bodies of water. In our oceans, microplastics are the result of the degradation of larger pieces of plastic which is triggered by oceanic conditions such as water turbulence. Although a majority of microplastics result from degradation, microplastics can also enter our waterways through other avenues.

Microfibers, a textile byproduct, are another contributor to microplastics in our ocean. Textiles from synthetic materials like polyester and acrylic release microfibers when they are washed, and these microfibers end up in bodies of water. Due to their size, microplastics cannot easily be removed. Dr. Ciesielska-Wrobel explained that ocean water can be filtered to remove microplastics, but the process also removes microorganisms from their environment and disrupts the oceanic ecosystems.

Although filtering microfibers and microplastics out of water may not be feasible, there are other ways to reduce plastic pollution. One solution includes using washing machine filters that catch microfibers post-wash cycle. This method, although costly, is a way consumers can make an impact at home.

The panel encouraged policymakers and industry leaders to think about the environment as a stakeholder and change the way we consume plastics. Dr. Ergene noted that “some materials may be good for humans and durable for our use; but we also need to consider animals, plants, and the natural environment and the impact on them.”  

As microplastics continue to be an issue for our oceans and environment, URI’s ongoing research aims to find solutions to the problem.

The Rhode Island Consortium for Nanoscience and Nanotechnology (RIN2), the Surface Analysis Laboratory and the COE Analytical Core Facility invite you and your colleagues to a free seminar series describing theory and applications of the newest techniques available to you in the URI College of Engineering. Experts will answer your questions and introduce new and experienced scientists to instrumentation and technology available at the URI COE core facilities.

Tuesdays at noon, virtual on Zoom

Register in advance for these meetings

February 1, 2022         X-ray diffraction and thin film          

February 15, 2022       Gas chromatography – mass spectroscopy    

March 1, 2022             High content screening          

March 15, 2022           Auger spectroscopy   

March 29, 2022           Electron energy loss spectroscopy     

April 12, 2022             Inductively-coupled plasma – mass spectroscopy     

April 26, 2022             Electron probe microanalysis 

Producing local sea urchins, a species not previously considered a viable seafood option, would provide economic and social sustainability, and help to restore the ocean’s vibrant ecosystem. These “weird and wonderful creatures” showcase a tolerance of ocean environment stressors, like ocean acidification and marine plastic pollution, that pose a threat to marine life and ecosystems … and they are delicious. Coleen Suckling, URI faculty, is the lead investigator in a two-year collaborative study to understand the implications on ocean and human health and build sustainable ocean-driven economies.

Learn more:

Coleeen Suckling’s web page about the project

URI news post about the project

From Sri Lanka to Ghana and from the Arctic to Block Island, URI’s research and outreach have addressed the health of fisheries, climate resilience, sustainable energy and the presence of plastics in every ecosystem — land to sea. The University now plans to leverage those partnerships and cultivate new ones to advance plastics research via its Plastics: Land to Sea COLAB. The COLAB already includes more than 50 faculty working with state, regional and international governments, universities, and agencies around the world.

Plastics play an important role in society and can be lifesaving, but they were not seen as a pollutant when they were developed. Yet, the environmental and economic reality of plastics pollution is a global crisis that has outpaced our understanding of its impacts on our waterways, food web, air quality and human health. Science Approximately 420 million metric tons of plastics were produced worldwide, with production expected to triple by 2050. Less than 10 percent of plastic trash produced has been recycled, and it is the fastest growing component of municipal waste.

URI scientists and students have extensive research on one of the most well-studied resources, Narragansett Bay. They have collected and archived baseline data that are rare and difficult to find for many water bodies and have launched long-term studies that have run continuously since 1959.

The Plastics: Land to Sea COLAB is housed in URI Coastal Institute and will welcome participation by faculty and students across all URI colleges to make clear, tangible projects within the five “thrust areas”. Please join us as the University “thinks big” to accelerate critical research efforts and contribute to global solutions to sustain the health of our land, our waters, our health, and our future.

Learn more

Bees play a vital ecological and economic role. In addition to providing honey, they pollinate fruit and vegetable crops which is vital to maintaining our food supply. Honeybees are designed to collect particulates from the environment. Their branched hairs on their bodies are perfectly suited to collect nectar and pollen from flowering plants. Honeybees covered in pollen will groom themselves and compress collected pollen along with any debris into pollen packs on their hind legs to carry back to the nest. The tendency of honeybees to collect non-pollen debris particulates from the environment was vital to the unraveling of honey bee language in post-World War II Germany. Lindauer first observed dancing honeybees coated in flour, brick dust and soot reporting potential hive locations to a collected swarm in a grain mill, collapsed building and chimney, respectively.

The URI research team used the same basic ability of honeybees to gather non-pollen particulates to detect microplasticin the environment. URI entomology Professor Steven Alm and URI Associate Professor of Chemistry, Matthew Kiesewetter, are exploring a novel approach to tracking microplastic emissions that starts at URI’s East Farm’s Bumblebee Garden and hopes to leverage a world-wide network of honeybees.

The sources of microplastics are ultimately terrestrial and have been detected in wind/air currents and distributed overlarge surface areas. The challenge of detecting microplastics terrestrial distribution can be supported by the assistance of the honeybees populations. Honeybees forage from 2-5 miles from their hives, sampling an area of 12-75 square miles.There are approximately 2.5 million managed and well distributed honey bee colonies in the US. The collection of a single beehive coupled to an existing worldwide network of managed colonies is a ready-made tool for tracking microplastic emissions.

To support URI’s Bumblebee Garden and its plastics research, please donate today. 

Plastics are chemical compounds that have proven to be inordinately useful for humanity—disposable syringes for example. The problem is, they don’t degrade on a human timescale. And once discarded, they begin breaking down into micro- and nanoplastics and drift into the air and water, becoming virtually impossible to recover.

In 2020, URI Graduate School of Oceanography professor Brice Loose and his team found a disturbing amount of plastic in Arctic sea ice cores collected from floes during an 18-day Northwest Passage Project expedition. Sea ice tends to concentrate everything that is in the water, including nutrients, algae, and microplastics.

The effects of plastic on human health are less well-known, though a new Center for International Environmental Law report suggests exposure to plastics poses distinct toxic risks and intersecting human health impacts ranging from cancer to neurotoxicity, low birth weight, and cardiovascular disease.

Pre-pandemic, there was international recognition of the looming crisis and the idea that we have limited time to impact it in a meaningful way. But COVID-19 increased demand for plastic production. The Economist reports that consumption of SUPs may have grown by 250–300 percent in the United States since the coronavirus took hold, according to the International Solid Waste Association. That includes essential personal protective equipment as well as the return of plastic grocery bags, a boom in e-commerce packaging, and restaurant food packaged in single-use containers for takeout and delivery. In addition, the pandemic has curtailed some recycling programs for SUP bags.

URI students, faculty, and alumni are involved on many fronts and in a wide range of research. As a research university, URI has tremendous value to bring to this global effort.

Read the full article to learn more about URI’s efforts with plastics in every ecosystem.

“We talked about the Fulbright together, we learned about it together, and we got excited about it together,” said Mendenhall.

The Fulbright Scholar Program and Fulbright Student Program are designed to increase mutual understanding between the people of the United States and the people of other countries by providing faculty and high-achieving students with opportunities to research, study or teach abroad.

Mendenhall will travel to Iceland for six months beginning next January to teach classes about the law of the sea at the University of Akureyri and to study how a small nation like Iceland has such an outsized influence on international ocean law. She plans to interview government officials and review the national archives to examine Iceland’s influence over international fisheries and whaling policy, its claim of national jurisdiction well beyond the 200 miles offshore that most nations claim, and its role in international relations.

Baron Lopez, who grew up in Monterey, California, will use her Fulbright scholarship to spend 10 months studying South Korea’s strategies for managing marine litter. Beginning in August, she will collaborate with researchers at the Korea Institute of Ocean Science and Technology on a variety of projects designed to better understand the success of various methods of reducing plastics pollution in nearby waters.

Baron Lopez became interested in plastic pollution while attending a lecture at Monterey Aquarium when she was 12 years old. She enrolled at URI after learning that Mendenhall had referenced South Korea’s plastic pollution abatement methods in a research paper about plastic policy development.

Read the full story

Jacqui Roush and Cara Megill, a senior marine biology and chemistry major from Boyertown, Pennsylvania, found microscopic pieces of plastic at every site they tested – coastal locations from Point Judith to Providence as well as at sites in the middle of the bay. The took their samples back to Coleen Suckling’s laboratory on URI’s Kingston campus to filter out non-plastic particles, and they are now analyzing each sample to see if they can identify the source of the plastic and how it got into the bay.

It’s a process they repeated almost daily from mid-July through August at a dozen sites around Narragansett Bay as part of a research project to document the location, concentration and movement of microplastics in the bay. With the help of Save The Bay, the students also deployed a manta-trawl net from a boat to skim for plastics at the water’s surface.

The students’ plastics research is supported by Rhode Island Sea Grant and the URI Coastal Fellows program, a unique initiative designed to involve undergraduate students in addressing current environmental problems. Now in its 24th year, the program pairs students with a mentor and research staff to help them gain skills relevant to their academic major and future occupations.

The project was a great hands-on learning experience for students about “about microplastics and about the research process in general.” It gave students field and lab research experience to help inform their careers.

Read the full article