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Proposals to FAPESP Research Program on eScience and Data Science: Regular and Thematic Projects, Young Investigator Awards and for Innovative Research in Small Businesses (PIPE)

 
1 Introduction

The São Paulo Research Foundation, FAPESP, publishes this call for research proposals and invites the interested researchers associated to higher education and research institutions in the State of São Paulo, or associated to small businesses established in the State of São Paulo, to submit proposals in the conditions described herein.

The main goal of the FAPESP Research Program on eScience and Data Science is to encourage bold, novel, and unconventional approaches to world-class multidisciplinary research involving joint collaboration of computer scientists and researchers in other fields.

2 Research Topics

The field of e-Agriculture covers all kinds of collaborative research conducted jointly by computer scientists and researchers in Agricultural Sciences.

This call accepts proposals in the field of e-Agriculture, including, but not restricted to, the following topics:

• Internet of Things and Agricultural Sciences;

• Precision agriculture and precision farming (including vegetable and animal produce);

• Information technologies in fisheries and aquaculture;

• Data Science for Agricultural Sciences;

• Computational vision in Agricultural Sciences;

• Embedded systems in agriculture;

• Supply chains in the production and distribution of food;

• Robotics and farms;

• Connectivity in rural environments;

• Design and development of sensors for rural applications;

• Agriculture information systems;

• Agribusiness and digital farms;

• Geoinformatics for Agricultural Sciences;

• Bioinformatics in Agricultural Sciences;

• Human factors and interfaces for agronomical information systems.

3 Grant Modalities: duration, eligibility and fundable items

3.1 The FAPESP grant modalities selected for this call are:

3.1.1. Thematic Projects : Project duration is fixed in 60 months. Specific information for this modality, including eligibility requirements and fundable items, are available at www.fapesp.br/176. Exceptionalities for this call:

a. The Thematic proposal may also include requests for Masters (MS) and/or Doctorate (DR) fellowships. Please note that the duration of any fellowship cannot exceed the duration of the grant and that the advisor must be the PI or a co-PI;

b. For projects demanding TT fellowships (level 3 or above), the host institution has to guarantee an equivalent counterpart of Information Technology (IT) personnel to match the fellowships – e.g., junior or senior systems analysts who will be involved with the project in software design, development and documentation.

3.1.2. Regular Projects: Project duration may be up to 36 months. Specific information for this modality, including eligibility requirements and fundable items, are available athttps://fapesp.br./137. Exceptionalities for this call:

a. The proposal may include requests for Scientific Initiation (IC) Masters (MS) and Post-Doctoral (PD) fellowships. Please note that the duration of any fellowship cannot exceed the duration of the grant and the supervisor/advisor must be the PI of the grant.

b. For projects demanding TT fellowships (level 3 or above), the host institution has to guarantee an equivalent counterpart of Information Technology (IT) personnel to match the fellowships – e.g., junior or senior systems analysts who will be involved with the project in software design, development and documentation.

c. The total budget requested (including “Reserva Técnica” and possible scholarships), should be up to R$100.000, 00 (one hundred thousand Reais) per year for proposals with duration of 36 months. For proposals with lowest duration, the maximum requested value must be proportionally smaller.

3.1.3 Young Investigator Awards: Project duration is fixed in 48 months. Specific information for this modality, including eligibility requirements and fundable items, are available at jp/

3.1.4. Innovative Research in Small Businesses (PIPE): For this call, the research proposals (phase I or phase II) should clearly demonstrate the evidence of innovation involving joint collaboration of experts in computing and in any field of agricultural sciences. More information, including eligibility requirements and fundable items are available at www.fapesp.br/pipe.

4 Proposal characteristics: how to prepare and submit a proposal

4.1 Preparing a proposal

a. Each proposal should be composed of a Research Project and all the documents and forms required in the SAGe platform for the selected modality;

b. Guidelines for submitting a proposal to Thematic Projects, Regular Projects and Young Investigator Awards are described in Appendix I of this call. The Research project, for these three modalities, must be written in English, since non-Portuguese speaking reviewers may be invited. When preparing the proposal, please use the headings indicated in Appendix I as section headings.

4.2 Submitting a proposal

a. Proposals must be submitted to FAPESP in the SAGe platform (www.fapesp.br/sage).

b. No proposal will be accepted after the closing date for submissions, nor will any addendum or explanation be accepted, except those explicitly and formally requested by FAPESP.

5 Timeline

6 Funds available for this call for proposals

The total amount of resources available for this call for proposals is R$ 8 million (eight million Reais) (approximately equivalent to USD 2.2 million) considering all modalities. FAPESP reserves the right to propose funding levels lower than those requested for the proposals received.

7 Intellectual property

FAPESP Intellectual Property policy is available at: www.fapesp.br/pi

8 Communication of results

Final results will be announced at the FAPESP website (www.fapesp.br) and by means of a communication to the proponents.

9 Questions regarding this call for proposals

Please send all queries about this call for research proposals to:

Email: eScience@fapesp.br
Dr Simone Godoi- Science Manager
 

Appendix I

Specific information forThematic Projects, Young Investigator Awards and Regular Projects

1. Characteristics of the research proposals

Given the particularities of eScience, all fundable projects should clearly present the following:

a. Engagement of both computer scientists and scientists from Agricultural Sciences: at least one collaborator from Computer Science (CS) and one from Agricultural Sciences.

b. Evidence of research in CS: eScience is concerned with joint exploration of how advances in Computer Science research can help face core science and technology challenges in other fields, and vice-versa. Therefore, projects must have a solid core of CS research.

c. Evidence of benefits to research in the target domain: projects must clearly indicate expected scientific results in the target domain.

d. Evidence of offering training in eScience practices: given the lack of qualified labor to meet the specific demands of multidisciplinary projects, proposals are encouraged to show how they will offer training that combines computing practices with those of the target domain.

e. Data management plan (www.fapesp.br/gestaodedados) : a major characteristic of eScience projects is their dependency on data management practices, and the need of making results public, to allow reuse and collaboration with other groups. Therefore, all projects submitted in this call (except for projects submitted to the PIPE modality) should provide indication of how they intend to manage the data produced during the project (where the term “data” is taken on the large, and includes files, algorithms, software, samples, models, curriculum material and others).

2. To write a proposal, please follow the guidelines below

a. Items 1 through 9 should necessarily be part of the Research Project along with usual suggested sections for each grant modality.

b. The Data Management Plan ( gestaodedados/ ) is a compulsory requirement for the submission.

c. This call establishes the limit of twenty (20) pages for Regular Projects and Young Investigator Awards, or thirty (30) pages for Thematic Projects, with 1.5 spacing and font equivalent to Times New Roman 11. These page limits include relevant publications, Figures and Tables as necessary and references.

d. Please use section titles as listed in items from 1 through 10 of the following table:

3. Benefits and commitments specific to the eScience program

a. The eScience Program will have periodic workshops with mandatory attendance for all the PI's involved with the program and, in some cases, their collaborators and students. These workshops will be a special opportunity to update all involved on the research conducted in the field and to have access to new data and information before publishing.

b. Proposals must clearly state which efforts will be made for the results of selected projects (including intellectual property of these results) to be made publicly available. Following FAPESP’s Code of Good Scientific Practice www.fapesp.br/boaspraticas/FAPESP-Code_of_Good_Scientific_Practice_2014.pdf, and Data Management Plan policies www.fapesp.br/gestaodedados, results should be made publicly available – these considerations also apply to software, documentation, technical reports, databases, datasets, workflows, etc. generated by the project.

4. Review process

Project evaluation and monitoring will follow FAPESP mechanisms and workflows. Evaluation of all projects will consider evidence of CS research and actual impact on the target domain’s research. Some specific issues apply to the eScience FAPESP program:

a. The adequacy of the requested fellowships as related to the proposal’s goals and the qualification of the proposing research team is a primary review consideration. The Program encourages proposals that include the participation of Post-Doctorate level researchers.

b. Collaboration via co-supervision: proposals that consider fellowships with co-supervision of computer scientists and scientists from another domain are encouraged. In this case, the fellowship plan must indicate the co-supervision.

c. Collaborations in the State of São Paulo: the program encourages the creation of networks for collaboration and student interchange. Researchers should look for collaborations with centers in the State with incipient research background, such as recently established departments. This is considered a means to foster new strong research groups.

d. International collaborations: the program encourages projects that foster international collaboration with groups of excellence working in the field. Indication of such collaborations will be a positive element in proposal evaluation.

e. Involvement of industry and research centers: the program encourages the collaboration with research centers and industries. This is desirable from two points of view – additional funding, and increasing the impact of the results. 

Appendix II: Instructions for SAGe System (Guidelines for proposals submission on SAGe)

1. The Principle Investigator by FAPESP and BY IDRC must be registered in the SAGe system:

(i) Researchers who do not have a SAGe registration should initially do so by accessing the SAGe page at www.fapesp.br/sage, clicking on “Sem cadastro?” and fill in the requested data. It is not enough to just register as a user, it is necessary to complete the cadastral data;

(ii) Researchers from the State of São Paulo, already registered, must log into SAGe with the usual identification and password to access the system homepage.

2. The proposal must be submitted by the Principal Investigator from SP. On the home page, select from the menu options “Acesso rápido – Atividades do Pesquisador”, the link “Nova Proposta Inicial”.

3. In the Current Calls section, select one funding modality (eScience - Jovem Pesquisador / Chamada de Propostas (2018), eScience - PIPE - Fase 1 / Chamada de Propostas (2018),eScience - PIPE - Fase 2 Direta / Chamada de Propostas (2018), eScience - PIPE - Fase 2 Indireta / Chamada de Propostas (2018), eScience - Projeto de Pesquisa - Regular / Chamada de Propostas (2018) , eScience - Projeto de Pesquisa - Temático / Chamada de Propostas (2018)).

4. The system will display the menu "Incluir proposta" on the following page to confirm the selected Call. Click the “Incluir” button to start preparing your proposal. Include the requested data in all the tabs, including the list of documents to be attached.

5. Attention to the obligation to fill all items marked with “*”. You must submit the project at the end of the form. Saved project does not mean submitted project.

6. If you have any doubts, you can use the Manuals link on the SAGe home page and, in the Manuals page, search for explanations in the “Manuais de Apoio aos Pesquisadores”. IMPORTANT: It is strongly recommended to periodically check the pending proposals using the “Validar” option. This can be repeatedly as the proposal is built, allowing the necessary arrangements for submission to be made in time. When selecting the option “Validar”, the SAGe system will present the impediments pending to submit the proposal considering the items that were already inserted. In case of doubts about the use of SAGE system, in addition to the Manuals, FAPESP also provides assistance at the Information Sector (11 3838-4000).