Research at the interface is most powerful when it is driven by collaborations of young researchers given sufficient resources and a fast timeline. We therefore present the Interdisciplinary Opportunity Award program for new, short-term (one-year) collaborative projects driven by trainees (graduate students, postdoctoral researchers, not PIs).

At the Annual Center Symposium, a topic will be announced. Self-selected teams of interested junior researchers need to produce short abstract-like proposals by the end of the Symposium. The teams must be comprised of members from at least two cross-disciplinary labs (from either mathematical sciences or experimental labs), with at least one group of each team from UCI. A preliminary proposal is due by the end of the Symposium. Full proposals (<3pages) must be submitted within two weeks, which will then be evaluated quickly (~2 weeks) by a Center committee. The winning teams will receive $10,000 to support the collaborative project over one year, and  will attend the Center Early-Career Researcher Symposium and next year’s Annual Symposium on Multiscale Cell Fate, scheduled for April 2022 and October 2022 respectively, to present their results. Winning proposals are selected for their ambition, their feasibility (within a year), and their potential to lead to lasting long-term collaborations.

• A topic will be announced at the 2021 Annual Symposium.
• Form a self-selected team with other early-career researchers (graduate students, postdocs, undergraduate students). The teams must include members from at least two labs, who are on different sides of the mathematical and experimental spectrum (very broadly interpreted), and at least one member from UCI.
• A short abstract-like pre-proposal is due by the end of the Symposium on Friday, October 29th, 2021 at 4:30pm. It should be e-mailed to cellfate@uci.edu with subject “2021 IOA” and must include the following information:
  1. Team member names and affiliations,
  2. PI names and affiliations,
  3. Project title,
  4. Brief project description
• Full proposals (<3pages) must be submitted by November 15, 2021(see details below), and will then be carefully evaluated.
• PIs must send an e-mail acknowledging support before winning teams are awarded.
• The winning teams will be informed by the end of November via email.
• Winning teams will receive a budget of $10,000 for research expenses to support the collaborative project over one year. For example, this may include travel between the collaborating institutions, or experimental consumables. Some restrictions apply; please contact cellfate@uci.edu for more information.
• The funds must be expended within the year. We emphasize fast project result generation!
• The winning teams are required to:
  1. present a “work-in-progress” talk at the Center’s Early-Career Researcher Symposium, scheduled for April 2022. At least one team member must therefore attend, although all team members are encouraged to do so. And,
  2. all team members must attend and present their final results at the next year’s Annual Symposium on Multiscale Cell Fate, tentatively scheduled for October 2022.
     

After submitting a pre-proposal, the next step is the submission of the full 3-page proposal. This proposal should include:

• Names of participants, their career stage (grad student, postdoc, etc), their institutional affiliations, and their PI names,
• The project title, which matches the title from the pre-proposal,
• A project description including its significance.

A rough budget is not required in the proposal, but you are welcome to include one if you wish.

Separately, the PIs involved (thesis advisors for PhD students) must send an e-mail acknowledging their support for the proposal. This can be very brief (for example, “I support STUDENT NAME’s IOA proposal.”). If the PI is committing resources, e.g., lab equipment or computing cluster time, this should be mentioned in their e-mail of support too.

These items should be e-mailed to cellfate@uci.edu with subject “2021 IOA.”

The deadline for the full proposal is Monday, November 15th at midnight. Winners will be informed by November 31st.