Funding Briefs

A Novel Way To Support Your Work Need money for research? Got some time on your hands? Try writing as many as 100,000 words on how to save the planet. It's not a research paper, but rather fiction set in the not-too- distant future. Turner Broadcasting System Inc. and Turner Publishing Inc. have established the Turner Tomorrow Award, which plans to give $500,000 for the best novel with "themes ensuring the survival and prosperity of all life on our planet," according to the program announcement. Media mogul Ted Turner, in search of positive solutions to global problems, is offering not just a prize, but also a book contract guaranteeing 50,000 hardcover copies and a $50,000 budget for advertising and promotion. Four runners-up will receive $50,000 merit awards that come with a book contract and option for a movie. The deadline for applications is November 20. Rules and eligibility requirements are available upon written request. For more information, contact: Allison Berry, Turner Tomorrow Awards, One CNN Center, Box 105366, Atlanta, Ga. 30329; (404) 827-1136. To Chart A Better Undergraduate Course With double the money to spend on the program, NSF is expanding its efforts to improve undergraduate science and engineering education. The Program in Undergraduate Curriculum and Course Development in Engineering, Mathematics, and the Sciences has $8 million this year to sponsor the development of new courses, new curricula, and new laboratory projects. Officials are especially interested in introductory, interdisciplinary education. These projects should revitalize the learning environment and create scientific and technological literacy for students. Applicants can request up to five years' support for comprehensive development projects or for prototype and pilot projects. The deadline is April 9. For more information, contact: Division of Undergraduate Science, Engineering and Mathematics Education; NSF, 1800 G St., N.W., Washington D.C. 20550; (202) 357-7051. Support For European Environmentalism Last December about a dozen European scientists set up the European Environmental Research Organization to stimulate more research to combat global pollution. With more than $588,000 in its coffers from the Volkswagen Foundation and the Dutch, Swiss, and Spanish governments, the group plans to sponsor fellowships, laboratory courses, and a workshop to encourage interdisciplinary research. In 1990 it will award 10 postdoctoral fellowships to young European scientists so they can train in another European laboratory for up to three years, and 15 short-term fellowships for visiting foreign laboratories. Next month EERO will sponsor a five-day symposium in environmental biotechnology in Braunschweig, W.Ger. For more information, contact K.N. Timmis, Professor of Microbiology, GBF - National Research Center for Biotechnology, Mascheroder Weg 1, D-3300 Braunschweig, W.Ger.; 011-49-531-61-81-400. N.Y. Foundation To Sponsor Investigators The Aaron Diamond Foundation, which supports medical research, minority education, and cultural activities in New York City, is adding investigatorships to its repertoire of opportunities. Beginning this fall and running through 1994, the foundation will sponsor five three-year investigatorships annually as part of its efforts to bring New York City back to the forefront of biomedical research. Three of the awards are for biomedical research, and two are in health science, social medicine, or behavioral medicine research. Last year the foundation decided to increase funding of research in drug abuse and in health problems of recent immigrants to New York City. Although it was set up in 1955, the foundation did not really become active until 1987, after a two-year planning effort to transform it from a vehicle for personal giving by real estate tycoon Aaron Diamond to a philanthropic organization. Its goal is to disperse its $118 million in income and principal by 1997; in 1988, it gave away about $12 million. To date, it has sponsored viral molecular biology and basic immunology research on AIDS, AIDS transmission during pregnancy, and the development of the disease in children. It also supports studies of cancer, heart disease, lead poisoning, hypothermia and hyperthermia in the homeless, and Alz- heimer's disease. Grants are made only to public charities or equivalent institutions. For more information, contact: Vincent McGee, Executive Director, Aaron Diamond Foundation, 1270 Avenue of the Americas, Suite 2624, New York, N.Y. 10020; (212) 757-7680.

Funding Briefs

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