Funding Briefs

Navy Hikes New Investigators Awards For scientists who earned their doctoral degrees after Dec. 1, 1984, the Office of Naval Research now offers an even bigger Young Investigator Award. ONR will award about a dozen grants of at least $75,000 per year to young tenure-track scientists who are not already holding ONR contracts. The previous awards were limited to $50,000. Applicants can submit proposals to any of ONR’s 13 divisions. The award can cover salary, equipment, graduate student support, and indirect costs, and can be supplemented with up to $60,000 in matching funds. ONR will match on a two-for-one basis as much as $20,000 that the investigator receives from other Navy sources. In past years, ONR would match up to $40,000. A total of 300 scientists typically apply; award rates vary from division to division. Young Investigator Award applicants must submit their research proposals to the appropriate ONR division director by January 17. The awards will be announced in February. For more information, contact the Special Programs Office at ONR Code liSP, 800 N. Quincy St., Arlington, Va. 22217-5000; (202) 696-4111. Streisand Supports Environmental Work Even movie stars are jumping into the fight against global warming. This year Barbra Streisand gave $250,000 to the Environmental Defense Fund to support for five years the work of Michael Oppenheimer, a physicist who heads the fund’s Global Atmosphere Program. That grant is one of the largest ever made by the Streisand Foundation, which doles out about $1 million per year, two thirds of which support environmental projects. The foundation, which was started with $6 million raised at a benefit concert held in the star’s home, recently narrowed its focus, dropping nuclear disarmament, peace, and voter registration so that it could devote more resources to civil liberty and the environment, specifically global warming and toxic hazard reduction. The foundation has a fall deadline for its awards; this year it received 400 proposals. Support is usually $5,000 to $20,000 per year. Proposals should come from a national nonprofit organization. Past recipients include the American Oceans Campaign, the National Resources Defense Council, and the Glean Water Fund. For more information, contact Cooki Collinet, The Streisand Foundation, RO. Box 53369, Washington, D.C. 20009; (202) 331-8776. Pew Backs Latin American Scientists The Pew Charitable Trusts plan to spend $2.6 million over the next three years to bring 30 young Latin American neuroscientists and molecular biologists to the United States for two to three years. The new Latin American Biomedical Scholars Program, which Pew hopes to expand by teaming up with other foundations, will give young faculty and postdoctoral fellows the chance to learn state-of-the-art techniques at U.S. laboratories. Initially, the program will consider candidates from Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, Chile, and Venezuela. The program’s director, Torsten Wiesel, is still organizing an advisory committee, which will include U.S. and Latin American scientists. The committee must then decide how the first 10 scholars will be selected. The first round of fellows will have to choose from among the 18 laboratories supported by Pew’s neuroscience program or the 10 with which Pew advisory committee members are affiliated. Eventually, the committee hopes to expand the list of eligible countries as well as the list of laboratories that applicants can visit. “It seems to be a good time to do something for Latin American scientists,” says Wiesel, a professor at the Rockefeller University. “The danger of all these programs is that you get the best people here, and then they stay.” Pew hopes that its offer of $25,000 to set up a lab at home will entice the visiting scientists to return to Latin America and encourage their native institutions to provide them with adequate support and facilities. For more information, contact Rebecca Rimel, Pew Charitable Trusts, Suite 501, Three Parkway, Philadelphia, Pa. 191 02-1305; (215) 568-3330.

Funding Briefs

The Scientist Staff

Navy Hikes New Investigators Awards

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