Funding Opportunity: Fundamental Physics Grants

The Center for Fundamental Physics (CFP) aims to foster innovative research into the fundamental particles, interactions, and symmetries of modern physics and particle astrophysics by facilitating small-scale, low energy, “tabletop” experiments that test the most widely held assumptions in physics today. What are the most basic physical building blocks of the universe? How can we explain the inadequacy of the “standard model” of particle physics? How can we use high precision rather than high energy methods to make these inquiries? To further this goal, as its service to the community, the CFP is pleased to be offering strategic grants to researchers who wish to or are pursuing the answers to these crucial questions. We are grateful to the Templeton Foundation for providing the resources. Applications formatted as described below are being accepted until Oct. 16, 2020 for grants to be awarded in 2021. Applications must be submitted via the link at the end of this page.

Eligibility

The CFP can award one to two years of grant support. Anticipated award amounts are $150k to $200k.

At this time, we will only be considering grant applications from North America.

Each awarded grant must be matched by at least 50% by the applicant’s home institution or by another source of funding.

Proposed research topics must relate to the following big questions:

• Are the fundamental constants of nature constant in time? Research projects should present novel ideas either for detecting a fundamental constant changing in time, or for setting a more sensitive limit on how much the fundamental constant might be changing in time.
• Are the basic interactions of physics symmetric under the certain combination of three fundamental symmetries as is currently assumed in the standard model description? Projects should present ideas for unambiguously testing whether nature always respects certain combinations of the fundamental symmetries of parity, time reversal, and charge exchange.
• What is dark matter? Projects should present novel ideas for the use of small-scale measurements in investigating this question.
• Do the most precise predictions of the standard model description agree with what can be measured to high precision?
• Does gravity behave as Newton and Einstein predicted, even on very short-distance scales? Can evidence be found to show whether gravity is quantum mechanical?

Grant Types

Successful grant applications will normally fall into the following types:

• Research Instrumentation Grants
  • For specialized lasers, superconducting solenoids, vacuum systems, and other research instrumentation that is needed for small-scale fundamental physics experiments.
  • Applicants may apply for instrumentation grants of $15,000 or more.
  • It is an advantage if the instrumentation will enable fundamental physics research well beyond the grant period. This should be documented as part of the application.
  • Milestones that can be used to judge whether the scientific apparatus is being used to accomplish important outcomes must be provided.
  • No overhead can be charged on instrumentation grants.
  • Matching funds: Applications must document the operational funding for the research program within which this funding will be used.


• Graduate Student Grants
  • A graduate student grant will provide up to $65,000 per year (approximately the cost to support a Northwestern University graduate student for one year) toward the support of a graduate student for a specific fundamental physics research activity that otherwise would not be possible.
  • Applicants must demonstrate that this suffices for student support for the indicated time period or specify how the additional funding required will be provided.
  • Overhead of up to 15% can be charged by the institution hosting the award recipient.
  • Matching funds: Applications must document the operational funding for the research program within which this funding will be used.


• Postdoc Grants
  • A grant of up to $65,000 per year can be awarded towards postdoc salary and benefits.
  • Applications must demonstrate that this suffices for the indicated time period or specify how the additional funding required will be provided.
  • Overhead of up to 15% can be charged by the institution hosting the award recipient.
  • Matching funds: Applications must document the operational funding for the research program within which this funding will be used.

Proposal Requirements

To ease the application process, while also ensuring that the CFP referees and selection committee have the information needed to make sure a grant is strategic rather than merely supplemental, the proposal requirements are structured to make it possible to adapt materials prepared for the proposal for the operational funding for the program. Grant materials must thus conform to the length and format requirements for proposals to the physics division of the National Science Foundation (NSF), except where differences are specifically noted below.

Required materials for submission:

• One-page Project Summary that can be understood by a scientifically-informed college-educated reader.
• Up to 15 pages of a technical Project Description.
  • Rather than specifically using and addressing intellectual merit and broader impact as required by the NSF, the Project Description should instead describe specifically, and the Project Summary should summarize, which fundamental big questions (see above) are being addressed by this research along with how they are being addressed.
  • The Project Description must document any past CFP grant support and the accomplishments that it enabled.
  • References must be cited after the Project Description (no page limit).
  • If the CFP grant will enable scientific progress for longer than the 3 year grant period, this should be documented and will be considered to be an advantage. (For example, if research apparatus acquired during a 3 year grant period will enable fundamental physics research for 10 years.)
• Yearly and total budgets using the NSF format (no funding for infrastructure allowed).
• Budget justification.
• An abbreviated CV following the NSF requirements.
• A complete current and pending grant support list, plus a copy of the project description and budget pages for each current and pending grant.
• The funding that can be considered matching funding for the proposed research project must be summarized and totaled.
• The grant application must document the value added by the proposed CFP grant support, and explain specifically why this support is not available from the other sources of funding available for the proposed and related work.
• An attractive HTML webpage describing the project must be submitted, for use as the basis for a web display on the CFP website for each funded project, to which work products or links to these will be later added. This page should communicate effectively to an educated reader who is NOT a specialist in physics or another science.

Recipients of CFP grants must commit to and submit a final report using the format that is updated and provided by the CFP each year.

To submit your application, click here.

Anticipated grant period: 1 Jan. 2021 - 31 Dec. 2022
Application deadline: Midnight on 16 Oct. 2020