Video Transcript 59th Annual Report on Research 2014
Hello, I'm Askar Fahr, Program Manager with the ACS Petroleum Research Fund. Here at PRF, we have had great success in getting many researchers started in new directions. A large number of PRF-funded research grants have been the seeds that have ultimately led to great discoveries in science and even Nobel prizes.
The purpose of the ACS Petroleum Research Fund is to support fundamental research and advanced scientific education related to petroleum and other fossil fuels. To this end the New Directions, Undergraduate Research, and New Investigator grant programs were introduced in 2008 with the express purpose of providing seed money for new ideas. This is what distinguishes the PRF from many other funding agencies: We do not require proof of concept results.
What we do require with all of our PRF grants is that the topic be a new direction for the principal investigator. What is a new direction? This can certainly be subjective and ultimately the PRF Program Managers and peers in the review process will determine that. But in general, a new direction is an area in which the investigator has limited or no preliminary results. A new direction means the project is not a logical extension of the investigator's ongoing research and the PI has not received external funding for the research. While the research topic must be new for the principal investigator, this does not mean that other scientists or engineers are not working in the field in question. If you want to be sure you're moving in a new direction, reach out to the American Chemical Society Office of Research Grants. We have a great deal of experience in this area and we can provide guidance in selecting a topic.
For example, if the title of your proposal is the same as the title of your recently published journal article, if you are a co-author on most of the publications in the proposal's bibliography, or if you have recently received a grant from another agency for an identical research program, then the proposal will not likely be considered a new direction.
Our motivation for requiring the new direction in research is not to establish some arbitrary line in the sand, but rather to follow an important PRF objective for providing seed grant money. The successful outcome of a PRF grant is a principal investigator who now has enough results to apply for a grant from a sustaining funding agency such as NSF, DOE etc.
Whether you are a new faculty member who is trying to establish a research area that is distinct from your doctoral or postdoctoral studies, or an experienced researcher who is seeking to move into a research area in which you have no funding and no prior publications on that subject, the ACS PRF can help. So, out with the old, and in with a new direction that could perhaps be the beginning of a whole new area of scientific research for you. Please read about exciting new directions in fundamental research, supported by the Petroleum Research Fund in 2014 in the 59th ACS PRF Annual Report.
