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Kansas NSF EPSCoR
Wins $6.75 Million Award for Ecological Forecasting
Program is second
largest KTEC grant award
A $6.75 million award from
the National Science Foundation (NSF) will soon
enable researchers in Kansas to address one of
the Grand Challenge science problems of the 21st
century --- forecasting the ecological consequences
of environmental changes. In addition to the federal
funds, $2.5 million is awarded by the Kansas Technology
Enterprise Corporation (KTEC) --- providing a
total funding infusion of $9.25 million.
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The three-year award to the Kansas NSF
Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research
(EPSCoR), headquartered at The University of Kansas,
will link researchers at KU, Kansas State University,
and Fort Hays State University in a study of changes
occurring in the climate, land-use, biogeochemistry,
hydrology and biodiversity along the Kansas River Basin.
“The award will strengthen the research
infrastructure in an area targeted for growth and development
in Kansas --- the biosciences,” said Dr. Kristin
Bowman-James, director of Kansas NSF EPSCoR.
Dr. Leonard Krishtalka, director of the
KU Natural History Museum and Biodiversity Research
Center, will lead the research and Dr. Walter Dodds,
Professor of Biology at Kansas State University, will
be the co-lead.
“The Central Plains grasslands provide
Kansans with critical ecosystem services: supplying
clean water, recycling essential nutrients, sequestering
carbon, preserving biodiversity, and guarding against
invasive species and emerging diseases,” Krishtalka
explained. “Being able to forecast changes occurring
in these ecosystems is vitally important to protect
and strengthen the Kansas and regional economy.”
In addition to this being KTEC’s
second largest active grant, the project also marks
a continuation of its earlier support for the Kansas
NSF EPSCoR. KTEC is the state’s designated provider
of matching funds to the federal EPSCoR programs.
“KTEC understands that it
is important for Kansas NSF EPSCoR to leverage state
dollars to secure federal dollars and that such a federal-state
partnership enables Kansas to develop its niche strength
in bioinformatics and ecology,” said Tracy Taylor,
President and CEO of KTEC.
“In a year or two, researchers
involved in this project will be better able to compete
for some of the NSF’s largest bioscience awards,
and longer term, we
could see some commercial software products and companies
spinning off from this work.”
Click
here for more information on the Kansas NSF EPSCoR.
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