Open Call for Research Proposals

Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture - Call for Research Proposals

The new Yale Center for Natural Carbon Capture (YCNCC) is seeking proposals for research projects that will advance the center’s mission of developing innovative, nature-based solutions to remove carbon dioxide from our atmosphere and mitigate the effects of greenhouse gas emissions on Earth’s climate. The center supports research related to sequestration and storage by natural and managed ecosystems, geological and marine processes, and industrial analogs to natural processes. Funding is available for projects that focus primarily on physical and biological sciences and engineering; however, we welcome interdisciplinary projects that also include social science research related to the proposed climate solutions.

Funding is available for pilot grants for exploratory research (up to ~$100K), as well as larger collaborative efforts (up to ~$500,000) over a 2-year duration. All grants are intended to lay the foundation for projects and collaborations that attract significant external funding. Research can include field, lab, and/or theoretical approaches. While the project must be led by a Yale faculty member (ladder or non-ladder), collaborative proposals involving researchers from both inside and outside of Yale are welcome.

Applications for research projects will involve an initial pre-proposal due December 15, 2021. Pre-proposals should be no more than 2 pages in length (not including figures, reference list, or budget) and should include the following sections:
(a) Background - relevant background information on the topic (aimed at a general scientific audience)
(b) Objectives - explain the project goals and the key knowledge gap(s) that it will fill
(c) Relevance to the YCNCC mission - explain how the project results will directly inform and contribute to scalable natural climate solutions over relevant time scales
(d) Methods - provide a brief overview of the methods/approach to be used
(e) Research team - list all collaborators and their relevant areas of expertise
(f) Estimated Budget - an estimate of the total project budget. Allowable expenses include personnel costs (e.g. postdoc and technician salaries, graduate student stipends), equipment, materials/supplies, research-related fees, travel to field sites or to work with collaborators, travel to conferences, publication costs, etc.

Pre-proposals will be screened by a committee chaired by the YCNCC directors, to assess their relevance to the center’s mission, scientific merit, and feasibility. PIs of the top ranked projects will be invited to submit a full proposal (up to 10 pages). Decisions on pre-proposals will be announced by January 15, 2022, and full proposals will be due March 18, 2022. We anticipate funding 3-5 proposals, and potentially more, depending on total budget requests.

Preproposals should be submitted by 11:59pm (EST) on December 15, 2021, via email to ycncc@yale.edu as a single pdf file.