[Federal Register Volume 63, Number 27 (Tuesday, February 10, 1998)]
[Notices]
[Pages 6756-6757]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 98-3322]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-5964-6]


Investigator-Initiated Grants on Futures: Detecting the Early 
Signals

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice.

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SUMMARY: The purpose of this document is to solicit public comment on 
the appropriateness of the research topic, ``Futures: Detecting the 
Early Signals,'' described in the draft Request for Applications (RFA). 
The Agency's Science Advisory Board has recommended EPA should move 
towards using futures research and analysis in its programs and 
activities, particularly strategic planning and budgeting. The draft 
RFA is part of EPA's response to this recommendation. In the draft RFA 
EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) invites research grant 
applications to develop innovative, scientific approaches for solving 
current and future environmental problems and to improve our 
understanding of environmental risk.

DATES: Comments are requested on the wording, scope, and 
appropriateness of the research topics presented in this draft RFA. 
Comments must be received on or before March 12, 1998. EPA plans to 
issue the RFA a month after the close of the comment period.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions or comments regarding 
the solicitation process, contact Dr. Robert Menzer, telephone number 
(202) 564-6849, EPA (8701R), 401 M Street, SW, Washington, DC 20460, 
electronic mail address: [email protected]. For questions 
or comments regarding the specific research topics, contact Dr. Roger 
Cortesi, telephone number (202) 564-6852, EPA (8701R), 401 M Street, 
SW, Washington, DC 20460, electronic mail address: 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: EPA's National Center for Environmental 
Research and Quality Assurance (NCERQA) is preparing to issue a 
solicitation for research on futures. Funding for this solicitation 
will be provided by EPA for a total of approximately $1 million. We 
plan to award 6-8 grants, each with a project period of 1 year, under 
this solicitation.
    NCERQA will receive, process, and distribute the proposals to the 
peer reviewers; convene the peer review sessions in conformance with 
existing EPA guidelines; and record the review discussion for each 
proposal. No EPA employees will serve as peer reviewers.
    The description of the request for applications is as follows:

Futures: Detecting the Early Signals

Background

    The question often arises whether serious environmental problems 
could be detected so that preventive or remedial actions could be 
generated sooner than they had been heretofore. Early awareness of an 
environmental problem would result in the ability to cope with a less 
serious problem, one easier and cheaper to handle. The possibility and 
value of early detection of environmental problems were the subject of 
the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Science Advisory Board's 1995 
report, Beyond the Horizon: Using Foresight to Protect the 
Environmental Future. The report discusses why thinking about the 
future is important, possible systems of inquiry, and recommends that 
``. . . EPA should move towards using futures research and analysis in 
its programs and activities, particularly strategic planning and 
budgeting . . .'' Specifically:
     ``As much attention should be given to avoiding future 
problems as to controlling current ones,'' and
     ``EPA should establish a strong environmental futures 
capability that serves as an early warning system for emerging 
environmental problems.''
    In its planning process the Office of Research and Development 
(ORD) has committed itself to ``establish capability and mechanisms 
within EPA to anticipate and identify environmental or other changes 
that may portend future risk, integrate futures planning into ongoing 
programs, and promote coordinated preparation for and response to 
change.''

Scope of Research

    In this announcement EPA's Office of Research and Development (ORD) 
invites research grant applications to develop innovative, scientific 
approaches for identifying future environmental problems. EPA, in order 
to perform its mission better, wishes to find ways to identify possible 
emerging environmental problems and to start working on them before 
headlines have emerged. This solicitation aims to try an approach to 
looking ahead in two areas: in the natural sciences and in socio-
economics.
    Specifically, EPA requests applications in:
    A. Natural Sciences. The applicant should choose an area where 
there is scattered scientific data that could portend a future 
environmental problem, examine these scattered data, and write a 
synthesis giving possible interpretations. This paper should suggest 
which questions raised by the data need answering and which of these 
questions can be resolved by research. Key features in proposal 
evaluation will be: (1) the balance in the identified potential problem 
between seriousness of the problem and its ``Chicken Little factor,'' 
and (2) the value of the possible proposed synthesis even if the 
suspected problem turns out to be minimal.
    Examples of problems which might have profited from such early 
examination in the past include:
     acid rain
     stratospheric ozone depletion
     DDT and thin bird egg shells
     PCBs, environmental persistence and its effects
    B. Socio-Economics. The applicant should examine possible changes 
in the way we (the USA, the industrialized nations, the world, etc.), 
in the next five to twenty years, will think, do things, live, consume, 
invent, reproduce, etc., and what effects these changes will have on 
environmental problems, on our mind set, on how we handle them, on the 
tools we will have available to handle them, on the costs and benefits 
of handling them, etc. Socioeconomic analyses can cover a variety of 
subjects (e.g., demographic changes, economic changes, environmental 
value changes, land use changes, etc.)
    A key feature of the evaluation of the proposals will be the 
usefulness of the analyses and the analytical methods developed even if 
the views of what the future will bring turn out to be seriously wrong. 
The proposed studies and syntheses should, if possible, offer 
suggestions about what possible changes are important and identify such 
changes to the environment that could be monitored for early detection 
and correction.
    It is anticipated that projects funded under this solicitation will 
involve literature investigation and analysis, discussions with 
colleagues, perhaps computer modeling, and crystal-ball gazing. The 
final product of the research will be a paper setting forth the 
problem, approaches to its solution, and an estimate of the resources 
needed to

[[Page 6757]]

effect the solution (e.g., the outline of a research plan).
    Funding: Approximately $1.0 million is expected to be available in 
Fiscal Year 1998 for award in this solicitation. The projected award 
may be up to $150,000 for one year. Applicants will be expected to 
budget for and participate in a workshop on environmental futures with 
EPA scientists, other agency officials, and other grantees in 
Washington, DC, to report on their research activities and to discuss 
issues of mutual interest.

Eligibility

    Academic and not-for-profit institutions located in the U.S., and 
state or local governments are eligible under all existing 
authorizations. Profit-making firms and other federal agencies are not 
eligible to receive grants from EPA under this program. Federal 
agencies, national laboratories funded by federal agencies (FFRDCs), 
and federal employees are not eligible to submit applications to this 
program and may not serve in a principal leadership role on a grant.
    The final RFA will also include instructions to potential 
applicants on the specific format to be used for applications. These 
instructions will be similar to such instructions found in other EPA/
ORD solicitations which may be reviewed on the Internet at http://
www.epa.gov/ncerqa.

    Dated: January 28, 1998.
Henry L. Longest, II,
Acting Assistant Administrator for Research and Development.
[FR Doc. 98-3322 Filed 2-9-98; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P