The Water Energy Nexus IRT is pleased to offer the following support to members in 2019.  Click here to see the research funding that has been awarded to date in 2019. 

1. Graduate Student Support- Nominations Due by March 8, 2019

(1) Deans Graduate Assistantship (2019), requires matching support ($12,375) from PI (Closed)
(1) Deans Graduate Assistantship (2020), requires matching support from PI (Assumed)
(4) Deans IRT Graduate fellowships (2019), $2,500 each, top up for offers (Open)

2. White Paper Development- Open Call rolling - Ends March 15, 2019 (White Papers Due before June 1, 2019)

The Water-Energy IRT will fund the development of up to 5 White Papers @ $3000 each.  The submission can come from an individual faculty member, or a group of faculty and could be used to fund a Post-doc, student, or faculty summer time to develop the paper.  The topic of each White Paper should reflect one or more of the 11+ theme areas the IRT voted on, presented below in the Seed grant section.

This document would be used by the IRT and others involved in research funding prospecting to promote CU’s expertise in the Water-Energy space.  Two documents should be produced:

- 1 page summary of the topic, innovative research opportunities and mapped CU expertise

- Up to 5 page document that lays out the problem more extensively, propose some strategies for addressing it and then clearly identify strengths at CU that make us uniquely suited for this activity.  This would also include listing of agencies and divisions in those agencies to target, anticipated funding opportunities in the coming 18 months, or other creative funding mechanisms (foundations, industry, etc.).  

To apply: Submit a 1-2 paragraph expression of interest to be reviewed by the IRT Leadership Team.  These will be shared with Lewis-Burke to help identify funding partners.

3. Water-Energy IRT Leadership Fellows - Open Call - Reviews begin March 15, 2019​

Up to 3 course buyouts ($8500 each) will be provided to Water-Energy IRT faculty who commit to pursuit of a specific RFP (>$1M, ideally Center Scale) and involving at least 3 IRT faculty.  The RFP should be anticipated to be due before June 30, 2020 and a proposal must be submitted as a condition of the buyout.  Longer term proposal development will be considered for especially large proposal opportunities.  Proposals for buyouts will be accepted on a rolling basis for buyouts in Fall 2019 or Spring 2020.  Proposals should consist of a 1-2 page opportunity statement with specifics on the intended pursuit and why CU is positioned to pursue this and will be reviewed by the IRT Leadership Committee starting March 15, 2019 and continuing until all positions are filled.  The buyout must also have approval from your Department Chair. 

4. Seed Grants - Applications due April 1, 2019

At the end of last year, we surveyed the broad WEN community on interest in different areas important to the WEN theme, some mapped to DOE strategic foci.  The topics and respondents to those themes are presented below.  We are soliciting SEED grants for interdisciplinary research proposals up to $50,000 to carry out research in one of these areas that would provide needed preliminary evidence to support future large team proposal submissions.  Up to 3 of the identified areas surveyed (presented below) will be funded initially.  Proposals should be up to 3 pages of text with supporting information on collaborators (involving any number of other interested persons), and outline why that area could benefit from a Seed grant for additional research, elaborate on the longer term goal that will be leveraged with this research funding, describe what the team would look like, and the specific opportunities that will be pursued following this seed grant.  Seed Grant proposals are due April 1 with funds dispersal ready for Summer 2019.

2019 Seed grant themes (Full list of projects and interested faculty here)

  • Oil and Gas Industry Water Energy Sustainability
  • Water Energy System Analysis 
  • Developing Small, Modular Energy-Water Systems for Urban, Rural, Tribal, National Security, and Disaster Response Settings 
  • Energy and Resource Recovery for Wastewater 
  • Indoor Agriculture 
  • Urban Sustainability - Waste Heat and Water Reuse 
  • Acheiving Near Zero Water Impact for New Thermoelectric Power Plants, and Significantly Lowering Freshwater Use Intensity Within Existing Fleet 
  • NASA life support systems 
  • Wind Farm Energy Generation Optimization 
  • Solar Thermal Processes 
  • Desalination Technologies that Deliver Cost-Competitive Clean Water