About: AGeS-TRaCE (TRaining and Community Engagement)

Typical award amount: up to $10,000
Estimated number of awards: 6-10 each in 2024 and 2026
Deadline: October 2026, 11:59 pm MT (Deadline for Optional Parter Letter(s) is one week after proposal submission deadline).

The next AGeS-TRaCE proposal deadline will be in October 2026. The AGeS-TRaCE submission portal will open on the TRaCE-How to Apply page approximately 2 months before the deadline.

For more information about applying to the AGeS-TRaCE program, see the AGeS-TRaCE Info Session Video Recording from September 5, 2024 and the PDF of materials presented during that session.

Start date and duration of funded TRaCE projects: Projects funded in 2024 will have a project duration of Jan 1, 2025 to June 30, 2026, during which all awarded funds should be expended.
 
Eligibility details:

  • Proposals can be submitted by faculty, senior scientists, and postdoctoral scientists anywhere in the U.S. Up to two PIs are allowed on a TRaCE proposal. Additional partners can be engaged and should indicate their commitment to the project through letters of support.
  • AGeS labs are eligible to apply directly for this funding and may otherwise be engaged in TRaCE proposals. However, TRaCE projects can also be conducted by individuals not connected to a geochronology lab.

Goals of AGeS-TRaCE

  • Address self-identified community needs in geochronology through focused community-led efforts
  • Seed training and community engagement in key geochronology topics
  • Grow a collaborative geochronology community

Program Overview

There are strong needs for training and community collaboration on numerous topics across the discipline of geochronology. AGeS-TRaCE is a new funding mechanism that seeks and supports community-driven ideas for addressing geochronology needs, such as capturing, formalizing, and disseminating not-yet-standardized geochronology knowledge, and providing opportunities for collaborative discussion on key geochronology challenges related to human-, technical-, or cyber-infrastructure. For example, much informal knowledge about technical aspects of instruments, data collection, and data reduction that is critical to ongoing developments in geochronology resides in a handful of individual investigator programs and is accessible only to those directly trained in those facilities. One purpose of AGeS-TRaCE is to increase the accessibility of such knowledge to promote important advances in the field.  Note that AGeS supports two other programs (AGeS-Grad and AGeS-DiG). Applicants to AGeS-TRaCE should be aware of the other AGeS award opportunities and ensure that their proposals are directed to the most appropriate program.

Types of Projects Supported by AGeS-TRaCE

This program will support projects that take on many different forms. Successful projects will identify and fulfill needs in training and community engagement within the broad field of geochronology. Examples of AGeS-TRaCE project topics include but are not limited to: accessible webinars, tutorials, and workshops on best practices, lab procedures, instrument design, statistics and uncertainties, or data interpretation with generated content that can be made available on the AGeS website; focused meetings to discuss interlaboratory calibration, spikes, new and emerging chronometers, data management and curation systems, modeling tool development or other capabilities needed for the future; accessible teaching activities that involve geochronologic data; outreach to the broader Earth sciences community and/or the public to communicate the importance of geochronology; and projects that address other community needs. If you are uncertain if a particular project idea fits under the scope of the AGeS-TRaCE program, please reach out to contact@agesgeochronology.org. Awards can be used for stipends for the PI or other project participants to accomplish the proposed activities, for travel to gather project participants, and/or other related costs. Costs will be either invoiced directly to AGeS at Arizona State University, reimbursed, or disbursed as stipends. They are considered as Participant Costs in the NSF AGeS award.