Schmidt Futures, the philanthropic initiative founded by Eric and Wendy Schmidt, is pleased to announce the Ocean Biogeochemistry Virtual institute (OBVI) which aims to accelerate society’s response to climate change by tackling some of the most challenging data and modeling problems in ocean biogeochemistry research.
REQUEST: OBVI is seeking short Expressions of Intent (EOI) for research projects that advance understanding and predictions of the ocean carbon cycle and resilience of marine ecosystems by innovating in the following areas:
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Integrated Ocean Observation and Modeling: Addressing critical gaps in data and theory at new study sites and/or study sites with pre-existing foundational knowledge that can be built on in novel directions through integrated observing and modeling efforts. Projects may focus on processes involved in ocean carbon cycling and/or marine ecosystems to move a capacity for state estimation and prediction forward across multiple systems and scales.
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Ocean Data Synthesis: Synthesizing diverse datastreams in ocean biogeochemistry. Projects may focus on building computational workflows, establishing collaborative, flexible frameworks for data synthesis, facilitating development of software platforms or tools in order to gain new insights, advancing sophisticated process representation or model frameworks, identifying/prioritizing data gaps and needs, or facilitating efficient and effective use of ocean data in regional and global models.
DEADLINE & AUDIENCE: EOIs are due by 11:59 pm EDT on June 1, 2023.
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Additional EOI information and submission details can be found on the OBVI website.
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OBVI will convene an international team of carefully selected scientific and technical talent to carry out complementary research projects, operating in an integrated manner to tackle technological, cultural, and logistical challenges that are pervasive in this field. At this time, we are requesting EOIs from teams of researchers or consortia interested in pursuing high impact, high risk ideas over a 5-year timeframe. Some teams will be invited to submit full proposals for evaluation later this year. Project budgets are intended to be approximately up to USD 10 million distributed over a 5-year period.
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OBVI will maximize opportunities to support ocean observing and data collection as part of these high-quality interdisciplinary research projects by collaborating with the Schmidt Ocean Institute (SOI), a 501(c)(3) private non-profit operating foundation established by Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
CONTACT: We encourage you to share this EOI call with anyone in your network that it might be of interest to. Should you have any questions, please reach out to obvi@schmidtfutures.com.
