The Science Alliance was formed to build and enhance relationships between University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) faculty and Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) scientists and engineers. In keeping with this rich history, the Science Alliance implemented the Program for Advancing Collaborative Teams (PACT) program to provide support for collaborative research endeavors aimed at securing large extramural funding, such as NSF Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers (MRSEC) or NIH RM1 grants. Calls for this program will be made approximately 15 months before the anticipated submission of an external proposal. Investigator-identified opportunities will also be considered, if they are brought to the attention of Science Alliance with sufficient lead time to issue a university wide call. Typical awards will be $100-200k, and 2-3 awards are expected to be made. Projects will have staged funding for one year as long as performance metrics are achieved. A chance for second year funding will also be available if the project shows strong promise of receiving new external funding as a result of the collaborative activities and is deemed meritorious in the second year ‘s proposal evaluation process.
