Georgia Tech's strategic plan, “Designing the Future,” calls for increasing leadership in defining and shaping the world, rather than responding to or being shaped by it. The Strategic Energy Insitute (SEI) is chasing this challenge and currently seeking proposals from the Georgia Tech community for projects that will promote thought leadership in the energy arena.

The SEI goal is to complement the significant amount of energy research that is happening on campus by encouraging and supporting activities with a clear thought leadership emphasis on energy issues. This SEI program solicits proposals directed toward these aspirations, with a particular emphasis on activities where external funding is difficult to obtain, yet that are important in terms of promoting one of the following three SEI goals: 

1. Developing and nurturing the energy research community across the campus and in the state.
2. Growing the resource base for Georgia Tech energy research.
3. Growing the thought leadership projected by Georgia Tech.

SEI seeks to facilitate activities that define frameworks, develop roadmaps, and convene thought-leaders around complex energy issues. Proposals that link-up groups across different colleges are highly encouraged, such as those that integrate technical discipline expertise with system analyses or economics/policy/business aspects. 

Proposals could span activities ranging from a few hundred dollars up to a maximum of $40,000/year (direct costs and no tuition charged), and can span time ranges from one day up to two years. Second year funding for any two-year proposals will be influenced by PI efforts to engage external resources by the end of the first year.

Further details, including submission deadlines, are available at www.energy.gatech.edu/rfp.