For David Schiraldi, a chemistry professor at Case Western Reserve University, getting an NSF award to study a novel material for soaking up oil was “phenomenal.” The entire process, from filling out the brief five-page application “in one sitting” to receipt of his funding, took less than a month. It was, he says, “the best grant experience of my career.”
Schiraldi’s experience is being shared by dozens of other academic scientists who are studying various impacts from the millions of barrels of oil that spewed from BP’s blown well in the Gulf of Mexico in April. The disaster has spotlighted a special grant mechanism, known as Rapid Response Research (RAPID) that NSF has used to support urgent research that can’t wait for the agency’s standard proposal-review process. The environmental calamity in the Gulf, when combined with the Haitian and Chilean earthquakes, has made 2010 a busy year for RAPID...
