Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) Research Program

The Environmental Protection Agency's Greater Research Opportunities (GRO) Research Program (CFDA 66.515) has not disbursed grant awards since September 2007, and no new funding opportunities are anticipated for the foreseeable future. This program is effectively inactive for pursuit.

The program, administered by EPA's National Center for Environmental Research (NCER), was designed to stimulate environmental research and educational capacity at institutions not heavily funded for such work. Recent awards funded applied research projects including nanotechnology-based environmental remediation (nanostructured catalysts for chlorinated compound remediation, nanoscale iron particles for site treatment, nanostructured membranes for aqueous and gaseous systems), mercury contamination assessment (pathways of mercury evasion from wetlands, subsurface elemental mercury sequestration), and innovation in industrial processes using supercritical fluids and advanced materials. Awards also included environmental fellowships supporting student researchers.

Between 2004 and 2007, the program issued 18 total grants totaling $4.3 million in federal dollars obligated—all administered by the Environmental Protection Agency. The assistance-type mix was predominantly Project Grants (17 awards, 94 percent) with one Cooperative Agreement (6 percent). Individual award magnitudes ranged from $439 to $349,978, with most research grants falling between $280 thousand and $350 thousand. Representative awards include a Cooperative Agreement of $338,401 to develop high-performance microcellular (nano-) composites and associated life cycle assessments (August 2007), a $349,978 Project Grant for internally-cooled machining tool research (September 2007), and a $322,950 Project Grant to develop unit operations for leather processing using liquid carbon dioxide (June 2007).

Award activity declined sharply after 2005, dropping from 11 awards that year to 3 in 2007. No grant opportunities have been posted recently, and EPA's program description explicitly states that no new funding opportunity is anticipated for FY 2008. With no recent activity in nearly two decades, this program is not a viable funding target at this time.