Next Generation Program: Skoltech – MIT Joint Projects

Fourth call for NGP proposals (ongoing)Third call for NGP proposals (2020)Second call for NGP proposals (2017)First call for NGP proposals (2016)

Skoltech-MIT Next Generation Program
4th Call for Proposals

 [Release: July 21, 2021]

I. Program Overview

Skoltech and MIT announce the 4th Call for Proposals for the Next Generation Program (NGP) consisting of joint projects. This call is for faculty-initiated projects in research, education, and/or innovation.

A team jointly led by a PI from Skoltech and a PI from MIT may submit a single, integrated proposal in one or more of the following areas: 

Research areas of science and engineering:
    a. Data Science 

    b. Life Sciences and Health 
    c. Cutting-edge Engineering & Advanced Materials 
    d. Energy Efficiency 
    e. Advanced Studies

Areas of education, innovation, and entrepreneurship:
    f. Course Development
    g. Educational Initiatives
    h. Innovation & Entrepreneurship Development

In this 4th Call for Proposals, Skoltech and MIT expect to award approximately 10–11 joint projects. The total funding per NGP research project is up to 20 million rubles for Skoltech and $800K–1,050K for MIT (to be provided in 3 parts), for a total 2½-year grant period. The total funding per collaborative project in areas of education, innovation, and entrepreneurship is up to 4 million rubles for Skoltech and up to $200K-400K for MIT, for a 1- or 2-year grant period.

The projects have an anticipated start date of January 1, 2022. Each project will have a mid-term project review.

II. Eligibility and Requirements

  • The proposal needs to be initiated jointly by a Skoltech faculty member or organizational stream representative and an MIT principal investigator (co-Project Leaders);
  • The proposal should involve coherent activities with clearly defined and essential contributions from each participating co-Project Leader;
  • The proposal should provide substantial impact in research, innovation, and/or education; 
  • Each co-Project Leader may be involved with only one application within the 4th Call for NGP Proposals

III. Application and Review Process

The 4th NGP Call for Proposals consists of a two-stage peer-review process:

a. White Paper Submission
A completed White Paper (template is available http://skoltech.mit.edu/collaborative-projects/next-generation-program) should be submitted jointly by Skoltech and MIT co-PLs by e-mail to by September 1, 2021. 

White Papers will be pre-screened for completeness. The NGP Steering Committee appointed by the Skoltech Provost and by the MIT Associate Provost for International Activities will perform a preliminary evaluation of the White Papers.   

Announcement of the selected White Paper proposals and feedback from the Committee will be provided by October 15, 2021.

b. Full Proposal Submission
Selected teams of co-PLs will be invited to submit a Full Proposal (a template form will be provided by October 15, 2021) by e-mail to . The Full Proposal submission deadline is November 15, 2021. 

The Steering Committee will evaluate the Full Proposals with the additional involvement of internal and external experts and select the awardees.

Announcement of the selected Full Proposals will be made by January 28, 2022.

For Skoltech PLs funding will be released upon negotiation of budgetary components and the formal signing of the respective documents.

IV. Timeline

Submission of White Paper (WP) September 1, 2021
Announcement of selected WPs October 15, 2021
Submission of the Full Proposal (FP) November 15, 2021
Announcement of selected FPs January 28, 2022
Anticipated start date of the award January 1, 2022

V. Submission and Contacts

The White Papers and invited Full Proposals should be submitted by e-mail to   by a Skoltech co-PL by the respective deadlines.

For NGP inquiries please contact Ms. Karina Khapchaeva, Head of Research Initiative Office, at and/or Ms. Deliana Ernst, Assistant Director, MIT Skoltech Program at .

Appendix

Skoltech – MIT Next Generation Program
3rd Call for Proposals

 9 Projects Have Been Selected for Awards within the 3rd Call of Skoltech-MIT Next Generation Program

The third call for proposals for the Next Generation Program: Skoltech-MIT Joint Project, in 2020, yielded 32 joint submissions for faculty-initiated projects in research, education, and/or innovation. Reviews of each proposal were solicited from both Skoltech and MIT. Each full proposal submitted within this call was evaluated by individually selected internationally recognized experts in the particular research topic. External coordinators with excellent research record and experience of high-level academic expertise were appointed for overall assessment of the proposals falling within one of the broader research fields. On the MIT side, each full proposal was reviewed by an expert with an excellent research record relevant to the broad research field. Each proposal received at least four reviews that were considered by the NGP Steering Committee. Final decisions were made based on the ranking of proposals; more high-quality proposals were received than NGP funds would permit and the budget determined the cutoff.

In total, 8 research-driven projects and one project in the area of innovation were unanimously approved by the Steering Committee and selected for support.

Both the organizer of external expertise and NGP Steering Committee acknowledged the very strong set of proposals reviewed, noting that many more than the selected 9 were worthy of funding. Long-time panel members noted the significant growth in quality from the 1st to the 2nd NGP Call for Proposals has progressed yet again in this 3rd NGP call. Notably, many proposals received outstanding scores from the international experts, reflecting the exceptional quality of proposals that meet rigorous international standards of those seeking competitive funding from such US federal and European grant agencies as NSF, Horizon 2020, NIH, etc.

The Skoltech – MIT Joint Next Generation Program (NGP) covers the whole range of academic and institution development activities. That includes research, education, innovation and academic services towards establishing and promoting a mutually beneficial long-term bilateral collaboration between Skoltech and MIT, as well as further development of Skoltech work streams.

Third Round NGP Awards 

Multifunctional Fusion: Life-cycle enhancements via data-driven nanoengineering of advanced composite structures

Skoltech PI: Sergey Abaimov, Center for Design, Manufacturing, and Materials
MIT PI: Brian L. Wardle, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

View abstract

 Elucidating the molecular foundations of an arms race between two major classes of bacteriophages and their hosts

Skoltech PI: Maria L. Sokolova, Center of Life Sciences
MIT PI: Michael T. Laub, Department of Biology

View abstract

New chalcogenide and chalcohalide semiconductors for environmental sensing and renewable energy

Skoltech PI: Pavel Troshin, Center for Energy Science and Technology
MIT PI: Rafael Jaramillo, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

View abstract

Atomic-level Understanding of Interface Structure Evolution and Engineering Guidelines for Next Li-ion Solid State Batteries

Skoltech PI: Artem M. Abakumov, Center for Energy Science and Technology
MIT PI: Jennifer L.M. Rupp, Department of Materials Science and Engineering

View abstract

Market Design for Electromobility: New Formulations, Models and Algorithms

Skoltech PI: David Pozo, Center for Energy Science and Technology
MIT PI: Munther Dahleh, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

View abstract

Learning-Paradigm Based Acquisition Techniques for Hand-Held Magnetic Resonance Imagers

Skoltech PI: Dmitry Dylov, Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering
MIT PI: Jacob White, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

View abstract

Unpaired learning from irregular geometric modalities

Skoltech PI: Evgeny Burnaev, Center for Computational and Data-Intensive Science and Engineering
MIT PI: Justin Solomon, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

View abstract

Energy-dense and Durable Nonaqueous Redox Flow Batteries enabled by Flowing Solid-state Capacity Boosters

Skoltech PI: Keith Stevenson, Center for Energy Science and Technology
MIT PI: Fikile Brushett, Department of Chemical Engineering

View abstract

The Skoltech1Million Entrepreneurial Challenge

Skoltech PI: Zeljko Tekic, Center for Entrepreneurship and Innovation
MIT PI: Douglas Hart, Department of Mechanical Engineering

View abstract
 

Call Information

Skoltech – MIT Next Generation Program; 2nd Round of NGP Grants

The second call for proposals for the Next Generation Program has yielded in 11 proposals of which eventually 4 have been selected for funding. The Skoltech – MIT Joint Next Generation Program (NGP) covers the whole range of academic and institution development activities. That includes research, education, innovation and academic services towards establishing and promoting a mutually beneficial long-term bilateral collaboration between Skoltech and MIT, as well as further development of Skoltech work streams.

Lithium Redox Flow Batteries for High Power and High Energy Density Energy Storage

MIT PI’s: Fikile Brushett, Department of Chemical Engineering; Adam Willard, Department of Chemistry
SkT PI: Keith Stevenson, Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage and Center for Energy Systems
View abstract >>

Theoretical Fundamentals of Random Multiple-Access Channels with Applications to Massive Machine-Type Communications and Digital Fingerprinting

MIT PI: Yury Polyanskiy, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
SkT PI’s: Grigory Kabatiansky, President’s Office; Alexey Frolov, CDISE, loT Laboratory
View abstract >>

Simulation and Transfer Learning for Deep 3D Geometric Data Analysis

MIT PI: Justin Solomon, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science
SkT PI: Evgeny Burnaev, Skoltech Center for Computational Data-Intensive Science and Engineering
View abstract >>

Energy Systems Planning for Government Regulations: New Formulations, Models and Algorithms

MIT PI: Juan Pablo Vielma, Sloan School of Management
Skoltech PI: David Pozo, Energy Systems
View abstract >>

Announcement, June 9, 2016

Skoltech is happy to announce the results of the first call for proposals within Next Generation Program: Skoltech – MIT Joint Projects.

The “Next Generation Program: Skoltech – MIT Joint Projects” (NGP) represents one of the new formats of Skoltech-MIT collaboration and covers the whole range of academic and institution development activities. NGP seeks to establish and promote a mutually beneficial long-term bilateral collaboration in research, education and innovation between Skoltech faculty members and their MIT counterparts through the research-driven projects, as well as further development of Skoltech work streams within its development programs.

During the 2015 Call for Proposals a total of 29 White Papers were submitted resulting in 25 Full Proposals.

A panel of external reviewers consisting of nearly 80 experts, including a diverse mix of international reviewers from USA, and Europe, and others from Israel, Australia, and Singapore carefully evaluated the pool of 23 full proposals for research-driven projects according to NGP evaluation criteria. In addition, the Steering Committee considered these peer reviews and also evaluated all of the proposals with regard to internal selection criteria and implemented an US National Science Foundation -style selection procedure – two internal reviewers presented each proposal and the Committee assessed them in a series of meetings.

The feedback from peer review was communicated to Project Leaders confidentially.

The list of 15 proposals recommended for support and endorsed by Skoltech President

We congratulate the project leaders of selected proposals. For those who were not selected we encourage them to resubmit their revised proposals for the anticipated 2017 call for proposals within NGP.

Skoltech has never had an internal competition of this scale and diversity. It clearly showed mutual interest and eagerness for collaboration in Skoltech and MIT faculty communities and sent a clear message on Skoltech research strengths, priorities and openness to our peers all over the world.

Skoltech thanks all participants and organizers of the first NGP Call for Proposals.