The Environmental Research & Education Foundation (EREF) is the only private, grant making institution with a national and international scope whose sole mission is to support solid waste research and education initiatives. EREF’s research grants program is led by its Research Council, a body of volunteers consisting of technical experts in industry, academia and consulting. The work of the Council is guided by a long range strategic plan with the goal to achieve greater sustainability, good environmental stewardship, higher process efficiency and increased knowledge. Council recommended projects are then reviewed by EREF’s Board of Director’s Projects Committee for a final review and funding allocations.


Pre-proposals are now REQUIRED prior to submitting a full proposal.
All pre-proposals must adhere to the criteria noted and be submitted by the established deadlines.  Pre-proposals submitted in response to this RFP that do not fit within the topic areas noted will not be reviewed.

Research Topic Areas
Pre-proposal topics must relate to sustainable solid waste management practices and pertain to the following topic areas:

  1. Waste minimization
  2. Recycling
  3. Waste conversion to energy, biofuels, chemicals or other useful products.  This includes, but is not limited to, the following technologies:

    • Waste-to-energy
    • Anaerobic digestion
    • Composting
    • Other thermal or biological conversion technologies
  4. Strategies to promote diversion to higher and better uses (e.g. organics diversion, market analysis, optimized material management, logistics, etc.)
  5. Landfilling

Desirable aspects of the above topics, in addition to or as part of hypothesis driven applied research, also include: economic or cost/benefit analyses, feasibility studies for untested technologies or management strategies, life cycle analysis or inventory, and analyses of policies that relate to the above.

Invitation to Submit Full Proposals
Upon submission, pre-proposals will be examined by a selection committee and successful pre-proposals will be invited to submit a full proposal for consideration.  Full proposals will then be subjected to EREF’s review process.
    

   

For more information, including a download of the Pre-Proposal Template, visit www.erefdn.org/grants/proposal.

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