Nine NSF Funding Opportunities

A data-intensive effort: Resource Implementations for Data Intensive Research in the Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences  (RIDIR)

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  February 23, 2015

As part of NSF’s Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21^st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) activity, the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) seeks to develop user-friendly large-scale next-generation data resources and relevant analytic techniques to advance fundamental research in SBE areas of study. Successful proposals will, within the financial resources provided by the award, construct such databases and/or relevant analytic techniques and produce a finished product that will enable new types of data-intensive research. The databases or techniques should have significant impacts, either across multiple fields or within broad disciplinary areas, by enabling new types of data-intensive research in the SBE sciences.

Extracting visual information: NSF/Intel Partnership on Visual and Experiential Computing  (VEC)

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  February 20, 2015

• For information about VEC see Depth-Categorizing GPU-Accelerated Deep Neural Networks Perform Fast Semantic Segmentation of RGB-D Scenes 

The advancement of sensing technology such as RGBD (Red Green Blue Depth), multi-camera and light field imaging systems, networks of sensors, advanced visual analytics and cloud computing will challenge the longstanding paradigms of capturing, creating, analyzing and utilizing visual information. Advances in Visual and Experiential Computing (VEC) will enable capability, adaptability, scalability, and usability that will far exceed the simple information systems of today. VEC technology will transform the way people interact with visual information through, for example, the realization of new mobile and wearable devices and the emergence of autonomous machines and semantically aware spaces. VEC research will drive innovation and competition in many industrial sectors as well as enhance the quality of life for ordinary people.

Fast growing visual data has become a bottleneck in human decision processes in several emergent situations. New VEC technology is crucial to extracting information from complex visual and related data sets, combining this information with intuitive modes of human perception, and generating actionable information.

The goal of this joint solicitation between NSF and Intel is to foster novel, transformative, multidisciplinary approaches that promote research in VEC technologies, taking into consideration the various challenges present in this field. This solicitation aims to foster a research community committed to advancing research and education at the confluence of VEC technologies, and to transitioning its findings into practice. NSF and Intel will support three types of projects, each three years in duration: Small projects with funding from $500,000 to $1,000,000 per project; Medium projects with funding from $1,000,001 to $2,000,000 per project; and Large projects with funding from $2,000,001 to $3,000,000.  It is intended that NSF and Intel will cofund each project in equal amounts.

This NSF/Intel partnership combines CISE’s experience in developing and managing successful large, diverse research portfolios with Intel’s long history of building research communities in emerging technology areas through programs such as its Science and Technology Center Program.

Great for massively parallel algorithms: Algorithms in the Field  (AitF)

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  February 9, 2015; Second Monday in February, Annually Thereafter

Algorithms in the Field encourages closer collaboration between two groups of researchers: (i) theoretical computer science researchers, who focus on the design and analysis of provably efficient and provably accurate algorithms for various computational models; and (ii) applied researchers including a combination of systems and domain experts (very broadly construed – including but not limited to researchers in computer architecture, programming languages and systems, computer networks, cyber-physical systems, cyber-human systems, machine learning, database and data analytics, etc.) who focus on the particular design constraints of applications and/or computing devices. Each proposal must have at least one co-PI interested in theoretical computer science and one interested in any of the other areas typically supported by CISE. Proposals are expected to address the dissemination of the algorithmic contributions and resulting applications, tools, languages, compilers, libraries, architectures, systems, data, etc.

Create inference benchmarks: Benchmarks of Realistic Scientific Application Performance of Large-Scale Computing Systems  (BRAP)

• Proposals should be submitted  on or before February 2, 2015.  The requested starting date should be no earlier than May 1, 2015.

NSF is interested in supporting activities by the NSF Cyberinfrastructure community in the analysis of existing benchmarks, and in the development of new benchmarks, that measure real-world performance and effectiveness of large-scale computing systems for science and engineering discovery.  

Research, development, and use of performance benchmarks in high-performance computing (HPC) has been active for over 20 years, as evidenced by the development of LINPACK and the emergence of the TOP500 list in the early 1990s, followed by the development of the HPC Challenge Benchmark and the current HPCG effort (http://tiny.cc/hpcg).  There have been efforts to provide benchmarks that include real applications, such as the SPEC High Performance Computing Benchmarks (http://spec.org/benchmarks.html#hpg), the Blue Waters SPP suite (http://www.ncsa.illinois.edu/assets/pdf/news/BW1year_apps.pdf), and the NERSC SSP (https://www.nersc.gov/users/computational-systems/nersc-8-system-cori/nersc-8-procurement/trinity-nersc-8-rfp/nersc-8-trinity-benchmarks/ssp/).  Recent efforts have sought to broaden the set of relevant benchmarks to more effectively cover performance under different application environments such as data-intensive analysis (e.g., Graph500).  Energy efficiency has also emerged in recent years as a relevant and increasingly important area of measurement and profiling for HPC systems (e.g., Green500).  In addition to HPC, the Big Data community has gained interest in benchmarking; reference approaches to measuring and characterizing system performance for large-scale data analysis hardware and software systems remains an area of research, development, and community discussion (e.g., on the Big Data Top 100).  Industry and academe have convened an ongoing series of workshops and meetings on the topic of Big Data benchmarking (http://clds.ucsd.edu/bdbc/workshops).

Given the emergence of inference-based computing, the growing role of data analysis, changes in scientific workflow due to dynamic availability of sensor and instrument data, the expanding use of large-scale computing in all scientific disciplines, the growing role of clouds, and a diversity of architectural approaches, NSF sees a timely opportunity to engage the community in benchmarking analysis and development activities.

NSF welcomes benchmarking proposals in the following general areas: (1) the analysis, evaluation, and assessment of the effectiveness of one or more existing benchmarks used in industry and academe today; (2) the development (including algorithm development and prototype implementation) and experimental use of one or more new benchmarks; or (3) workshops and community engagement events to advance discussion, dissemination, and community building around benchmarks.  Proposals focused in areas 1 and 2 must include some work in area 3.  Industry engagement is encouraged.

Proposals should describe aspects of the targeted systems and run-time environments, including relevant scales, types of platforms, and I/O processing, and should describe the new information about the targeted systems that can be expected to emerge from the project.  Describe the scientific applicability characteristics of the targeted systems, and the relevance of the new information that will be learned about these systems to realistic use in the proposed applications.  Because the act of measuring a quantity often leads to efforts to improve that quantity, proposals should justify the choice of characteristic(s) being measured, such as sustained performance, throughput, productivity, energy efficiency, time to solution, etc., including an application perspective in this justification.  Describe the scope of the interested research community, within and/or beyond NSF; the likelihood that that community will accept the proposed benchmark as a useful measure; and the practicality and feasibility of the benchmark as a tool for that community.  Describe how the proposed measurements might create incentives for vendors to design systems that will serve the application area(s).  Authors should also address the issues of evolution and sustainability of the benchmarks in future generations, and the usefulness of the benchmarks in contributing to NSF’s future efforts to acquire systems that best serve the research community.  Proposals should include a project plan with milestones.  For proposals addressing Big Data benchmarks, NSF encourages proposers to consider the characteristics and topics described in guidance for the Fifth Workshop on Big Data Benchmarking (http://clds.ucsd.edu/wbdb2014.de).

Interesting for TechEnablement readers: Exploiting Parallelism and Scalability  (XPS)

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  January 27, 2015

Computing systems have undergone a fundamental transformation from the single-processor devices of the turn of the century to today’s ubiquitous and networked devices and warehouse-scale computing via the cloud. Parallelism is abundant at many levels.  At the same time, semiconductor technology is facing fundamental physical limits and single processor performance has plateaued.  This means that the ability to achieve predictable performance improvements through improved processor technologies alone has ended.  Thus, parallelism has become critically important.

The Exploiting Parallelism and Scalability (XPS) program aims to support groundbreaking research leading to a new era of parallel computing. Achieving the needed breakthroughs will require a collaborative effort among researchers representing all areas — from services and applications down to the micro-architecture — and will be built on new concepts, theories, and foundational principles. New approaches to achieve scalable performance and usability need new abstract models and algorithms, new programming models and languages, new hardware architectures, compilers, operating systems and run-time systems, and must exploit domain and application-specific knowledge. Research is also needed on energy efficiency, communication efficiency, and on enabling the division of effort between edge devices and clouds.

United States-Israel Collaboration in Computer Science  (USICCS)

• Full Proposal Window:  March 2, 2015 – March 16, 2015

The United States-Israel Collaboration in Computer Science (USICCS) program is a joint program of NSF and the United States – Israel Binational Science Foundation (BSF).  The program supports research projects that develop new knowledge in the areas of theory of computing; algorithm design and analysis; design, verification, and evaluation of software systems; and revolutionary computing models based on emerging scientific ideas.

Through this program, NSF and BSF will jointly support collaborations among US-based researchers and Israel-based researchers.  US-based researchers will receive funds from NSF to support travel to Israel to interact with their Israeli counterparts. Israel-based and US-based researchers will receive funds allowable under the BSF program described at http://www.bsf.org.il/.

Gigabit networking: US Ignite

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  January 21, 2015

US Ignite is an Administration initiative seeking to promote US leadership in the development and deployment of next-generation gigabit applications with the potential for significant societal impact. The primary goal of US Ignite is to break a fundamental deadlock: there is insufficient investment in gigabit applications that can take advantage of advanced network infrastructure because such infrastructure is rare and dispersed. And conversely, there is a lack of broad availability of advanced broadband infrastructure for open experimentation and innovation because there are few advanced applications and services to justify it. US Ignite aims to break this deadlock by providing incentives for imagining, prototyping, and developing public sector gigabit applications, and by leveraging and extending this network testbed across US college/university campuses and cities.

This solicitation builds on the experience gained from initial US Ignite activities to further engage the US academic research and non-profit communities along with local cities, municipalities, and regions in exploring the challenges of developing and applying next-generation networking to problems of significant public interest and benefit. In particular, this solicitation has two tracks: the first encourages the development of applications in national priority areas that explore new uses for networks, giving rise to novel networking and application paradigms; and the second expands and enhances the ecosystems in which these applications will evolve and be evaluated.

For those interested in women in technology: Science, Technology, and Society  (STS)

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  February 2, 2015; February 2, Annually Thereafter

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  August 3, 2015; August 3, Annually Thereafter

• For more information see: Bringing “Getting-by” Girls into Science and Technology and  Gender Diversity Study “In Science, It Matters That Women Come Last”

The Science, Technology, and Society (STS) program supports research that uses historical, philosophical, and social scientific methods to investigate the intellectual, material, and social facets of the scientific, technological, engineering and mathematical (STEM) disciplines. It encompasses a broad spectrum of STS topics including interdisciplinary studies of ethics, equity, governance, and policy issues that are closely related to STEM disciplines, including medical science. 

The program’s review process is approximately six months. It includes appraisal of proposals by ad hoc reviewers selected for their expertise and by an advisory panel that meets twice a year. The deadlines for the submission of proposals are February 2nd for proposals to be funded as early as July, and August 3rd for proposals to be funded in or after January. There is one exception: Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant proposals will have only one deadline per year, August 3rd.

National Robotics Initiative  (NRI)

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  January 14, 2015

• Full Proposal Deadline Date:  December 3, 2015; First Thursday in December, Annually Thereafter

The goal of the National Robotics Initiative is to accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside or cooperatively with people. Innovative robotics research and applications emphasizing the realization of such co-robots working in symbiotic relationships with human partners is supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), and the U.S. Department of  Defense (DOD). The purpose of this program is the development of this next generation of robotics, to advance the capability and usability of such systems and artifacts, and to encourage existing and new communities to focus on innovative application areas. It will address the entire life cycle from fundamental research and development to manufacturing and deployment. Questions concerning a particular project’s focus, direction and relevance to a participating funding organization should be addressed to that agency’s point of contact listed in section VIII of this solicitation.

Methods for the establishment and infusion of robotics in educational curricula and research to gain a better understanding of the long-term social, behavioral and economic implications of co-robots across all areas of human activity are important parts of this initiative. Collaboration between academic, industry, non-profit and other organizations is strongly encouraged to establish better linkages between fundamental science and technology development, deployment and use.

Only one class of proposals will be considered in response to this solicitation; there will not be separate competitions for small, medium, and large proposals. Please refer to section III of this solicitation for budget size information.