OARS funding Computer

NOTE: Webpage provides information about general webinar and BIO Directorate breakout. If you are interested in breakouts for other directorates, contact Heather Johnston (johnsthb@MiamiOH.edu) in Research & Innovation for information. On Wednesday, November 4, 2020 and Thursday, November 5, 2020, NSF will host outreach webinars with information about the Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure (Mid-scale RI)-1 funding opportunity (NSF 21-505). The Mid-scale RI Big Idea is intended to provides an agile, Foundation-wide process to fund experimental research capabilities in the mid-scale range ($6 million to $100 million), between the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) and Major Facilities thresholds.  Recently, the solicitation (NSF 21-505) for the Mid-scale RI-1 program (for infrastructure with total project cost of $6 million up until, but not including, $20 million) was published with a deadline of January 7, 2021 for preliminary proposals. Each session will begin at 1:00 p.m. EST and have two parts: a general Mid-scale RI-1 information session (1:00 p.m. -1:40 p.m. EST) with Q&A followed by Directorate-specific breakouts (1:45 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. EST) where more technical questions will be addressed. The information presented on Day 1 will be the same as the information presented on Day 2.

The NSF ADVANCE program provides grants to enhance the systemic factors that support equity and inclusion and to mitigate the systemic factors that create inequities in the academic profession and workplaces. Systemic (or organizational) inequities may exist in areas such as policy and practice as well as in organizational culture and climate. For example, practices in academic departments that result in the inequitable allocation of service or teaching assignments may impede research productivity, delay advancement, and create a culture of differential treatment and rewards. Similarly, policies and procedures that do not mitigate implicit bias in hiring, tenure, and promotion decisions could lead to women and racial and ethnic minorities being evaluated less favorably, perpetuating historical under-participation in STEM academic careers and contributing to an academic climate that is not inclusive. All NSF ADVANCE proposals are expected to use intersectional approaches in the design of systemic change strategies in recognition that gender, race and ethnicity do not exist in isolation from each other and from other categories of social identity. The solicitation includes four funding tracks: Institutional Transformation (IT), Adaptation, Partnership, and Catalyst, in support of the NSF ADVANCE program goal to broaden the implementation of systemic strategies that promote equity for STEM faculty in academic workplaces and the academic profession.

The previous AccelNet solicitation (NSF 19-501) issued in 2019 called for international networks of networks addressing scientific grand challenges that require significant international research coordination, either aligned with one of NSF's 10 Big Ideas or community-identified grand challenges. This new solicitation clarifies definitions, budgetary information, and announces broader target areas, as well as changes to submission requirements.

Growing Convergence Research (GCR) at the National Science Foundation was identified as one of 10 Big Ideas. Convergence research is a means for solving vexing research problems, in particular, complex problems focusing on societal needs. It entails integrating knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines and forming novel frameworks to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation. GCR identifies Convergence Research as having two primary characteristics: Research driven by a specific and compelling problem. Convergence Research is generally inspired by the need to address a specific challenge or opportunity, whether it arises from deep scientific questions or pressing societal needs. Deep integration across disciplines. As experts from different disciplines pursue common research challenges, their knowledge, theories, methods, data, research communities and languages become increasingly intermingled or integrated. New frameworks, paradigms or even disciplines can form sustained interactions across multiple communities. A distinct characteristic of convergence research, in contrast to other forms of multidisciplinary research, is that from the inception, the convergence paradigm intentionally brings together intellectually diverse researchers and stakeholders to frame the research questions, develop effective ways of communicating across disciplines and sectors, adopt common frameworks for their solution, and, when appropriate, develop a new scientific vocabulary. Research teams practicing convergence aim at developing sustainable relationships that may not only create solutions to the problem that engendered the collaboration, but also develop novel ways of framing related research questions and open new research vistas.

The objective of the Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI) program is to develop, deploy and integrate solutions that benefit the broader scientific community by securing science data, workflows, and infrastructure. CICI recognizes the unique nature of modern, rapid collaborative science and the breadth of security expertise, infrastructure and requirements among different practitioners, researchers, and scientific projects. CICI seeks projects in three program areas: Usable and Collaborative Security for Science (UCSS): Projects in this program area should support novel and applied security and usability research that facilitates scientific collaboration, encourages the adoption of security into the scientific workflow, and helps create a holistic, integrated security environment that spans the entire scientific CI ecosystem. Reference Scientific Security Datasets (RSSD):Projects in this program area should capture the unique properties of scientific workflows and workloads as reference data artifacts to support reproducible security research and protect the scientific process. Scientific Infrastructure Vulnerability Discovery (SIVD): Projects in this program area should develop and apply techniques to proactively discover vulnerabilities and weaknesses in scientific infrastructure.

A key focus of the design of modern computing systems is performance and scalability, particularly in light of the limits of Moore's Law and Dennard scaling. To this end, systems are increasingly being implemented by composing heterogeneous computing components and continually changing memory systems as novel, performant hardware surfaces. Applications fueled by rapid strides in machine learning, data analysis, and extreme-scale simulation are becoming more domain-specific and highly distributed. In this scenario, traditional boundaries between hardware-oriented and software-oriented disciplines increasingly are blurred. Achieving scalability of systems and applications will therefore require coordinated progress in multiple disciplines such as computer architecture, high-performance computing (HPC), programming languages and compilers, security and privacy, systems, theory, and algorithms. Cross-cutting concerns such as performance (including, but not limited to, time, space, and communication resource usage and energy efficiency), correctness and accuracy (including, but not limited to, emerging techniques for program analysis, testing, debugging, probabilistic reasoning and inference, and verification), security and privacy, robustness and reliability, domain-specific design, and heterogeneity must be taken into account from the outset in all aspects of systems and application design and implementation.

The Law & Science Program considers proposals that address social scientific studies of law and law-like systems of rules, as well as studies of how science and technology are applied in legal contexts. The Program is inherently interdisciplinary and multi-methodological. Successful proposals describe research that advances scientific theory and understanding of the connections between human behavior and law, legal institutions, or legal processes; or the interactions of law and basic sciences, including biology, computer and information sciences, STEM education, engineering, geosciences, and math and physical sciences. Scientific studies of law often approach law as dynamic, interacting with multiple arenas, and with the participation of multiple actors. Fields of study include many disciplines, and often address problems including, though not limited, to: Crime, Violence, and Policing Cyberspace Economic Issues Environmental Science Evidentiary Issues Forensic Science Governance and Courts Human Rights and Comparative Law Information Technology Legal and Ethical Issues related to Science Legal Decision Making Legal Mobilization and Conceptions of Justice Litigation and the Legal Profession Punishment and Corrections Regulation and Facilitation of Biotechnology (e.g., Gene Editing, Gene Testing, Synthetic Biology) and Other Emerging Sciences and Technologies Use of Science in the Legal Processes

EarthCube is a community-driven activity sponsored through a partnership between the NSF Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) and the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) within the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE) to transform research in the academic geosciences community. EarthCube aims to create a well-connected and facile environment to share data and knowledge in an open, transparent, and inclusive manner, thus accelerating our ability to understand and predict the Earth system. Achieving EarthCube will require a long-term dialog between NSF and the interested scientific communities to develop cyberinfrastructure that is thoughtfully and systematically built to meet the current and future requirements of geoscientists. New avenues will be supported to gather community requirements and priorities for the elements of EarthCube, and to capture the best technologies to meet these current and future needs. The EarthCube portfolio will consist of interconnected projects and activities that engage the geosciences, cyberinfrastructure, computer science, and associated communities. The portfolio of activities and funding opportunities will evolve over time depending on the status of the EarthCube effort and the scientific and cultural needs of the geosciences community.

The MCA offers an opportunity for scientists and engineers at the Associate Professor rank (or equivalent) to substantively enhance and advance their research program through synergistic and mutually beneficial partnerships, typically at an institution other than their home institution. Projects that envision new insights on existing problems or identify new but related problems previously inaccessible without new methodology or expertise from other fields are encouraged. Partners from outside the PI's own sub-discipline or discipline are encouraged, but not required, to enhance interdisciplinary networking and convergence across science and engineering fields. By (re)-investing in mid-career investigators, NSF aims to enable and grow a more diverse scientific workforce (more women, persons with disabilities, and underrepresented minorities) at high academic ranks, who remain engaged and active in cutting-edge research.

The DOE SC program in Basic Energy Sciences (BES) hereby announces its interest in receiving new and renewal applications from small groups (2-3 principal investigators) and integrated multidisciplinary teams (typically from multiple institutions) in Computational Chemical Sciences (CCS). Single-investigator applications are not responsive to the objectives of this FOA. CCS will support basic research to develop validated, open-source codes for modeling and simulation of complex chemical processes and phenomena that allow full use of emerging exascale and future planned DOE leadership-class computing capabilities. The focus for CCS is on developing capabilities that allow modeling and simulation of new or previously inaccessible complex chemical systems and/or provide dramatic improvement in fidelity, scalability, and throughput. Teams should bring together expertise in domain areas (e.g., electronic structure, chemical dynamics, statistical mechanics, etc.) and other areas important to advance computational tools such as data science, algorithm development, and software architectures. Priority will be given to efforts that address reaction chemistry across multiple scales in complex environments important in geosciences, catalysis, biochemistry, or electrochemistry. CCS will continue to support the DOE Exascale Computing Initiative (ECI). The ECI aims to accelerate the research and development needed to overcome key exascale challenges and maximize benefits of high-performance computing. This funding opportunity continues the BES commitment to ECI by developing open-source codes that can take full advantage of emerging exascale and future planned DOE leadership-class computing facilities.

The Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) Division supports enabling and transformative research that fuels progress in engineering applications with high societal impacts. ECCS programs encompass novel electronic, photonic, and magnetic devices; communication systems, novel integrated circuits, antennas, sensors; machine learning, control, and networks, to name a few. The fundamental research supported by ECCS impacts a wide range of applications such as communications, energy and power, healthcare, environment, transportation, manufacturing, and other areas. ECCS strongly emphasizes the integration of education into its research programs to support the preparation of a diverse and professionally skilled workforce. ECCS also strengthens its programs through links to other areas of engineering, science, industry, government, and international collaborations. The Addressing Systems Challenges through Engineering Teams (ASCENT) program is a strategic investment of ECCS that emphasizes new collaboration modalities among the various ECCS supported sub-disciplines. ASCENT encourages robust collaborations between the devices, circuits, algorithmic, and network research communities to develop innovative projects. ASCENT seeks proposals that are bold and ground-breaking transcending the perspectives and approaches typical of disciplinary research efforts. ASCENT projects are expected to lead to disruptive technologies or nucleate entirely new research fields motivated by the most pressing societal challenges the global community faces.

DMREF will support activities that significantly accelerate materials discovery and development by building the fundamental knowledge base needed to advance the design and development of materials with desirable properties or functionality. This will be accomplished through forming interdisciplinary teams of researchers working synergistically in a "closed loop" fashion, building a vibrant research community, leveraging data science, providing ready access to materials data, and educating the future MGI workforce. Achieving this goal could involve some combination of: strategies to advance materials design through testing methodology; theory, modeling, and simulation to predict behavior or assist in analysis of multidimensional input data; and validation through synthesis, growth, processing, characterization, and/or device demonstration.

For FY2021, Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) have been added to the national priority areas in which the NRT Program encourages proposals. We seek proposals on any interdisciplinary research theme of national priority, with special emphasis on AI and QISE and the six research areas within NSF's 10 Big Ideas. The NSF research Big Ideas are Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR), The Future of Work at the Human-Technology Frontier (FW-HTF), Navigating the New Arctic (NNA), Windows on the Universe: The Era of Multi-Messenger Astrophysics (WoU), The Quantum Leap: Leading the Next Quantum Revolution (QL), and Understanding the Rules of Life: Predicting Phenotype (URoL). Proposals that align with one of these designated priority areas should contain a title to reflect that alignment, as described in the program solicitation (e.g., NRT-AI: title, NRT-HDR: title, NRT-QL: title). Proposals may be submitted under two tracks (i.e., Track 1 and Track 2). Track 1 proposals may request a total budget (up to five years in duration) up to $3 million for projects with a focus on STEM graduate students in research-based PhD and/or master's degree programs. Track 2 proposals may request a total budget (up to five years in duration) up to $2 million; NSF requires that Track 2 proposals focus on programs from institutions not classified as Doctoral Universities: Very High Research Activity (R1). Requirements for Track 1 and Track 2 are identical.

The COVID-19 Vaccine Challenge Series aims to find several digital solutions that will help ADB's developing member countries (DMCs) tackle a broad range of challenges as vaccines become available-from vaccine delivery and distribution, to public communication and education, to mobilization and monitoring of healthcare workers and volunteers, as well as safe and efficient administration of COVID-19 vaccines.

"JobsOhio is hosting a town hall meeting to discuss initiatives and strategic assets within the Dayton/Western and Cincinnati/Southwest Ohio region. Join us Thursday, December 17 at 1:30 - 3 p.m. to learn more about our strategy and objectives as well as introduce the advisors and leadership for this sector. JobsOhio's President and CEO, J.P. Nauseef and Managing Director of Military and Federal, Elaine Bryant and will be joined by notable guest speakers who will offer their expertise and alignment on the statewide initiative."

The Pandemic Response Challenge is a $500K, four-month challenge that focuses on the development of data-driven AI systems to predict COVID-19 infection rates and prescribe Intervention Plans (IPs) that regional governments, communities, and organizations can implement to minimize harm when reopening their economies.

The L'Oréal USA For Women in Science fellowship program awards five women postdoctoral scientists annually with grants of $60,000 each for their contributions in Science, Technology, Engineering and Math (STEM) fields and commitment to serving as role models for younger generations.

The Farm Business Management and Benchmarking (FBMB) Competitive Grants Program provides funds for improving the farm management knowledge and skills of agricultural producers by maintaining and expanding a national, publicly available farm financial management database to support improved farm management.

The purpose of the 2020 HD4A CFP is primarily to award data access at no cost from one of eight anticipated data providers to successful applicants. Most selected projects will not receive a financial award for personnel or other project-related costs. However, limited funding up to $100,000 per project is available for a small number of projects from principal investigators who have not previously received external research funding.

NineSigma, representing the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), seeks technologies, such as weather prediction, that support decision-making by rice farmers in Senegal. It is desirable for the technologies to be available in areas with narrowband Internet connection and to require no specialist knowledge of information and communication technology. The proof-of-concept (POC) experiments of the technologies will be conducted as part of JICA's research project in collaboration with the National Company of Development and Exploitation of Land in the Delta of Senegal River, and Faleme Valleys (SAED), which is an organization promoting the development of irrigation farming on the left bank of the Senegal River valley, and the JICA Technical Cooperation Project, which provides technical support to SAED. Once the technologies are established after the POC, they may be deployed in Senegal, and in the future, expanded throughout Africa.