OARS funding Engineering

The Capacity Track seeks innovative proposals leading to an increase in the ability of the United States higher education enterprise to produce cybersecurity professionals. Proposals are encouraged that contribute to the expansion of existing educational opportunities and resources in cybersecurity and focus on efforts such as research on the teaching and learning of cybersecurity, including research on materials, methods and interventions; curricula recommendations for new courses, degree programs, and educational pathways with plans for wide adoption nationally; teaching and learning effectiveness of cybersecurity curricular programs and courses; integration of cybersecurity topics into computer science, data science, information technology, engineering and other existing degree programs with plans for pervasive adoption; and partnerships between institutions of higher education, government, and relevant employment sectors leading to improved models for the integration of applied research experiences into cybersecurity degree programs.

I-Corps@Ohio is a statewide program to assist faculty and graduate students from Ohio universities and colleges to validate the market potential of their technologies and validate and launch startup companies. I-Corps@Ohio is modeled after the National Science Foundation's (NSF) successful I-Corps program, which is proven to increase innovation, entrepreneurship, and industry collaboration. The I-Corps@Ohio program is an initiative of the Ohio Department of Higher Education.

This Biological and Environmental Research/Advanced Scientific Computing Research (BERASCR) Scientific Discovery Thru Advanced Computing (SciDAC) Partnership FOA will enable scientists to conduct complex scientific and engineering computations at a level of fidelity needed to simulate real-world climate conditions, by supporting deep, necessary, and productive collaborations between climate scientists on the one hand and applied mathematicians and computer scientists on the other, that overcome the barriers between these disciplines and consequently fully exploit the capabilities of Department of Energy (DOE) High Performance Computing (HPC) systems in order to accelerate advances in climate science. This SciDAC opportunity targets three particular topics of high-priority for DOE climate research that are expected to be transformed by effective climate-computational partnerships: the development of new and innovative methods to predict sea-level change; the development of a theoretical statistical-numerical framework to improve climate prediction; and the development of improved methods for model component coupling. The next-generation climate model capabilities will contribute to the newly launched Accelerated Climate Model for Energy (ACME) and further its progress toward design of climate codes for leadership class computers and in support of energy science and mission requirements.

The goal of the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) is to support fundamental research that will accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside or cooperatively with people. The original NRI program focused on innovative robotics research that emphasized the realization of collaborative robots (co-robots) working in symbiotic relationships with human partners. The NRI-2.0 program significantly extends this theme to focus on issues of scalability: how teams of multiple robots and multiple humans can interact and collaborate effectively; how robots can be designed to facilitate achievement of a variety of tasks in a variety of environments, with minimal modification to the hardware and software; how robots can learn to perform more effectively and efficiently, using large pools of information from the cloud, other robots, and other people; and how the design of the robots' hardware and software can facilitate large-scale, reliable operation. In addition, the program supports innovative approaches to establish and infuse robotics into educational curricula, advance the robotics workforce through education pathways, and explore the social, behavioral, and economic implications of our future with ubiquitous collaborative robots. Collaboration between academic, industry, non-profit, and other organizations is encouraged to establish better linkages between fundamental science and engineering and technology development, deployment and use. Well-justified international collaborations that add significant value to the proposed research and education activities will also be considered.

The complexities of brain and behavior pose fundamental questions in many areas of science and engineering, drawing intense interest across a broad spectrum of disciplinary perspectives while eluding explanation by any one of them. Rapid advances within and across disciplines are leading to an increasingly interconnected fabric of theories, models, empirical methods and findings, and educational approaches, opening new opportunities to understand complex aspects of neural and cognitive systems through integrative multidisciplinary approaches.

The NSF Research Traineeship (NRT) program is designed to encourage the development and implementation of bold, new, and potentially transformative models for STEM graduate education training. The NRT program seeks proposals that ensure that graduate students in research-based master's and doctoral degree programs develop the skills, knowledge, and competencies needed to pursue a range of STEM careers. The NRT program includes two tracks: the Traineeship Track and the Innovations in Graduate Education (IGE) Track.

The purpose of the Cyberlearning and Future Learning Technologies program is to integrate opportunities offered by emerging technologies with advances in what is known about how people learn to advance three interconnected thrusts: -Cyber innovation -Learning innovation -Advancing understanding of how people learn in technology-rich learning environments

The complexities of brain and behavior pose fundamental questions in many areas of science and engineering, drawing intense interest across a broad spectrum of disciplinary perspectives while eluding explanation by any one of them. Rapid advances within and across disciplines are leading to an increasingly interconnected fabric of theories, models, empirical methods and findings, and educational approaches, opening new opportunities to understand complex aspects of neural and cognitive systems through integrative multidisciplinary approaches. This program calls for innovative, integrative, boundary-crossing proposals that can best capture those opportunities. NSF seeks proposals that are bold, risky, and transcend the perspectives and approaches typical of single-discipline research efforts

The goal of the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) is to support fundamental research that will accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside or cooperatively with people. The original NRI program focused on innovative robotics research that emphasized the realization of collaborative robots (co-robots) working in symbiotic relationships with human partners. The NRI-2.0 program significantly extends this theme to focus on issues of scalability: how teams of multiple robots and multiple humans can interact and collaborate effectively; how robots can be designed to facilitate achievement of a variety of tasks in a variety of environments, with minimal modification to the hardware and software; how robots can learn to perform more effectively and efficiently, using large pools of information from the cloud, other robots, and other people; and how the design of the robots’ hardware and software can facilitate large-scale, reliable operation

The Division of Chemical, Bioengineering and Environmental Transport (CBET) in the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation (NSF) is partnering with The Center for the Advancement of Science in Space (CASIS) to solicit research projects in the general field of combustion and thermal transport processes that can utilize the International Space Station (ISS) National Lab to conduct research that will benefit life on Earth. U.S. entities including academic investigators, non-profit independent research labs and academic-commercial teams are eligible to apply.

NIST is soliciting proposals for financial assistance from eligible applicants to support basic research, in a consortium-based setting, focused on the long-term research needs of industry in the area of future computing and information processing. There is a critical need for scientific and engineering advances in novel computing paradigms with long-term impact on the semiconductor, electronics, computing, and defense industries. The proposed activities should advance the physical and materials aspects of future computing technologies with a focus on alternatives that provide low latency, low energy per operation, improved data/communication bandwidth, and higher clock speed. Activities should include innovative research in devices, circuits, architectures, metrology or characterization to enable future computing paradigms. Applicants should create mechanisms for extended collaboration with NIST researchers.

The Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers (IUCRC) program develops long-term partnerships among industry, academe, and government. The Centers are catalyzed by an investment from the National Science Foundation (NSF) and are primarily supported by industry Center members, with NSF taking a supporting role in the development and evolution of the Center. Each Center is established to conduct research that is of interest to both the industry members and the Center faculty. An IUCRC contributes to the nation's research infrastructure base and enhances the intellectual capacity of the engineering and science workforce through the integration of research and education. As appropriate, an IUCRC uses international collaborations to advance these goals within the global context.

The Insect Allies program will develop a platform technology for delivering enhanced crop traits within a single growing season by delivering a modified virus to target plants by a mobile insect vector.

This Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) seeks to provide research and development for forming a revolutionary approach to information fusion and analysis by leveraging service-oriented architecture, open standards, and cutting-edge fusion and analytical algorithms to provide real-time (or near real-time) intelligence for decision makers. This BAA shall research and develop novel techniques to assist users with discovering the golden nuggets in the data - potential approaches include fusing diverse data sources, filtering noise, and leveraging pattern learning to derive patterns of life. Further, technical capabilities developed under this BAA will minimize user time spent gathering data and reporting data, while preserving and providing more time for analysis. This will be accomplished through several means to include a data framework that can easily and quickly connect to sundry data sources, a rich, intuitive personalized workspace and experience, a variety of user-defined visualization displays, machine learning to assist and automate mundane tasks, and a custom report generation tool.

This BAA focuses on developing new technologies to allow secure data sharing; trusted computing; smart routing; cyber defense; Multi-Level Security (MLS) trust at the tactical edge; and a comprehensive, multi-security domain, user-defined operational picture to effectively and efficiently improve the state-of-the-art for defense enterprise, cloud, and mobile/tactical computing/operations.

The objective of this study is to assess the effect of truck traffic on bridge performance by conducting the following: Collect quality truck traffic and loads data (volumes, classifications, size, weights, and other relevant data) by installing, maintaining, calibrating, and utilizing state of art instrumentation at selected bridge sites nationally, for the purpose of calibrating bridge specifications and quantifying load-induced deterioration of bridge elements and systems to establish bridge performance and serviceability criteria for improved long-term bridge performance, management and operations. This research requires the deployment of market-ready, low risk, state-of-practice technologies to monitor in-service bridges, collect bridge load and response data, and bridge component deterioration and establish correlations that are applicable to illustrate the impact of vehicular live loads on bridge component performance.

The focus of this BAA is on discovering and accelerating innovations through three broad technical approaches that contribute to DTRA overarching research, development, technology, and engineering (RDT&E) goals. Analytic investigations; Innovative capability research and development; and Mission-oriented experiments. Projects funded under this BAA will be analytic investigations, capability developments and/or experiments at Technology Readiness Levels (TRL) 2 through 6.

The Challenge seeks designs that lead to the acquisition of academic, technical, and employability skills through engaging simulated experiences in the hybrid reality continuum. For the purpose of this notice, ``hybrid reality continuum'' refers to the range of computer-generated simulations that extend from completely simulated environments to environments that incorporate aspects of the real world. For the purpose of this Challenge, ``EdSim'' is broadly defined as computer-generated three-dimensional learning environments, including virtual, augmented, and mixed realities that draw upon or mimic real-world experiences and are designed to educate users.

This initiative will support projects that focus solely on development of technologies with the potential to enable biomedical research. Projects should be justified in terms of potential biomedical impact, but should not include any application to specific biomedical research questions. Proof of principle for the technology will have already been shown, but there will still be significant fundamental technical challenges. Applications should include preliminary data. The products of this research will be functioning prototype instruments, methods, synthetic approaches, etc., characterized adequately to be ready for first application to the type of biomedical research questions that provided the rationale for their development.

This initiative will support exploratory research leading to the development of innovative technologies for biomedical research. The program will recognize and reward high risk approaches with potential for significant impact.  Projects will entail a high degree of risk or novelty, which will be offset by a correspondingly high potential impact. However, the possible impact is likely to be far off. Application of the proposed technology to specific biomedical questions is considered beyond the scope of the program, and should not be included. Preliminary data demonstrating feasibility of the proposed approach indicates that the project is beyond the scope of this program and therefore unsuitable for this funding opportunity.