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The Platforms for Advanced Wireless Research (PAWR) program aims to support advanced wireless research platforms conceived by the U.S. academic and industrial wireless research community. PAWR will enable experimental exploration of robust new wireless devices, communication techniques, networks, systems, and services that will revolutionize the nation's wireless ecosystem, thereby enhancing broadband connectivity, leveraging the emerging Internet of Things (IoT), and sustaining US leadership and economic competitiveness for decades to come.

NSF and RNP/CTIC request joint research proposals submitted separately to both NSF and RNP/CTIC using the proposal submission process specific to each agency. Research topics of special interest to NSF and RNP/CTIC are: (1) security and privacy in networks; (2) the Internet of Things and cyber-physical human systems; and (3) malware detection. These topics that are of considerable mutual interest recognize the emerging threat and new opportunity in an increasingly networked world of people and smart technologies as well as the urgent need to address the societal challenge of cybersecurity. NSF strongly encourages new collaborations pursuant to this DCL.

The Partnerships for Innovation: Building Innovation Capacity (PFI:BIC) program supports academe-industry partnerships which are led by an interdisciplinary academic research team collaborating with a least one industry partner. In this program, there is a heavy emphasis on the quality, composition, and participation of the partners, including their appropriate contributions. These partnerships focus on the integration of technologies into a specified human-centered service system with the potential to achieve transformational benefits, satisfying a real need by making an existing service system smart(er) or by spurring the creation of an entirely new smart service system. The selected service system should function as a test bed. PFI:BIC funds research partnerships working on projects that operate in the post-fundamental/translational space; the proposers must be mindful of the state of the art and the competitive landscape. However, a clear path to commercialization does not need to be a central part of this proposal. These projects require additional effort to integrate the technology into a real service system, incorporating human factors considerations to assure the system's efficacy. The research tasks in turn might spawn additional discoveries inspired by this interaction of humans with the technology.

Cyber-physical systems (CPS) are engineered systems that are built from, and depend upon, the seamless integration of computational algorithms and physical components. Advances in CPS will enable capability, adaptability, scalability, resiliency, safety, security, and usability that will far exceed the simple embedded systems of today. CPS technology will transform the way people interact with engineered systems -- just as the Internet has transformed the way people interact with information. New smart CPS will drive innovation and competition in sectors such as agriculture, energy, transportation, building design and automation, healthcare, and manufacturing.

The NSF/Intel Partnership on Computer Assisted Programming for Heterogeneous Architectures (CAPA) aims to address the problem of effective software development for diverse hardware architectures through groundbreaking university research that will lead to a significant, measurable leap in software development productivity by partially or fully automating software development tasks that are currently performed by humans. The main research objectives for CAPA include programmer effectiveness, performance portability, and performance predictability. In order to address these objectives, CAPA seeks research proposals that explore (1) programming abstractions and/or methodologies that separate performance-related aspects of program design from how they are implemented; (2) program synthesis and machine learning approaches for automatic software construction that are demonstrably correct; (3) advanced hardware-based cost models and abstractions to support multi-target code generation and performance predictability for specified heterogeneous hardware architectures; and (4) integration of research results into principled software development practices.

The SNM-IS solicitation seeks proposals that investigate novel scalable nanomanufacturing and integration methods for nano-enabled integrated systems with a clear commercial relevance. Proposals should consider addressing key aspects of the nanomanufacturing value chain comprised of nano-scale building-blocks → complex nanomaterials and nanostructures → functional components and devices → integrated sub-systems and systems

The Scalable Parallelism in the Extreme (SPX) program aims to support research addressing the challenges of increasing performance in this modern era of parallel computing. This will require a collaborative effort among researchers in multiple areas, from services and applications down to micro-architecture. SPX encompasses all five NSCI Strategic Objectives, including supporting foundational research toward architecture and software approaches that drive performance improvements in the post-Moore's Law era; development and deployment of programmable, scalable, and reusable platforms in the national HPC and scientific cyberinfrastructure ecosystem; increased coherence of data analytic computing and modeling and simulation; and capable extreme-scale computing. Coordination with industrial efforts that pursue related goals are encouraged.

The goal of the Process Systems, Reaction Engineering and Molecular Thermodynamics (PRM) program is to advance fundamental engineering research on the rates and mechanisms of important classes of catalyzed and uncatalyzed chemical reactions as they relate to the design, production, and application of catalysts, chemical processes, biochemical processes, and specialized materials that have important impacts on society.  The program seeks to advance electrochemical and photochemical processes of engineering significance or with commercial potential, design and optimization of complex chemical and biochemical processes, thermodynamic modeling and experiments that relate molecular dynamics to macroscopic properties and behavior, dynamic modeling and control of process systems and individual process units, reactive processing of polymers/ceramics/thin films, and interactions between chemical reactions and transport processes in reactive systems, for the integration of this information into the design of complex chemical and biochemical reactors.  A substantial focus of the PRM program is to impact the chemical manufacturing enterprise by funding projects aimed at zero emissions and environmentally-friendly, smart manufacturing using sustainable materials.  Areas that focus on reactors of all types (fuel cells, batteries, microreactors, biochemical reactors, etc.), reactor design in general, and design and control of all systems associated with energy from renewable sources have a high priority for funding

The goal of the Process Systems, Reaction Engineering and Molecular Thermodynamics (PRM) program is to advance fundamental engineering research on the rates and mechanisms of important classes of catalyzed and uncatalyzed chemical reactions as they relate to the design, production, and application of catalysts, chemical processes, biochemical processes, and specialized materials that have important impacts on society.  The program seeks to advance electrochemical and photochemical processes of engineering significance or with commercial potential, design and optimization of complex chemical and biochemical processes, thermodynamic modeling and experiments that relate molecular dynamics to macroscopic properties and behavior, dynamic modeling and control of process systems and individual process units, reactive processing of polymers/ceramics/thin films, and interactions between chemical reactions and transport processes in reactive systems, for the integration of this information into the design of complex chemical and biochemical reactors.  A substantial focus of the PRM program is to impact the chemical manufacturing enterprise by funding projects aimed at zero emissions and environmentally-friendly, smart manufacturing using sustainable materials.  Areas that focus on reactors of all types (fuel cells, batteries, microreactors, biochemical reactors, etc.), reactor design in general, and design and control of all systems associated with energy from renewable sources have a high priority for funding

Recent advances in communications, computation, and sensing technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for the design of cyber-physical systems with increased responsiveness, interconnectivity and automation. To meet new challenges and societal needs, the Energy, Power, Control and Networks (EPCN) Program invests in systems and control methods for analysis and design of cyber-physical systems to ensure stability, performance, robustness, and security. Topics of interest include modeling, optimization, learning, and control of networked multi-agent systems, higher-level decision making, and dynamic resource allocation as well as risk management in the presence of uncertainty, sub-system failures and stochastic disturbances. EPCN also invests in adaptive dynamic programing, brain-like networked architectures performing real-time learning, and neuromorphic engineering. EPCN supports innovative proposals dealing with systems research in such areas as energy, transportation, and nanotechnology. EPCN places emphasis on electric power systems, including generation, transmission, storage, and integration of renewables; power electronics and drives; battery management systems; hybrid and electric vehicles; and understanding of the interplay of power systems with associated regulatory and economic structures and with consumer behavior. Also of interest are interdependencies of power and energy systems with other critical infrastructures. Topics of interest also include systems analysis and design for energy scavenging and alternate energy technologies such as solar, wind, and hydrokinetic. The program also supports innovative tools and test beds, as well as curriculum development integrating research and education. In addition to single investigator projects, EPCN encourages cross-disciplinary proposals that benefit from active collaboration of researchers with complementary skills.

Recent advances in communications, computation, and sensing technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for the design of cyber-physical systems with increased responsiveness, interconnectivity and automation. To meet new challenges and societal needs, the Energy, Power, Control and Networks (EPCN) Program invests in systems and control methods for analysis and design of cyber-physical systems to ensure stability, performance, robustness, and security. Topics of interest include modeling, optimization, learning, and control of networked multi-agent systems, higher-level decision making, and dynamic resource allocation as well as risk management in the presence of uncertainty, sub-system failures and stochastic disturbances. EPCN also invests in adaptive dynamic programing, brain-like networked architectures performing real-time learning, and neuromorphic engineering. EPCN supports innovative proposals dealing with systems research in such areas as energy, transportation, and nanotechnology. EPCN places emphasis on electric power systems, including generation, transmission, storage, and integration of renewables; power electronics and drives; battery management systems; hybrid and electric vehicles; and understanding of the interplay of power systems with associated regulatory and economic structures and with consumer behavior. Also of interest are interdependencies of power and energy systems with other critical infrastructures. Topics of interest also include systems analysis and design for energy scavenging and alternate energy technologies such as solar, wind, and hydrokinetic. The program also supports innovative tools and test beds, as well as curriculum development integrating research and education. In addition to single investigator projects, EPCN encourages cross-disciplinary proposals that benefit from active collaboration of researchers with complementary skills.

The SI2 program focuses on supporting robust, reliable and sustainable software that will support and advance sustained scientific innovation and discovery. Thus, proposals are strongly encouraged to describe their approach to quality software development through a defined software engineering process that includes software testing, the appropriate use of analysis tools and capabilities such as those made available through the Software Assurance Marketplace (SWAMP, https://continuousassurance.org/), and collaborations with resources such as Software Carpentry (http://software-carpentry.org/) and the Center for Trustworthy Scientific Cyberinfrastructure (CTSC, http://trustedci.org/), in order to gain access to expertise where needed, such as in software design and engineering, as well as in cybersecurity.

There is a consensus across the many industries touched by our ubiquitous computing infrastructure that future performance improvements across the board are now severely limited by the amount of energy it takes to manipulate, store, and critically, transport data. While the limits and tradeoffs for this performance-energy crisis vary across the full range of application platforms, they have all reached a point at which evolutionary approaches to addressing this challenge are no longer adequate. Truly disruptive breakthroughs are now required, and not just from any one segment of the technology stack. Rather, due to the complexity of the challenges, revolutionary new approaches are needed at each level in the hierarchy. Furthermore, simultaneous co-optimization across all levels is essential for the creation of new, sustainable computing platforms. These simultaneous technical and organizational challenges have never been as complex or as critically important as they are now. The urgency of solving the multi-disciplinary technical challenges will require new methods of collaboration and organization among researchers. Therefore, a comprehensive and collaborative approach must be undertaken to maximize the potential for successfully identifying and implementing revolutionary solutions to break through the bottleneck of energy-constrained computational performance. Programmers, system architects, circuit designers, chip processing engineers, material scientists, and computational chemists must all explore these new paths together to co-design an optimal solution path.

The OR program supports fundamental research leading to the creation of innovative mathematical models, analysis, and algorithms for optimal or near optimal decision-making, applicable to the design and operation of manufacturing, service, and other complex systems. In addition to the traditional areas of Operations Research which includes discrete and continuous optimization as well as stochastic modeling and analysis, new research thrusts include simulation optimization and self-optimizing systems that can observe, learn, and adapt to changing environments.

The Control Systems (CS) program supports fundamental research on control theory and control technology driven by real life applications.  The program emphasis is on paradigm-shifting ideas for control strategies that are inspired by nature, unconventional applications, and the combined roles of feedback, feedforward and uncertainty in systems.  The program supports research that advances fundamental understanding, analysis and synthesis of control strategies and tools based on system formulation, assumptions and constraints that are motivated and derived from real-life applications and/or industry needs.  Integration of novel sensing and actuation concepts that combine feedback, communication and signal processing and analysis to achieve a sensing or actuation objectives are also supported.

This program supports innovative research on the theories of dynamical systems, including new analytical and computational tools, as well as the novel application of dynamical systems to engineered systems.  The program is especially interested in transformative research in the area of complex systems, uncertain or stochastic nonlinear dynamical systems, model order reduction of nonlinear or infinite dimensional dynamical systems, discrete nonlinear dynamical systems, and modeling, simulation, analysis and design of multi-scale multi-physics dynamical systems. 

The Engineering and Systems Design (ESD) program supports research leading to design theory and to tools and methods that enable implementation of the principles of design theory in the practice of design across the full spectrum of engineered products and systems. The program focus is on gaining an understanding of the basic processes and phenomena underlying a holistic, life-cycle view of design where the total system life-cycle context recognizes the need for advanced understanding of the identification and definition of preferences, analysis of alternatives, effective accommodation of uncertainty in decision-making, and the relationship between data and knowledge in a digitally-supported process and environment. The program funds advances in basic design theory, tools, and software to implement design theory and new design methods that span multiple domains, such as design for the environment, for manufacturability, and for systems. 28 28

The SES program supports research on strategic decision making, design, planning, and operation of commercial, nonprofit, and institutional service enterprises with the goal of improving their overall effectiveness and cost reduction.  The program has a particular focus on healthcare and other similar public service institutions, and emphasizes research topics leading to more effective systems modeling and analysis as a means to improved planning, resource allocation, and policy development.

The Civil Infrastructure Systems (CIS) program supports research leading to the engineering of infrastructure systems for resilience and sustainability without excluding other key performance issues.  Areas of interest include intra- and inter-physical, information and behavioral dependencies of infrastructure systems, infrastructure management, construction engineering, and transportation systems.  Special emphasis is on the design, construction, operation, and improvement of infrastructure networks with a focus on systems engineering and design, performance management, risk analysis, life-cycle analysis, modeling and simulation, behavioral and social considerations not excluding other methodological areas or the integration of methods. This program does not encourage research proposals primarily focused on structural engineering, materials or sensors that support infrastructure system design, extreme event modeling, hydrological engineering, and climate modeling, since they do not fall within the scope of the CIS program.

CISE's Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) supports research and education projects that develop new knowledge in three core programs: The Cyber-Human Systems (CHS) program; The Information Integration and Informatics (III) program; and The Robust Intelligence (RI) program. IIS is also responsible for managing the review process for proposals in Computer Graphics and Visualization; these proposals may be submitted to any of the three core programs described above. Proposers are invited to submit proposals in three project classes, which are defined as follows: Small Projects - up to $500,000 total budget with durations up to three years; Medium Projects - $500,001 to $1,200,000 total budget with durations up to four years; and Large Projects - $1,200,001 to $3,000,000 total budget with durations up to five years.

Computing systems have undergone a fundamental transformation from the single-core processor-devices of the turn of the century to today's ubiquitous and networked devices with multi-core/many-core processors along with warehouse-scale computing via the cloud. At the same time, semiconductor technology is facing fundamental physical limits and single-processor performance has plateaued. This means that the ability to achieve performance improvements through improved processor technologies alone has ended. In recognition of this obstacle, the recent National Strategic Computing Initiative (NSCI) encourages collaborative efforts to develop, "over the next 15 years, a viable path forward for future high-performance computing (HPC) systems even after the limits of current semiconductor technology are reached (the 'post-Moore's Law era')."

The Smart and Autonomous Systems (S&AS) program focuses on Intelligent Physical Systems (IPS) that are capable of robust, long-term autonomy requiring minimal or no human operator intervention in the face of uncertain, unanticipated, and dynamically changing situations. IPS are systems that combine perception, cognition, communication, and actuation to operate in the physical world. Examples include, but are not limited to, robotic platforms, self-driving vehicles, underwater exploration vehicles, and smart grids. Most current IPS operate in pre-programmed ways and in a limited variety of contexts. They are largely incapable of handling novel situations, or of even understanding when they are outside their areas of expertise. To achieve robust, long-term autonomy, however, future IPS need to be aware of their capabilities and limitations and to adapt their behaviors to compensate for limitations and/or changing conditions.