Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering  (CDS&E)

CONTACTS

PROGRAM GUIDELINES

Apply to PD 12-8084 as follows:

For full proposals submitted via FastLane: standard Grant Proposal Guidelines apply.
For full proposals submitted via Grants.gov: NSF Grants.gov Application Guide; A Guide for the Preparation and Submission of NSF Applications via Grants.gov Guidelines apply (Note: The NSF Grants.gov Application Guide is available on the Grants.gov website and on the NSF website at: http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=grantsgovguide)

Important Notice to Proposers

A revised version of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), NSF 13-1, was issued on October 4, 2012 and is effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after January 14, 2013. Please be advised that, depending on the specified due date, the guidelines contained in NSF 13-1 may apply to proposals submitted in response to this funding opportunity.

Please be aware that significant changes have been made to the PAPPG to implement revised merit review criteria based on the National Science Board (NSB) report, National Science Foundation's Merit Review Criteria: Review and Revisions. While the two merit review criteria remain unchanged (Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts), guidance has been provided to clarify and improve the function of the criteria. Changes will affect the project summary and project description sections of proposals. Annual and final reports also will be affected.

A by-chapter summary of this and other significant changes is provided at the beginning of both the Grant Proposal Guide and the Award & Administration Guide.

DUE DATES

Full Proposal Window:  September 1, 2013 - October 31, 2013

All proposals to the Division of Materials Research

September 1 - October 31, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Window:  September 1, 2013 - September 30, 2013

All proposals to the Division of Chemistry - Chemical Theory, Models and Computational Methods

September 1 - September 30, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Window:  September 15, 2013 - November 15, 2013

All proposals to the Division of Astronomical Sciences - Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants

September 15 - November 15, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Window:  October 1, 2013 - October 31, 2013

All proposals to the Office of Cyber Infrastructure

October 1 - October 31, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Window:  October 1, 2013 - October 31, 2013

All proposals to the Division of Chemistry - Chemical Measurement and Imaging

October 1 - October 31, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Window:  October 1, 2013 - October 31, 2013

All proposals to the Directorate for Engineering - Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems and Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation

October 1 - October 31, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Deadline Date:  November 1, 2013

All proposals to the Division of Astronomical Sciences - Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation

November 1, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Window:  November 25, 2013 - December 9, 2013

All proposals to the Division of Mathematical Sciences

November 25 - December 9, Annually Thereafter

Full Proposal Target Date:  November 29, 2013

All proposals to the Division of Physics

November 29, Annually Thereafter

Proposals submitted to a Division in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences are to be submitted to one of the participating Related Programs listed below.   Proposals submitted to a Division in the Directorate for Engineering or the Office of Cyberinfrastructure should be submitted directly to the CDS&E program.   All listings will appear as a Fastlane option. 

The due date for any proposal is the due date for submission to that program in that Division; direct access to the Program Description is available through the URL listed below.  Proposals that are submitted to a specific Division outside the proposal window or target date for the program in that Division will be returned as non-compliant.

SYNOPSIS

Advanced computational infrastructure and the ability to perform large-scale simulations and accumulate massive amounts of data have revolutionized scientific and engineering disciplines.  The goal of the CDS&E program is to identify and capitalize on opportunities for major scientific and engineering breakthroughs through new computational and data analysis approaches.  The intellectual drivers may be in an individual discipline or they may cut across more than one discipline in various Directorates.  The key identifying factor is that the outcome relies on the development, adaptation, and utilization of one or more of the capabilities offered by advancement of both research and infrastructure in computation and data, either through cross-cutting or disciplinary programs. 

The CDS&E program welcomes proposals in any area of research supported through the participating divisions that:

·         Promote the creation, development, and application of the next generation of mathematical, computational and statistical theories and tools that are essential for addressing the challenges presented to the scientific and engineering communities by the ever-expanding role of computational modeling and simulation and the explosion and production of digital experimental and observational data.

·         Promote and encourage integrated research projects that create, develop and apply novel computational, mathematical and statistical methods, algorithms, software, data curation, analysis, visualization and mining tools to address major, heretofore intractable questions in core science and engineering disciplines, including large-scale simulations and analysis of large and heterogeneous collections of data.

·         Encourage adventurous ideas that generate new paradigms and that create and apply novel techniques, generating and utilizing digital data in innovative ways to complement or dramatically enhance traditional computational, experimental, observational, and theoretical tools for scientific discovery and application.

·         Encourage ideas at the interface between scientific frameworks, computing capability, measurements and physical systems that enable advances well beyond the expected natural progression of individual activities, including development of science-driven algorithms to address pivotal problems in science and engineering and efficient methods to access, mine, and utilize large data sets.

Supplement requests to existing awards within a program that address one of the points above will also be considered. 

The CDS&E program in MPS explicitly addresses the distinct intellectual and technological discipline lying at the intersection of applied mathematics, statistics, computer science, and the core science disciplines of astronomy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, and materials research.  Proposals are expected to be relevant to mathematical and physical sciences.  The CDS&E program in ENG recognizes the importance of complex and heterogeneous data as well as high fidelity simulations over disparate scales that can be interrogated, analyzed, modeled, optimized or controlled, and even integrated with experiments or physical facilities representing engineering systems.  Proposals are expected to be relevant to engineering and to have cross-cutting and integrative themes.  The Engineering Directorate encourages the effective leveraging of NSF centers and public-private partnerships to realize CDS&E program objectives and accelerate innovation.  The CDS&E program in OCI encourages the development and use of new cyberinfrastructure capabilities that advance complex applications in science and engineering and further the integration of modeling, experiment and observation. Proposals are expected to be relevant to OCI and are encouraged to leveraging existing or upcoming cyberinfrastructure investments.

Astronomy:  CDS&E encompasses those areas of inquiry where significant progress is critically dependent upon the application of new computational hardware, software, or algorithms, or upon the use of massive data sets. CDS&E encompasses fundamentally new approaches to large-scale simulation and to the analysis of large and heterogeneous collections of data, as well as research into the nature of algorithms and techniques that can be both enabled by data and enable more data-intensive research.

Chemistry: CDS&E encourages innovative and adventurous ideas that generate new paradigms at the algorithmic, software design and data acquisition levels in computational chemistry, simulations, chemical data analysis and cheminformatics, producing new ways of "doing business". 

Materials Research:  CDS&E includes the creation, development, and application of computational tools, or the creation and application of novel techniques that utilize digital data in innovative ways to complement or dramatically enhance traditional computational, experimental, and theoretical methods to discover new materials, new materials-related phenomena, and advance fundamental understanding of materials.

Mathematical Sciences: CDS&E includes the creation, development, and application of the next generation of mathematical and statistical theories and tools that will be essential for addressing the challenges presented to the scientific and engineering communities by the ever expanding role of computational modeling and simulation on the one hand, and the explosion and production of digital and observational data on the other.

Physics:   CDS&E includes ideas at the interface between scientific frameworks and computing capability that enable advances well beyond the expected natural progress of either activity, including development of science-driven algorithms to address pivotal problems in physics and efficient methods to access and mine large data sets.

Directorate of Engineering: The CDS&E program in engineering recognizes the importance of engineering in CDS&E and vice-versa. Many natural and built engineering processes, devices and/or systems require high fidelity simulations over disparate scales that can be interrogated, analyzed, modeled, optimized or controlled, and even integrated with experiments or physical facilities. This program accepts proposals that confront and embrace the host of research challenges presented to the science and engineering communities by the ever-expanding role of computational modeling and simulation on the one hand, and experimental and/or observational data on the other. The goal of the program is to promote the creation, development, and utilization of the next generation of theories, algorithms, methods, tools, and cyberinfrastructure in science and engineering applications.

Successful research supported by CDS&E in engineering will encompass all engineering and related disciplines that are potentially transformative and multidisciplinary and that address computational and/or data challenges. Proposals submitted to this program should draw on productive intellectual partnerships that synergistically capitalize upon knowledge and expertise in multiple fields or sub-fields in science or engineering and/or in multiple types of organizations. Proposals submitted to this program announcement should address the relevance of the proposed project to engineering.

Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport (CBET): CDS&E in CBET includes the use of high performance and emerging computational tools and environments in advancing mathematical modeling, simulation and analysis to describe and analyze with greater fidelity, complexity and scale, engineering processes in chemical, biochemical and biotechnology systems, bioengineering and living systems, sustainable energy and environmental systems, and transport and thermal-fluids systems.

Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI): CDS&E in CMMI encourages the submission of proposals that meet the expectations of the Directorate of Engineering and includes advancing mathematic modeling and simulation to describe and analyze, with greater fidelity, complexity and scale,  as well as create and apply novel techniques that utilize digital data in innovative ways to complement or dramatically enhance traditional computational, experimental, and theoretical methods. Proposals should advance the frontiers in advanced manufacturing, mechanics and materials, resilient and sustainable infrastructures and novel theories, or algorithms and methods in systems engineering and design.

Office of Cyberinfrastructure:  CDS&E in OCI addresses research in cyberinfrastructure with the clear potential to impact multiple research disciplines through the development of the paradigms, algorithms and processes needed to provide general CDS&E solutions as part of comprehensive, integrated, sustainable and secure cyberinfrastructure.

The CDS&E program is not intended to replace existing programs that make awards that involve computation and the analysis of large data sets.    Rather, the CDS&E program is meant to fund awards that have a significant component of cyber development or cyber science that goes well beyond what would normally be included in these programs.  PIs should ask for consideration and review as a CDS&E proposal only if the proposal addresses at least one of these additional cyber components.   Any proposal submitted to the CDS&E program that does not satisfy at least one of these additional criteria will be reviewed within the context of the individual program.  A proposal that is requesting consideration within the context of CDS&E should begin the title with the identifying acronym "CDS&E:". 

RELATED PROGRAMS

Astronomy and Astrophysics Research Grants

Advanced Technologies and Instrumentation

Theoretical and Computational Astrophysics Networks

Chemical Measurement and Imaging

Chemical Theory, Models and Computational Methods

Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering in Mathematical and Statistical Sciences

Physics at the Information Frontier

Computational and Data driven Materials Research

THIS PROGRAM IS PART OF

Cross Division/Directorate Funding Opportunities

What Has Been Funded (Recent Awards Made Through This Program, with Abstracts)

Map of Recent Awards Made Through This Program