March 2019  
 
The FAS Research Development group publishes this monthly Funding Newsletter for SEAS faculty and researchers. The newsletter includes notable Federal, private, and internal Harvard funding opportunities. 
 
Questions?
Erin Hale: erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu | 617-496-5252 
Jennifer Corby:  jcorby@fas.harvard.edu | 617-495-1590  
 
  For more information on our support services, please visit our website .

Did you know?
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You are receiving this newsletter because you are subscribed to our mailing list. All Harvard University faculty and administrators may subscribe  here , and you may unsubscribe at any time. In addition, you may access the Science Division Funding Spotlight here. Visit our  email archive  to see our past newsletters.  


News, Announcements, & Special Features

Feature: N ew Investigator Opportunity Spotlight
Quick links to early career opportunities in this month's newsletter.

News:  Upcoming Deadline for MURI Program

Multidisciplinary University Initiative (MURI) efforts involve teams of researchers investigating high priority topics and opportunities that intersect more than one traditional technical discipline. For many military problems this multidisciplinary approach serves to stimulate innovations, accelerate research progress and expedite transition of results into applications. Please see here for more information on this opportunity. 


News:  Upcoming Deadline for DURIP Program

The Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP) is designed to improve the capabilities of accredited United States institutions of higher education to conduct research and to educate scientists and engineers in areas important to national defense, by providing funds for the acquisition of research equipment or instrumentation. Please see here for more information on this opportunity.

News: Upcoming Deadline for AFOSR Air Force Fiscal Year 2020 Young Investigator Program (YIP)

The Air Force YIP supports scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees in the last five years and show exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. The objective of this program is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for the young investigator to recognize the Air Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering. Please see here for more information on this opportunity.

News:  DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) invites applicants to meet with Program Managers

DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) announces the opportunity for potential performers to meet in person with a DSO Program Manager (PM) to discuss mutual   research interests . These meetings will be held in conjunction with the Discover DSO Day event scheduled for June 18-19, 2019 in Arlington, Virginia. Nearer the event, DARPA will publish a separate announcement to announce registration and provide additional details for this event.   Applicants may express their interest in meeting with a Program Manager by submitting an executive summary to DARPA by 4PM on April 15, 2019.  Individual respondents may not submit more than three executive summaries; each submission may only address a single idea or concept. View the RFI here

NSF Funding Opportunity: EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER)
 
The EAGER funding mechanism may be used to support exploratory work in its early stages on untested, but potentially transformative, research ideas or approaches. This work may be considered especially "high risk-high payoff" in the sense that it involves radically different approaches, applies new expertise, or engages novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives. Requests may be for up to $300,000 and up to two years duration.
 
The EAGER mechanism should not be used for projects that are appropriate for submission as "regular" (i.e., non-EAGER) NSF proposals. The proposal must include clear statements as to why this project is appropriate for EAGER funding, and why it does not fit into existing programs. Applicants must contact the NSF program officer(s) whose expertise is most germane to the proposal topic prior to submission of an EAGER proposal to see if the idea is appropriate for EAGER.

Information on success rates and the number of EAGER awards made from 2011 to 2016 is available here  in the FY2016 Report to the National Science Board on the National Science Foundation's Merit Review Process.

Funding Opportunities

Click on the links below to read a program synopsis
 Indicates an UPDATED or NEW opportunity added this month

Foundation Opportunities

Internal Opportunities

Industry/Corporate Opportunities

U.S. Department of Defense (DoD)

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Computer & Information Science and Engineering (NSF: CISE)

Foundation Opportunities
Fdn_HumanFrontier  
Sponsor Deadline to Initiate an Application: March 18, 2019
Sponsor LOI Deadline: March 28, 2019
Award Amount: up to $450,000 per year for the whole team depending on the size of the team. A maximum of 10% overhead may be charged to the Program Grants. This falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application. The Young Investigator Grants are exempt from this policy.
 
HFSP supports international, preferably intercontinental, collaborations in basic life science research. Applications are invited for projects concerned with basic approaches to understanding complex mechanisms of living organisms. Applicants are expected to develop novel lines of research distinct from their ongoing research. The principal applicant must be located in one of the HFSP member countries but co-investigators may be located in any country.
 
Two types of Research Grant are available:
  • Young Investigators' Grants are awarded to teams of researchers, all of whom are within the first five years after obtaining an independent laboratory (e.g. Assistant Professor, Lecturer or equivalent) and must have obtained their first doctoral degree not longer than 10 years before the application deadline. Applications for Young Investigators' Grants will be reviewed in competition with each other independently of applications for Program Grants.
  • Program Grants are awarded to teams of independent researchers at any stage of their careers. The research team is expected to develop new lines of research through the collaboration. Applications including independent investigators early in their careers are encouraged.
pew
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: March 18, 2019
Sponsor Deadline (if nominated): October 17, 2019
Award Amount: $75,000/year for four years
Eligible Applicants: Assistant Professors appointed between June 14, 2016 and October 17, 2019. Time spent in clinical internships, residencies, in work toward board certification, or on parental leave does not count as part of this time limit. 
 
The Pew Scholars Program in the Biomedical Sciences provides funding to young investigators of outstanding promise in science relevant to the advancement of human health. The program makes grants to selected academic institutions to support the independent research of outstanding individuals who are in their first few years of their appointment at the assistant professor level. Based on their performance during their education and training, candidates should demonstrate outstanding promise as contributors in science relevant to human health. Strong proposals will incorporate particularly creative and pioneering approaches. Candidates whose work is based on biomedical principles, but who bring in concepts and theories from more diverse fields, are encouraged to apply.
 
Please note:  This is a limited submission opportunity and Harvard may put forward only one nominee to submit a proposal. To be considered for the Harvard nomination, potential applicants must submit an internal pre-proposal via the link above.
Fdn_Moore
OSP review is not required at the pre-application stage.
Sponsor Pre-application Deadline: March 22, 2019 by 5 PM PST
Award Amount: Recent awards have ranged between $1.5-1.9M for 5 years . A maximum of 12.5% overhead is allowed. This falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
 
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation announces solicitation of pre-applications for Materials Synthesis Investigators of the   Emergent Phenomena in Quantum Systems Initiative (EPiQS) . Through EPiQS, the foundation strives to accelerate progress in the field of quantum materials-solids and engineered structures characterized by novel quantum phases of matter and exotic cooperative behaviors of electrons.  The anticipated outcomes of these awards are not only new types of quantum materials exhibiting novel properties, but also an increased availability of high-quality materials for the experimentalist community.
 
Researchers who can show evidence of significant originality and seminal contributions to the field are encouraged to apply. Candidates should have an outstanding track record in materials discovery and/or improvement of materials quality. Current Moore Foundation grantees, both EPiQS and non-EPiQS, are eligible to apply. 

Fdn_SloanSensor

OSP LOI Deadline: March 25, 2019
Sponsor LOI Deadline: April 1, 2019
Award Amount: $1-1.5M over 3 years
 
The Sloan Foundation is currently soliciting Letters of Inquiry for innovative, collaborative academic research projects led by early- and mid-career scholars that use sensor technologies to monitor and analyze energy or environmental systems at a granular level in the United States. The Foundation's Energy and Environment program is interested in motivating new research that deploys sensors in novel ways to measure dynamic features of environmental or energy systems and that analyze this data to better understand how these systems vary over time. Collaboration between scholars from multiple fields of science and engineering, either within or across universities, is encouraged. Relevant disciplines include but are not limited to: environmental science, ecology, atmospheric science, civil and environmental engineering, geography, computer science, data science, and energy systems modeling, among others.
 
Lead investigators of proposed projects must be Assistant or Associate Professors at U.S. universities or colleges. Senior faculty and non-U.S.-based researchers may participate in proposed projects and are eligible to receive funding as research team members, advisors, or collaborators.
 
Fdn_SloanNetZero 

Sloan Foundation Call for Letter of Inquiry: Net-Zero and Negative Emissions Technologies*

OSP LOI Deadline: March 25, 2019
Sponsor LOI Deadline: April 1, 2019
Award Amount: $1-1.5M over 3 years
 
As part of its Energy and Environment program , the Sloan Foundation is currently soliciting Letters of Inquiry for innovative, collaborative academic research projects led by early- and mid-career scholars that examine net-zero interventions and negative emissions technologies in the United States. The intention of this Call is to be broad in scope, encompassing natural, ecological, biological, technological, or engineered approaches for the utilization, storage, or sequestration of carbon dioxide or other greenhouse gases. Collaboration between scholars from multiple fields of science and engineering, either within or across universities, is encouraged. Relevant disciplines include but are not limited to: chemistry, biology, physics, environmental science, ecology, atmospheric science, civil and environmental engineering, and energy systems modeling, among others.
 
Lead investigators of proposed projects must be Assistant or Associate Professors at U.S. universities or colleges. Senior faculty and non-U.S.-based researchers may participate in proposed projects and are eligible to receive funding as research team members, advisors, or collaborators.
breakthrough
Sponsor Deadline: April 1, 2019
Review by Harvard OSP not required
Prize Amount: $3,000,000
 
The Breakthrough Prizes recognize major achievements in life sciences, fundamental physics and mathematics, with special attention to recent developments.  
 
One  Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics  ($3 million) will recognize an individual(s) who has made profound contributions to human knowledge. It is open to all physicists - theoretical, mathematical and experimental - working on the deepest mysteries of the Universe. The prize can be shared among any number of scientists.  Nominations are also being taken for the New Horizons Prize in Physics, which awards $100,000 to junior researchers who have already produced important work in their fields.
 
Up to four  Breakthrough Prizes in Life Sciences  ($3 million each) will be awarded to individuals who have made transformative advances in understanding living systems and extending human life. One prize per year is for work contributing to the understanding of Parkinson's Disease & Neurodegenerative Disorders. 
 
One  Breakthrough Prize in Mathematics  ($3 million) will be awarded to an individual who has made outstanding contributions to the field of mathematics. Nominations are also being taken for the New Horizons Prize in Mathematics, which awards $100,000 to early career mathematicians who have already produced important work in their fields.
 
Nominations:
  • Anyone may nominate a candidate at the online nominations page during the open nominations period.
  • Self-nominations are not allowed.
  • A valid nomination will have basic biographical information on the nominee and nominator and at least one third-party letter of recommendation.
  • Candidate citations (up to 10) from a specified academic publishing database are required.
  • Nominations can be made online at https://breakthroughprize.org/Nominations.
While institutional review is not required, nominators are asked to provide the names of any FAS or SEAS nominees to Erin Hale at erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu.
Fdn_NatAcadEng
Review by Harvard OSP not required
Sponsor Deadline: April 1, 2019
Award Amount: Varies by award
 
The National Academy of Engineering salutes leaders in engineering for their lifetime dedication to their field and their commitment to advancing the human condition through great engineering achievement and/or through innovation in engineering and technology education. Through these awards the NAE aims to recognize these leaders and to bring better understanding of the importance of engineering and engineering education to society. Nominations are currently being accepted for the following awards:
Nominators of selected recipients for each prize are personally notified by the NAE Awards office. Recipients and nominators for the Ramo Founders and the Bueche award will be notified by the end of June, and recipients and nominators for the Draper and Gordon Prizes will be notified by the end of October.

Fdn_Gates
OSP Deadline: April 3, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: April 10, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 for Phase I; successful awardees have one opportunity to apply for a follow-on Phase II award of up to $1 million. This award does not cover overhead costs, which falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
 
Grand Challenges Explorations (GCE) supports early-stage projects that could lead to new vaccines, diagnostics, drugs, and other technologies targeting diseases that claim millions of lives every year, as well as improvements and innovations in agriculture development. GCE is an extension of the foundation's commitment to the Grand Challenges in Global Health, which was launched in 2003 to accelerate the discovery of new technologies to improve global health. Currently open challenges include: 
Fdn_Cottrell
Sponsor Pre-Proposal Deadline: April 15, 2019
OSP Deadline (if invited): June 24, 2019
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline (if invited): July 1, 2019
Award Amount: $100,000 over three years
Eligible Applicants: Early career faculty who started their first tenure-track appointment anytime in calendar year 2016 who hold an appointment in a chemistry, physics or astronomy department.
 
The Cottrell Scholar Award develops outstanding teacher-scholars who are recognized by their scientific communities for the quality and innovation of their research programs and their academic leadership skills. The Cottrell Scholar Award provides entry into a national community of outstanding scholar-educators who produce significant research and educational outcomes. Proposals must contain a research plan, an educational plan and a clear statement on how the Cottrell Scholar Award will help applicants become truly outstanding teacher-scholars and future academic leaders. The ability of applicants to mount a strong and innovative research program and achieve excellence in education and their academic citizenship skills are key criteria in the selection of the awards.
 
The primary criterion for research funding in the Cottrell Scholar Award program is to add to fundamental scientific knowledge in one of the three core disciplines (Chemistry, Physics and Astronomy) and hence, applied research without a significant fundamental component is not funded.

Fdn_SolidWaste
OSP Deadline: April 24, 2019
Sponsor Pre-Proposal Deadline: May 1, 2019
Award Amount: Previously awarded grants have ranged from $15,000 to over $500,000 with the average grant amount in recent years being $160,000. Typical project durations are about 2 years.
 
The Environmental Research and Education Foundation funds projects with a strong focus towards research that relates to the sustainable waste management practices. Pre-proposal topics must relate to sustainable solid waste management practices and pertain to the following topic areas:
  • Waste minimization
  • Recycling
  • Waste conversion to energy, biofuels, chemicals or other useful products. This includes, but is not limited to waste-to-energy, anaerobic digestion, composting, and other thermal or biological conversion technologies.
  • Strategies to promote diversion to higher and better uses (e.g. organics diversion, market analysis, optimized material management, logistics, etc.)
  • Landfilling
Desirable aspects of the above topics, in addition to or as part of hypothesis driven applied research, also include: economic or cost/benefit analyses, feasibility studies for untested technologies or management strategies, life cycle analysis or inventory, and analyses of policies that relate to the above.

There are a number of topics that may require approval before a pre-proposal will be considered. See RFP for a list of topics requiring approval. Investigators must contact EREF at least 2 weeks in advance to discuss the topic prior to submitting a pre-proposal.  

Proposed research in excess of $300,000 or longer than 3 years should contain sufficient details that justify the need for the higher than average amount and longer project duration.

Fdn_ADA
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: April 29, 2019 by 12 PM
Sponsor Deadline: July 1, 2019
Award Amount: Varies by award, see below
 
The Pathway to Stop Diabetes Program will support creative scientists who are just starting their careers in diabetes research, or who are already established in another field but want to expand their focus to diabetes research. The program accepts nominations for exceptional investigators with medical and scientific backgrounds who propose innovative basic, clinical, translational, behavioral, epidemiological and health services research relevant to any type of diabetes, diabetes-related disease state or complication. The program solicits nominations for candidates in all disciplines as applied to diabetes including medicine, biology, chemistry, computing, physics, mathematics and engineering.
 
This is a limited submission opportunity and the Office of the Vice Provost for Research is facilitating the internal competition for potential applicants who hold a primary appointment at a school on the Cambridge campus. The nomination can be in one of the three available Pathway award types:
 
  • Initiator Award: This two-phased award is designed to support the transition of scientists from mentored training to independent research faculty. Eligible applicants must currently be in research training positions (post-doctoral fellow, research fellowship) and have no more than seven years of research training following terminal doctoral degree. Awards provide two distinct phases of research support: Phase 1 provides up to two years of support for mentored training at a maximum of $100,000 per year, Phase 2 provides up to five years of support for independent research at a maximum of $325,000 per year. Apply here for the Initiator Award.
  • Accelerator Award: This award is designed to support exceptional, independent early-career researchers who have distinguished themselves as promising investigators and are in the beginning stages of establishing successful, sustainable diabetes research programs. Awards are available to early-career diabetes investigators proposing innovative and ambitious diabetes-related research programs. Applicants must hold faculty positions and have demonstrated independent productivity in diabetes research. Applicants may currently hold independent NIH funding but must not have applied for or received an R01/U01 renewal or a second R01/U01 award. Awards provide five years of research support at a maximum of $325,000 per year. Apply here for the Accelerator Award.
  • Visionary Award: Awards are designed to support established, experienced investigators with strong records of outstanding productivity in fields outside of diabetes who are interested in applying their considerable skills and expertise to diabetes research. These awards are highly competitive and intended to support particularly innovative and transformational ideas that have the potential to have an exceptional impact in diabetes. Applicants must hold independent faculty positions and have demonstrated significant productivity in their current field of research. Applicants cannot have previously received national grant support (NIH, NIDDK, ADA, JDRF, etc.), as either a PI or Co-PI, in diabetes or diabetes-related research. Awards provide two distinct phases of research support: Phase 1 provides up to three years of support at a maximum of $325,000 per year, Phase 2 provides up to two years of support at a maximum of $325,000 per year. Apply here for the Visionary Award.
Fdn_BAF
OSP Deadline: May 8, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 15, 2019
Award Amount: $10,000 to $45,000. This award does not cover overhead costs. This falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.
 
The Brain Aneurysm Foundation invites applications for basic scientific research directed at early detection, improved treatment modalities, and technological advances that will ultimately improve outcomes for patients with brain aneurysms. Projects that are focused on translational research, clinical outcome research, imaging, and aneurysmal subarachnoid hemorrhage and its associated complications are also awarded funding. Any project with the potential to advance  basic science, translational and clinical brain aneurysm research will be considered.
 
Funds may be used for startup projects or supplementary funding. Salaries, including graduate student or postdoctoral fellows, may be requested at the principal investigator's discretion. Grant awards will be presented at the Brain Aneurysm Foundation's Annual Research Grant Awards Dinner in Pasadena, CA on September 12, 2019. Grant awardees or an appropriate representative must be present to receive the award and present a poster of the research during the opening reception.

Fdn_Mallinckrodt
Harvard Pre-Proposal Deadline: June 3, 2019 by 12 PM
Sponsor Deadline: August 1, 2019
Award Amount: $60,000 per year for up to three years
 
The Mallinckrodt Foundation supports early stage investigators engaged in biomedical research that has the potential to significantly advance the understanding, diagnosis, or treatment of disease. The funds are designed to provide faculty members who hold M.D. and/or Ph.D. degrees, and who are in the first to fourth year of a tenure-track position (appointed on or after August 1, 2015), with support to move the project forward to the point where R01 or other independent funding can be obtained. Applicants with current R01 funding are not eligible to apply.
 
Please Note:  This is a limited submission opportunity and Harvard may put forward only one nominee to submit a proposal. The Office of the Vice Provost for Research will conduct the internal competition to select the Harvard nominee. To be considered for the Harvard nomination, potential applicants must submit an internal pre-proposal via the link above.

Internal Opportunities

Internal_HILTspark
Deadline: March 20, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $15,000
Eligible Applicants: Harvard University benefits-eligible faculty, staff, and postdoctoral researchers are eligible to apply for funding, individually or as groups. 
 
The Spark Grants are designed to help "spark" promising teaching and learning projects from idea to reality and position innovations for future success. Funding can be used in various ways; for example, to pay for a research assistant, hire a graduate student with academic technology expertise, or convene collaborative groups. Through Spark Grants, awardees will receive resources, feedback, and community support to help them develop their ideas into prototypes, pilots, and small-scale innovations. Each Spark Grant will be assigned a HILT Grants Coach, who will serve as a strategic thought partner during the funding cycle. HILT will also strive to support any future scaling-up of Spark Grant projects by increasing their visibility and connecting awardees and project outcomes with others in the broader Harvard community. In general, grant proposals should align with HILT's mission to catalyze innovation and excellence in teaching and learning at Harvard University.
 
Internal_Milton
Deadline: April 1, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $50,000
Eligible Applicants: Applications are invited from individuals who hold a junior faculty appointment. This includes FAS and SEAS Assistant or Associate Professors, Junior Fellows of the Harvard Society of Fellows, and those in a postdoctoral position at Harvard with a formal accepted offer to join the Junior Faculty at one of Harvard's schools.
 
The Milton Fund supports research projects in the fields of medicine, geography, history and science that promote the physical and material welfare and prosperity of the human race, investigate and determine the value and importance of any discovery or invention, or assist in the discovery and perfecting of any special means of alleviating or curing human disease. Funds awarded through the Milton Fund support research to explore new ideas, to act as the catalyst between ideas and more definitive directions, and to consider new methods of approaching solutions.
HSPH
Deadline: June 25, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $100,000 (direct costs) for a 12-month project period, with an automatic 6-month no-cost extension if needed.
Target Applicants: This award is open to faculty of any rank who have a primary appointment at the Harvard Chan School, but applications will require the substantial engagement of at least two Harvard Chan School Departments or Centers and must include collaboration from at least one other Harvard School.
 
The Dean's Fund for Scientific Advancement expands the School's internal research funding with the goal of creating a pipeline of support that facilitates the exploration of early ideas, the development of strong interdisciplinary team science and creation of transformative research collaborations that advance the frontiers of science. Acceleration Awards are intended to nurture collaborations in research, develop platforms, and support educational projects. Up to three awards will be distributed annually across three focal areas:
  1. Research Grants will be aligned with two priorities with at least one overlapping with an Incubation Award priority from the previous year. This year, the two priority areas are: Confronting Climate Change and Cultivating Well-being and Nutrition.
  2. Research Platforms are adaptable and dynamic resources that can be accessed by multiple faculty to support projects in a variety of disciplines. The goal of these awards is to provide one-time support for the development of research platforms that can be funded in the future by external support mechanisms.
  3. Public Health Pedagogy awards intend to produce scalable innovations that will improve the quality of teaching and learning at the Harvard Chan School. Special consideration will be given to applications that have the potential to be scaled up School-wide to benefit teaching and learning at all levels. The goal is to provide one-time support for the development of pedagogical innovations that can be integrated into educational programs or funded in the future by external support mechanisms.
Internal_HDSI
Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Up to $5,000
Target Applicants: Applications are invited from individuals who hold a faculty appointment at a Harvard school and who have principal investigator rights at that school.
 
The Faculty Special Projects Fund is intended to support one-time data science opportunities for which other funding is not readily available. Applicants may request funding of up to $5,000 to support research, community-building, outreach, and educational activities. Examples of projects that the Fund is intended to support include offsetting the cost of running workshops or seminars, data visualization or research dissemination, and video production. The HDSI welcomes applications from all fields of scholarship.  
Applications are accepted on a rolling basis, and funding will be awarded throughout the year until available funding is exhausted. The total annual budget is $50,000.

Internal_SolarGeo
Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Varies by award type
 
Harvard's Solar Geoengineering Research Program (SGRP) aims to focus on advancing solar geoengineering science and technology; assessing efficiency and risks; and laying out governance options and social implications. The following funding mechanisms are currently available: 
 
Residency Program:  This program will accept a small number of researchers focused on solar geoengineering to spend between 1 and 3 weeks at Harvard University, working directly with researchers at SGRP and other members of the Harvard community. The main purpose of this program is to enable visitors to work in collaboration with Harvard researchers and each other on discrete research projects. SGRP will cover the cost of travel and accommodations as well as per diem for meals.
 
Harvard Faculty Research Grants:  SGRP will provide direct support for research activities that cannot be fulfilled by students or fellows. That could involve multi-investigator collaborations, field or laboratory work in the sciences, or field or survey work in the social sciences.

Industry/Corporate Opportunities
Cisco  
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Budgets depend on the institution and geography. Overhead is limited to 5%. This falls short of the 15% overhead required by FAS/SEAS policy. Please discuss with your grants administrator before preparing an application.

Cisco Research Center (CRC) connects researchers and developers from Cisco, academia, governments, customers, and industry partners with the goal of facilitating collaboration and exploration of new and promising technologies. Cisco is primarily interested in exploring issues, topics, and problems that are relevant to its core business of improving the Internet. It is also deeply interested in adjacent technologies that leverage the power of the network to change the world around us.
 
CRC supports a broad range of research interests and award types in engineering and applied sciences. For a complete list of Requests for Proposals (RFPs), please scroll to the bottom of this link. Please note that CRC also welcomes research proposals that do not fit cleanly into any of the RFPs listed.
  IBM_World
OSP Deadline: Please note that OSP review and approval is required for any User Agreements between the sponsor and Harvard University. 
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: up to 150,000 years of computing power through World Community Grid; weather data from The Weather Company, an IBM Business; and cloud storage from IBM Cloud.

IBM invites scientists studying climate change or ways to mitigate or adapt to its impacts to apply for free crowdsourced supercomputing power, weather data and cloud storage to support their climate or environmental research projects. In return, awardees are asked to publicly release the research data from their collaboration with IBM, enabling the global community to benefit from and build upon those findings.
 
Grantees will receive free, 24/7 access to computing power though World Community Grid, an award-winning IBM Citizenship initiative that enables anyone with a computer or Android device to support scientific research by carrying out computational research tasks on their devices. This allows researchers to conduct large-scale investigations, often magnitudes larger than they would have otherwise been able to conduct. Grantees may also request access to weather data and cloud storage.
DoD_gaps
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: March 22, 2019 for TA1 and TA2. The deadline for TA3 passed on March 4, 2019. Proposals for all TAs may be submitted after the due dates until April 8, 2019, though the likelihood of available funding is greatly reduced for proposals submitted after the initial closing dates.
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. Each TA will consist of three 18 month phases.
 
DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of developing hardware and software architectures with physically provable guarantees to isolate high risk transactions and to enable systems with multilevel data security assertions. The proposed effort should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances for the DoD to maintain separation of systems with different security levels. The DoD needs to be able to leverage commercial hardware and most importantly, commercial software development paradigms to enforce physical primitives to increase security and allow the fusion of data across systems of different levels to support DoD operations.
 
GAPS is divided into three technical areas (TAs):
  • TA1: Components and Interfaces
  • TA2: Co-Design Tools
  • TA3: Integration and Validation
Proposers must submit to each Technical Area separately. While proposers may submit proposals for all three TAs, proposers selected for any TA cannot be selected for any portion of the other two TAs, whether as a prime, subcontractor, or in any other capacity from an organizational to individual level. This is to avoid organizational conflict of interest (OCI) situations between the TAs and to ensure objective test and evaluation results.
 
DARPA anticipates multiple awards for Technical Area 1 and 2 and a single award for Technical Area 3.
DoD_DTRAChemBio
Sponsor Deadline for Phase I White Papers (required): March 18, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Phase II Full Proposals (if invited): June 13, 2019
Award Amount: Budget limits not specified. The period of performance may be a maximum of five years.
 
The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) Chemical and Biological Technologies (CBT) were established by the Department of Defense (DoD) to provide state-of-the-art defense capabilities to allow military forces of the United States to operate and to successfully complete their missions in chemical and biological warfare environments. The scope of mission efforts and the priorities assigned to specific projects are influenced by changes in military and civilian Chemical and Biological Defense (CBD) science and technology, advanced developments, operational requirements, military threat assessments, and national defense strategies. To keep pace with defense capability requirements, the CBD as part of its mission, routinely promulgates chemical and biological research. The comprehensive research program encompasses both intramural and extramural sources, and the role of each is vital to the fulfillment of the Program objectives.
 
DTRA is seeking optimum approaches to meet technology objectives within the areas listed below, with a goal to identify and select science and technology projects that can be transitioned to joint acquisition programs: 
  1. Detection - Chemical and Biological
  2. Information Systems Capability Development
  3. Protection - Individual and Collective
  4. Hazard Mitigation
  5. Threat Agent Science
  6. Medical Pretreatments
  7. Medical Diagnostics
  8. Medical Therapeutics
  9. Threat Surveillance - Chemical and Biological
Please see the BAA for a list of more specific topic areas of interest.
DoD_darpaBETR
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (strongly encouraged): March 21, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: April 18, 2019
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The BETR program consists of two sequential phases, each 24 months in length.
 
The Biological Technologies Office (BTO) at DARPA is soliciting innovative proposals to develop technology that improves wound healing via adaptive and dynamic closed-loop systems using biochemical and biophysical monitoring and intervention. Proposed research should investigate approaches that enable revolutionary advances in bioelectronics, artificial intelligence (AI), biosensors, tissue engineering, and cellular regeneration with the ultimate goal of improving human healing. The Bioelectronics for Tissue Regeneration (BETR) program asks researchers to develop bioelectronics that closely track the progress of the wound and then stimulate healing processes in real time to optimize tissue repair and regeneration.
 
This program will focus on three Technical Areas:
  • Technical Area 1 (TA1): Multiplexed Local Interventions
  • Technical Area 2 (TA2): Real-Time Measure of Regenerative State
  • Technical Area 3 (TA 3): System of Systems Model for Real-time Decisions
Proposals must be written to address the milestones of all three TAs. DARPA will evaluate and choose successful Phase I efforts to enter into the clinical track Option during Phase II in conjunction with clinicians at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated.

DoD_darpaPEACH
OSP Deadline: March 22, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: March 29, 2019
Award Amount: The anticipated Phase 1 award value is limited to $300,000. The anticipated Phase 2 award value is limited to $700,000. Phase 1 (base) should be scheduled to be 6 months in duration, followed by a 12-month Phase 2 (option) effort.
 
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is issuing an Opportunity under the Artificial Intelligence Exploration (AIE) Program, inviting submissions of innovative basic or applied research concepts in the technical domain of automated knowledge discovery, curation, and application. This Opportunity is being issued under the Program Announcement for AIE,  DARPA-PA-18-02 . The PEACH Opportunity seeks novel AI processing architectures in combination with innovative photonic hardware that can leverage the inherent speed and inherent multi-dimensional processing diversity of photonic signals to enable breakthrough AI functionalities with significant reductions in hardware complexity. The PEACH Opportunity will explore the partnership of new temporal reservoir algorithms and optoelectronic hardware to drastically reduce hardware complexity, latency, and power consumption. The goal of PEACH is to explore the means to reductively scale AI hardware complexity by at least 1000x, leading to at least 100x combined improvement in processing latency and power consumption, targeting new AI engines that provide cluster-scale capability in a chip scale for DoD systems.

 DoD_aroACI
Sponsor Deadline for Concept Papers (required): March 25, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): May 31, 2019
Award Amount: Short Term Awards of $5,000-$50,000 for six months will be made to support rapid, short term investigations to assess the merit of innovative new concepts in basic research. Full Awards to single investigators or small teams will range from $30,000-$500,000 per year, with typical awards in the range of $200K-$400K per year, for up to 3 years. Full Awards for large teams will range from $500,000-$2M per year, with typical awards in the range of $1M to $1.5M per year, for up to 3 years.
 
The Advanced Computing Initiative (ACI) is a DoD-sponsored computing systems research program initiated by the National Security Agency (NSA) and the Combat Capabilities Development Command/Army Research Laboratory/ARO. It focuses on areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy. It seeks to increase the Department's intellectual capital in computing systems and improve its ability to address future challenges and build bridges between the Department and the computing research community. ACI brings together universities, research institutions, companies, and individual scholars and supports multidisciplinary and cross-institutional projects addressing specific topic areas determined by the Department of Defense.
 
This BAA solicits proposals in the following four Technical Thrusts:
  • Novel Methods of Computing
  • Hardware and Software Systems Components
  • Exploration of System Concepts
  • Algorithms and Architectures
Quantum computing ideas are outside the scope of this BAA.
 
This BAA calls for a two-step application process. Concept Papers are required. These concept papers will be reviewed and ranked by a government panel. The highest ranked applicants will be invited to submit either full proposals or short term proposals. Proposals will be considered for both single-investigator awards as well as larger teams.
DoD_DarpaERI:DA
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (strongly encouraged): Abstracts received after the initial deadline of February 15, 2019 may not receive a response in advance of the March 28, 2019 deadline for Round 1 proposals. Additional abstracts may be received until September 5, 2019 and will be reviewed by DARPA on a rolling basis until funding is no longer available for this BAA.
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: March 28, 2019. Additional proposals may be received until December 31, 2019 and will be reviewed on a rolling basis until funding is no longer available for this BAA.
Award Amount: Budget thresholds and project periods of performance vary by Technical Area (see BAA for details).
 
DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) is soliciting innovative proposals to develop, demonstrate, and apply emerging technologies developed under the Electronics Resurgence Initiative. Proposals should establish partnerships between defense transition partners and the academic and commercial sectors, or establish the infrastructure required for cross-sector partnerships, leading to direct and revolutionary impacts on Department of Defense (DoD) or national security capabilities. Proposals that demonstrate an established path to impacting existing or emerging programs of record are strongly preferred. ERI focuses on three thrusts: Materials and Integration Thrust; Architectures Thrust; and Designs Thrust. As of December 2018, ERI consists of seventeen programs ranging from basic research into the foundations of microelectronics to advanced technology development and prototyping. An updated list of ERI programs, along with information on each, is maintained online at https://www.darpa.mil/work-with-us/electronics-resurgence-initiative.
 
ERI:DA pursues its objective via three technical areas (TAs), each of which should develop partnerships between the defense sector and the academic and commercial sectors:
  • Technical Area 1 will support the immediate development or demonstration of ERI technologies, for the purpose of enabling defense capabilities, via a partnership between one or more current ERI program performers and an organization with a demonstrated ability to deliver technologies to the U.S. national security community.
  • Technical Area 2 will support efforts where the proposing defense transition partner has not yet established a relationship with a current ERI performer on an Eligible ERI Program. Efforts should lead to the future development or demonstration of ERI technologies via a partnership between defense transition partners and an ERI program performer.
  • Technical Area 3 will support the provision of infrastructure, to include facilities and personnel, for the purpose of enabling collaboration between defense transition partners, Government organizations, existing ERI performers, and other relevant science and technology organizations.
Multiple awards are anticipated. The total anticipated funds available for this BAA is between $25 million and $50 million.

DoD_onrOSD
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (required): March 28, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): June 20, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $5M for up to 3 years. ONR intends to award a total of $40M under this program.
 
The National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2017 established the "Manufacturing Engineering Education Program," (MEEP), which authorizes the Department of Defense (DoD) to support industry-relevant, manufacturing-focused, engineering training at United States institutions including education, industry, nonprofit, and consortia of such institutions or industry. The purpose of this program is to establish new or to enhance existing programs (or collections of programs) to better position the current and next-generation manufacturing workforce to produce military systems and components that assure technological superiority for the DoD. Interested parties should focus programs on manufacturing education to support one or more distinct manufacturing technologies of DoD interest, for example: manufacturing of lightweight structures, systems and materials; robotics for manufacturing; manufacturing to exploit nanotechnology; manufacturing of components and systems for power generation, storage, or distribution; or manufacturing of multi-functional electronics and/or optical devices.
 
Proposed efforts should develop and enhance curricula and programs to effectively develop skill sets needed for students to operate in multidisciplinary design and manufacturing environments, including those for which manufacturing schema are informed by computational tools for modeling and simulation. Students also should be prepared to work effectively in environments where multiple engineering disciplines are engaged during design, development and manufacturing, and where the roles of manufacturers and suppliers in businesses of various sizes, from start-ups to major systems integrators, are optimized. Curricula and programs that develop shop-floor capabilities are also sought.
DoD_MACH  
OSP Deadline: April 4, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: April 11, 2019
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The MACH program is a four year, two-phase effort. Proposals should be structured as a 27-month base Phase I with a 21-month optional Phase II.
 
The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of high performance leading edges for hypersonic air platforms. The Materials Architectures and Characterization for Hypersonics (MACH) program seeks to demonstrate new thermal management designs and materials solutions for sharp, shape-stable leading edges for hypersonic vehicles. Proposed research should investigate innovative approaches that enable revolutionary advances in the materials design and implementation of shape-stable, high heat flux capable leading edge systems. Specifically excluded is research that primarily results in evolutionary improvements to the existing state of practice without significant added cooling, including enhancements to composites composed principally of C-C (e.g. utilizing coatings to enable higher temperature operation), approaches that rely principally on ablation as a thermal management method (shape change is not acceptable), and techniques for enhancing heat transfer solely through solid conduction (e.g. utilizing highly conductive materials in C-C to increase emissive heat rejection).
 
The program is divided into two Technical Areas (TAs). TA1 will focus on developing and testing fully integrated thermal management systems for a scaled leading edge. TA2 will focus on next generation leading edge materials research that can enable leading edge capability well beyond TA1 performance metrics including new thermal management techniques, metals, ceramics, and coatings, as well as new computational capabilities required to develop these new techniques and materials. Proposers may submit to either or both TAs. If planning to submit to both TA1 and TA2, separate proposals must be written for each TA.
 
DARPA anticipates multiple awards.

DoD_darpaGARD
OSP Deadline: April 4, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: April 11, 2019
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this solicitation has not been predetermined and will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. GARD is a 48-month program, which has been divided into three phases. Phase 1 will be 12 months in duration; Phases 2 and 3 will each be 18 months long.
 
DARPA's Information Innovation Office (I2O) is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of theoretical foundations, principled algorithms, and evaluation frameworks that significantly improve the robustness of machine learning systems to adversarial attacks. GARD will focus on deception attacks that induce incorrect behavior in ML systems by manipulating their inputs. The program will develop defenses against attacks that have appeared to date in literature, as well as any attacks published during the program's four-year duration.
 
Technical work under GARD has been organized into two technical areas (TAs):
  • TA1: Defense Theories and Algorithms
    • TA1.1: Theoretical Foundations for Defensible AI
    • TA1.2: Principled Defenses
  • TA2: Evaluation Framework
Each abstract and proposal submitted against this solicitation shall address only one TA. Organizations may submit multiple proposals to any one TA, or they may propose to both TAs. TA1 proposals may address either TA1.1, TA1.2, or both. While a proposer may submit proposals for both technical areas, a particular proposer (as identified by Commercial and Government Entity (CAGE) Code), if selected for TA1 (including either TA1.1 or TA1.2), will be unable to be selected as a performer for any portion of TA2. This selection process is intended to avoid organizational conflicts of interest (OCI) situations between the research TA and the integration and evaluation activities, as well as to ensure objective test and evaluation results.
 
DARPA anticipates multiple awards for Technical Area 1 and a single award for Technical Area 2.
DoD_DarpaMBA
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: April 8, 2019
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available to each performer under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The MBA program will have a total period of performance of 48 months over three phases: 18-month Phase I (Base), 12-month Phase II (Option 1), and 18- month Phase III (Option 2).
 
DARPA's Biological Technologies Office (BTO) is soliciting proposals for the Measuring Biological Aptitude (MBA) program which addresses the need for a more capable fighting force by improving how an individual warfighter identifies, measures, and tracks personalized biomarkers to help achieve new levels of performance for specialized roles throughout their career. The MBA program will give warfighters the ability to understand, in real-time, the underlying biological processes that govern their own performance by elucidating the internal expression circuits (e.g., genetic, epigenetic, metabolomic, etc.) that shape military-relevant cognitive, behavioral, and physical traits. Simultaneously, the program will create new technologies for tracking these expression circuits in real time, providing instantaneous user feedback to aid the warfighter to be successful throughout training, assessment and selection, and mission execution for their desired military specialty.
 
The MBA program will consist of three technical areas (TAs):
  • Technical Area 1 (TA1): Expression Circuits
  • Technical Area 2 (TA2): Real-Time Molecular Target Monitoring
  • Technical Area 3 (TA3): Independent Validation and Verification (IV&V) for Testing & Evaluation (T&E) of MBA System
Proposing teams will be required to address both TA1 and TA2 together, and must provide an integrated, multidisciplinary approach addressing each element of TA1 and TA2. TA3 will require teams to submit an independent validation and verification (IV&V) plan to conduct separate analyses of all results generated in the program and verify and validate the analyses and technologies generated in the efforts under TA1 and TA2. To avoid conflicts of interest, teams that are selected for TA3 will not be allowed to perform on TA1 and TA2.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated.

DoD_TMusic
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Proposals may be submitted until April 8, 2019, though the likelihood of available funding is greatly reduced for proposals submitted after the initial closing date of March 12, 2019.
Award Amount: The amount of resources made available under this BAA will
depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. The T-MUSIC program is a four-year effort which will have an 18-month Phase 1, 18-month Phase 2, and 12-month Phase 3.
 
DARPA's Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) is soliciting research proposals for the development of advanced RF mixed-mode foundry processes, building blocks, and novel high frequency mixed-mode devices on a CMOS (Complementary Metal-Oxide-Semiconductor) fabrication platform. It is expected that such advances will enable new DoD applications including high capacity, robust communications, radars, and precision sensors.
 
The T-MUSIC program consists of the following Technical Areas (TAs):
  • TA-1A: Ultra-broadband Mixed-Mode Foundry Technology
  • TA-1B: Ultra-broadband Mixed-Mode Building Blocks
  • TA-2: Advanced THz Mixed-Mode Devices
Proposers must submit to TA-1A and/or TA-1B independently. TA-2 is independent of TA-1, and proposals submitted to TA-2 must be separate and standalone from any submission to TA-1. Submitting to TA-1 does not require a submission to TA-2 and vice versa.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated. TA-1A is considered to be a large portion of the overall program effort and it is expected that at most two large awards will be made in this technical area. It is expected that multiple smaller awards will be made targeted to both TA-1B circuit demonstrations and TA-2 exploratory work. Approximately $70M of funding is anticipated for awards made against this BAA, with a distribution of:
  • $55M for Technical Area 1 (TA-1) including TA-1A and TA-1B; and
  • $15M for Technical Area 2 (TA-2).
DoD_darpaCAML
OSP Deadline: April 15, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: April 22, 2019
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this BAA will depend on the quality of the proposals received and the availability of funds. CAML will be a 48-month program divided into two phases.
 
The Defense Sciences Office (DSO) at DARPA is soliciting innovative research proposals in the area of competency-awareness machine learning, whereby an autonomous system can self-assess its task competency and strategy and express both in a human-understandable form. This competency-awareness capability contributes to the goal of transforming autonomous systems from tools into trusted,  collaborative partners. The resulting competency-aware machine learning systems will enable machines to control their behaviors to match user expectations and allow human operators to quickly and accurately gain insight into a system's competence in complex, time-critical, dynamic environments. The Competency-Aware Machine Learning (CAML) program will, in this way, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of human-machine teaming.
 
CAML will focus on four technical areas (TA):
  • TA1: Self-knowledge of Experiences, will develop mechanisms for learning systems to discover conditions encountered during operation, and maintain a memory of experiences.
  • TA2: Self-knowledge of Task Strategies, will enable a machine learning system to analyze its task behaviors, summarize them into generalized patterns (task strategies), and identify dependencies that control its task behavior.
  • TA3: Competency-Aware Learning, will integrate the component technologies developed in TA1 and TA2 to establish a competency-aware learning framework, communicated with machine-derived, human-understandable, competency statements. TA3 will conclude with an experimental demonstration on a proposer-provided platform.
  • TA4: Capability Demonstrations will be a demonstration of the developed competency-aware machine learning systems on DoD platforms. TA4 will be addressed in Phase II. 
DARPA anticipates multiple awards.
DoD_FY19STEM
Sponsor Submission Window for White Papers (required): April 1-June 28, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals (if invited): September 27, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $250,000 per year for up to 3 years
 
The ONR seeks a broad range of applications for augmenting existing or developing innovative solutions that directly maintain, or cultivate a diverse, world-class STEM workforce in order to maintain the U.S. Navy and Marine Corps' technological superiority. The goal of any proposed effort must provide solutions that will establish and maintain pathways of diverse U.S. citizens who are interested in uniformed or civilian DoN (or Navy and Marine Corps) STEM workforce opportunities. This announcement explicitly encourages projects that improve the capacity of education systems and communities to create impactful STEM educational experiences for students and workers. Submissions are encouraged to consider including active learning approaches and incorporating 21st century skill development. ONR encourages applications to utilize current STEM educational research for informing project design and advancing our understanding of how and why people choose STEM careers and opportunities of naval relevance. While this announcement is relevant for any stage of the STEM educational system, funding efforts will be targeted primarily toward projects addressing the following communities or any combination of these communities: secondary education communities; post-secondary communities; informal science communities; and current naval STEM workforce communities.
 
The technical content of any idea must establish naval relevance within the priority areas as outlined in the "Naval Research and Development Framework and Addendum" . Broad priority areas are as follows:
  • Augmented Warfighter
  • Integrated & Distributed Forces
  • Operational Endurance
  • Sensing & Sense-Making
  • Scalable Lethality
Approximately 25 awards are anticipated.
DoD_durip
Fiscal Year 2020 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP)
(Separate links for submissions to ARO , ONR , AFOSR )
OSP Deadline: May 10, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: May 17, 2019
Award Amount: Awards are generally between $50,000 and $1.5M for one year, but can be larger if the proposal meets one of two exceptions (though exceptions will be rare): 1) Your proposal contains a firm commitment from your institution to provide voluntary committed cost sharing or matching so the cost to DoD remains $1.5M or less; or, 2) Your proposal requests the administering agency that receives your proposal to grant an exception to the $1.5M maximum amount of DoD funding. At the administering agency's discretion, your proposal may be considered if it is warranted by a priority defense research need or needs. DoD intends to award a total of $47M under this program in FY2020.
 
The Department of Defense (DoD) announces the Fiscal Year 2020 Defense University Research Instrumentation Program (DURIP). DURIP is designed to improve the capabilities of accredited United States institutions of higher education to conduct research and to educate scientists and engineers in areas important to national defense, by providing funds for the acquisition of research equipment or instrumentation.
 
This Department of Defense program is administered by three agencies. Click on the links below for information about each agency's areas of interest:
DoD encourages applicants to contact the Program Managers listed in the cited announcements before submitting a proposal to explore research areas of mutual interest. Applicants may submit a single DURIP proposal to more than one administering agency; however, only one administering agency will fund it, if selected. There is no limit on the total number of different proposals an applicant can submit. There is no limit to the number of awards a single applicant organization can receive under this competition.

DOD_NavalPostGrad
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission 
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers and Full Proposals: Rolling through May 31, 2019 
Award Amount: The funded amount and period of performance of each proposal selected for award will vary depending on the research area and the technical approach to be pursued by the applicant selected.
 
The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) is interested in receiving proposals for research initiatives that offer potential for advancement and improvement in the NPS core mission of graduate education and research. Readers should note that this is an announcement to declare NPS's solicitation in competitive funding of meritorious research initiatives across a spectrum of science and engineering, business, politics and public/foreign policy, operational and information sciences, and interdisciplinary disciplines that are in line with the NPS's graduate education and research mission.
 
Additional information on the Naval Postgraduate School's graduate education and research mission is available at:
DoD_afosrYIP
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: June 3, 2019
Award Amount: Most YIP awards are funded up to $150,000 per year for three years, for a total of $450,000. Each three year budget must not exceed $150,000; regardless if the total budget is $450,000. Exceptional proposals will be considered individually for higher funding levels and/or longer duration.
 
The Fiscal Year 2020 Air Force Young Investigator Research Program (YIP) intends to support young in career scientists and engineers who have received Ph.D. or equivalent degrees by April 1, 2012 or later showing exceptional ability and promise for conducting basic research. PIs must be a U.S. citizen, national, or permanent resident. The program objective is to foster creative basic research in science and engineering; enhance early career development of outstanding young investigators; and increase opportunities for the young investigator to recognize the Air Force mission and related challenges in science and engineering. AFOSR seeks unclassified proposals from qualified and responsible applicants in the research areas of interest identified in its most recent Broad Agency Announcement . Proposals may be submitted for only one research portfolio area. Please note, the AFOSR Open BAA updates annually in the March/April time frame. Please make sure you are coordinating your topic ideas with the appropriate Program Officer to ensure the topic area is still relevant to the Air Force.
 
AFOSR anticipates approximately 37 awards under this competition if funds are available.
 
DoD_MURI 
Fiscal Year 2020 Department of Defense Multidisciplinary Research Program of the University Research Initiative (MURI)*
(Separate links for submissions to ARO, ONR, AFOSR)
Sponsor Deadline for White Papers (encouraged): June 3, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: September 13, 2019
Award Amount: The awards will be made at funding levels commensurate with the proposed research and in response to agency missions (see the BAA for the recommended funding profile for each topic area). Typical annual funding per grant is in the $1.25M to $1.5M range. Each individual award will be for a three-year base period with one two-year option period to bring the total maximum term of the award to five years.
 
The Department of Defense (DoD) Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative (MURI), one element of the University Research Initiative (URI), is sponsored by the DoD research offices: the Office of Naval Research (ONR), the Army Research Office (ARO), and the Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR). DOD's MURI program addresses high risk basic research and attempts to understand or achieve something that has never been done before. The MURI program supports basic research in science and engineering at U.S. institutions of higher education that is of potential interest to DoD. The program is focused on multidisciplinary research efforts where more than one traditional discipline interacts to provide rapid advances in scientific areas of interest to the DoD. Key to the program's success is the close management of the MURI projects by Service program officers and their active role in providing research guidance.
 
The FY 2020 MURI competition is for the following topics:

ONR:
Topic 1: Stimuli-Responsive Materials based on Triggered Polymer Depolymerization
Topic 2: Quantum Benefits without Quantum Fragility: The Classical Entanglement of Light
Topic 3: Mathematical Methods for Deep Learning
Topic 4: Spin and Orbital Angular Momentum (SAM & OAM)
Topic 5: Photonic High-Order Topological Insulators (PHOTIs)
Topic 6: Active Topological Mechanical Metamaterials
Topic 7: Harvesting Oxygen from the Ocean
Topic 8: Exploring Oxidation and Surface Phenomena of Multi-Principal Element Alloys
Topic 9: The Physics of High-Speed Multiphase-flow / Material Interactions
Topic 10: Combining Disparate Environmental Data Into a Common Framework
 
ARO:
Topic 11: Adaptive and Adversarial Machine Learning
Topic 12: Axion Electrodynamics beyond Maxwell's Equations
Topic 13: Engineering Endosymbionts to Produce Novel Functional Materials
Topic 14: Information Exchange Network Dynamics
Topic 15: Mathematical Intelligence: Machines with More Fundamental Capabilities
Topic 16: Quantum State Engineering for Enhanced Metrology
Topic 17: Solution Electrochemistry without Electrodes
Topic 18: Stimuli-Responsive Mechanical Metamaterials
 
AFOSR:
Topic 19: Machine Learning and Physics-Based Modeling and Simulation
Topic 20: Fundamental Design Principles for Engineering Orthogonal Liquid-Liquid Phase Separations in Living Cells
Topic 21: Modeling, Prediction, and Mitigation of Rare and Extreme Events in Complex Physical Systems Topic 22: Fundamental Limits of Controllable Waveform Diversity at High Power
Topic 23: Full Quantum State Control at Single Molecule Levels
Topic 24: Constructive Mathematics and Its Synthetic Concepts from Type Theory
Topic 25: Weyl Fermion Optoelectronics
Topic 26: Mechanisms of Ice Nucleation and Anti-Icing Constructs
DoD_AFOSRmedphotonics
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Rolling (proposals for FY19 funds must be submitted by June 30, 2019)
Award Amount: AFOSR anticipates no more than $1M may be made available to fund a  small number of proposals submitted under this announcement. The period of performance anticipated is up to 3 years duration.
 
The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) seeks unclassified proposals for research and development aimed at using lasers and other light source technology to develop applications in medicine, photobiology, surgery, and closely related materials sciences, with applications to combat casualty care and other military medical problems. This announcement is for a small number of individual awards. It is complementary to ongoing and future planned broad based awards, primarily directed toward university-based medical institutions, conducted by teams of physicians, biomedical scientists, physical scientists, and engineers. The efforts proposed may be basic or applied research, and must have direct relevance to combat casualty care or other military medical priorities. They must offer unique capabilities, not substantially funded by other DOD or other agency programs. Applicants must demonstrate substantial experience working to further military medical priorities, including transitioning research into clinical practice and working products. Substantial experience collaborating with military medical centers is also a requirement to establish relevance to combat casualty care or other military medical priorities, and facilitate the transition of research results to meet military needs.

DoD_PolyPilot2
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (strongly encouraged): August 14, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: September 3, 2019
Award Amount: The level of funding for individual awards made under this solicitation has not been predetermined and will depend on the scope and quality of the proposals received, as well as the availability of funds. Approximately 10 awards at the $100,000 level for 12-month projects are anticipated throughout the duration of this Broad Agency Announcement (BAA).
 
DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is seeking participants for a pilot program designed to utilize modern connectivity to rapidly develop promising basic research pathways and then efficiently develop basic research proposals. DSO's intent is to fund research proposals resulting from this pilot program. As with other recent DARPA/DSO opportunity announcements, the goal of this program is to deliver research proposals that seek to investigate innovative approaches to enable revolutionary advances in science, devices, or systems. In particular, this announcement is intended to support the DSO mission to anticipate scientific surprise.
 
Note that submission of abstracts and proposals is not mandatory to participate in the Polyplexus platform. Researchers who desire to participate due to curiosity; the desire to learn, teach, or explore; or any other constructive reason are encouraged to do so. Pilot participation is open to all scientists and engineers who want to engage in this online platform. 

Please Note: DARPA's DSO has announced an opportunity via Special Notice for proposers to submit an abstract and subsequently a proposal describing a research project focused on Strategic Technological Surprise. Deadlines for submitting an abstract and full proposal, and further details about this opportunity, are specified in the Strategic Technological Surprise (06) incubator on polyplexus.com

DOD_ONRSab
OSP Deadline: Review not required for individual fellowships
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Rolling (proposals must be submitted 6 months prior to the start of the proposed sabbatical)
Award Amount: Participants receive a monthly stipend making up the difference between salary and sabbatical leave pay from their home institution. Relocation and travel assistance are provided to qualifying participants. Appointments will last for a minimum of one semester to a maximum of one year in length.
 
The Sabbatical Leave Program provides an opportunity for faculty members to engage in scholarly, creative, professional, research, or other academic activities at a sponsoring U.S. Navy Laboratory that will enhance the faculty member's further contributions to their institution. This program is residential and all work must be completed on site.
 
Expected benefits of the Sabbatical Leave Program:
  • Broaden the scope and horizon of faculty member's research interests and provide a foundation for future research collaborations.
  • Provide an understanding of the Department of the Navy research interests and the technological implications thereof, thus enhancing the abilities of Fellows to pursue and obtain funding for research at their home institution.
  • Foster lasting relationships between Fellows and the researchers at the Navy laboratories.
Applicants are required to identify a mentor at a Participating Laboratory that matches the applicant's research interests.
  DoD_other
Other DoD Opportunities
I f you are interested in DoD funding opportunities, please note:
The  Defense Innovation Marketplace  is a centralized source for Department of Defense science and technology (S&T) planning, acquisition resources, funding, and financial information. 
DOE_Arpa-eATLANTIS
Sponsor Concept Paper Deadline: March 18, 2019
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: TBD
Award Amount: $250,000-$10,000,000 over 24 months. Cost is required and must be  at least 20% of the total project cost.
 
The ATLANTIS Program seeks to develop new technical pathways for the design of economically competitive Floating Offshore Wind Turbines (FOWT). The program urges the application of Control Co-Design (CCD) methodologies that (1) bring together engineering disciplines to work concurrently, as opposed to sequentially, and (2) consider control-engineering principles from the start of the design process. By analyzing the numerous sub-system dynamic interactions that comprise the FOWTs, CCD methodologies can propose control solutions that enable optimal FOWT designs that are not achievable otherwise. Projects in this program will cover three fundamental areas: (1) radically new FOWT designs with significantly lower mass/area, (2) a new generation of computer tools to facilitate control co-design of the FOWTs, and (3) generation of real-data from full and lab-scale experiments to validate the FOWT designs and computer tools.
 
DoE_quantuminfo
Sponsor LOI Deadline: April 4, 2019
Award Amount: Up to $1,000,000/year for 1-3 years
 
The DOE program in Fusion Energy Sciences (FES) announces its interest in receiving new applications for fundamental research for public benefit in the area of Quantum Information Science (QIS). Responsive applications will propose research that could have a transformative impact on FES mission areas-including fusion and discovery plasma science-and / or advance QIS development enabled by FES-supported science. While fully recognizing the interdisciplinary and crosscutting nature of QIS, responsive applications will focus on areas consistent with the unique role of FES in this rapidly developing field.
 
FES is seeking applications focusing on:
  1. Development of concepts and algorithms that can solve important problems in fusion and plasma science with emerging quantum computers in the long run with error correction;
  2. Identification of quantum simulation capabilities that can solve important fusion and plasma science problems in the near term (50 to 100 noisy qubits in the next 5 to 10 years), complementing and reaching beyond classical simulation capabilities;
  3. Identification of quantum sensing approaches that can enhance diagnostic capabilities for plasma and fusion science;
  4. Use of high energy density laboratory plasmas (HEDLP) drivers and techniques to form novel quantum materials at ultra-high pressures and integration of these materials to advance QIS;
  5. Exploration of relativistic plasma science for qubit control and quantum communication; and
  6. Refinement of (semi-) classical techniques for simulation and control of plasmas and their application to the simulation and control of quantum systems such as quantum computers based on trapped ions and electrons. 
All applications should demonstrate relevance for the FES QIS objectives outlined above, as well as impact on the FES mission areas and / or QIS development.

DOE_bioimaging
Sponsor Pre-Application Deadline (required): April 4, 2019
Sponsor Full Proposal Deadline: May 20, 2019
Award Amount: $500,000-$750,000/year for 3 years
 
The DOE Biological Systems Science Division in Biological and Environmental Research hereby announces its interest in receiving applications to support fundamental research towards enabling new bioimaging approaches to achieve an advanced understanding of plant and microbial systems relevant to bioenergy research.
 
New quantum dot (QD)-based-imaging approaches including quantum probes and sensors, and complementary optical imaging instrumentation, are needed to allow the observation and characterization of multiple complex biological processes occurring within living plant and microbial systems, including rhizosphere and soil microbiomes. Processes of interest include, but are not limited to measuring enzyme function within cells, tracking metabolic pathways in vivo, monitoring the transport of materials within cells or across cellular membranes, monitoring signaling processes between cells within plant-microbe and microbe-microbe interactions. Development of probes and sensors with desirable optical properties functionalized with specific biologically active molecules to interact and bind with specific cellular targets of interest are encouraged. Proposed approaches should enable dynamic localization and imaging to facilitate testing and validation of hypothesized cellular processes. It is expected that applications will make use of quantum-dot enabled approaches for imaging of biological targets non-destructively and in real time, to dramatically enhance our ability to measure biological processes in and among living cells.
DOE_Other
Other DOE Opportunities

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA)
NASA_techflights
Sponsor Deadline for Abstracts (required): March 22, 2019
OSP Deadline: April 19, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: April 26, 2019
Award Amount: Topic 1 awards will be made up to $500,000 for up to 2 years. Topic 2 awards will be made up to $300,000 for up to 2 years. 7-15 Topic 1 awards and 3-5 Topic 2 awards are anticipated.
 
The Flight Opportunities program strategically invests in the growth of the commercial spaceflight market by providing opportunities to test space exploration and utilization technologies on commercially available suborbital flight platforms. Suborbital flight opportunities take technologies from the laboratory to a relevant flight environment that facilitates technology maturation, validates feasibility and reduces technical risks. These investments enable infusion of key space technologies into multiple future space missions. Accordingly, NASA will help fund the testing of innovative space technologies by providing funding to the proposer to purchase flight services from a qualified flight provider including payload integration. In addition, funds may be used to cover the design, development, preparation of the payload for flight, post-flight analysis and reporting, as well as travel in support of the flight(s) and indirect costs.
 
The proposed technology must be at a Technology Readiness Level of 4 at the time of proposal submission with a low-fidelity system having been built and tested in a laboratory environment to demonstrate basic functionality. Associated performance predictions for the system should also have been defined relative to the final spaceflight operating environment.
 
Awards are available in two Topic Areas:
  • Topic 1: Supporting Sustainable Lunar Exploration and the Expansion of Economic Activity into Cislunar Space
  • Topic 2: Fostering the Commercialization of Low Earth Orbit and Utilization of Suborbital Space
NASA_MSFC
Sponsor Deadlines for Step-1 Proposals (required): May 1, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Award Amount: NASA awards will range from $10,000 to $100,000 for up to 12 months, and must be matched or exceeded by Offeror contributions. Contributions can be cash, in-kind (non-cash) resources, or a combination of each.
 
Under this program, NASA seeks to award cooperative agreements for technology development partnerships with United States commercial businesses and/or colleges and universities with the goal of developing a technology to meet a specific NASA need at Marshall Space Flight Center (MSFC), as well as those of the partner. This goal will be accomplished by selecting Offerors who will cooperatively share in the development cost of the technology that meets the specified NASA need. NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center located in Huntsville, Alabama, is one of NASA's largest and most diversified installations. The Marshall Center provides leadership in the complex engineering of space transportation and propulsion systems, large space structures and systems, and scientific research to make human space exploration a reality.
 
This CAN will follow a 2-step process for proposal submissions. Step-1 of the proposal process is submission of a White Paper by the Offeror. The Offeror may submit a Step-1 White Paper at any time prior to the due date of either one of two White Paper open periods. In Step-2 of the process, NASA will assess each White Paper submitted in the 2 applicable open periods and invite selected Offerors to submit a full project Proposal.
 
Multiple awards are anticipated.
NASA_unsol
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling through September 30, 2019
Award Amount: Proposed budget should be commensurate with the scope of the project.
 
NASA encourages the submission of unique and innovative proposals that will further the Agency's mission. While the vast majority of proposals are solicited, a small number of unsolicited proposals that cannot be submitted to those solicitations and yet are still relevant to NASA are reviewed and some are funded each year. Proposals should be submitted at least six months in advance of the desired starting date.

Before any effort is expended in preparing a proposal, potential proposers should:
  1. Review the current versions of the NASA Strategic Plan and documents from the specific directorate, office, or program for which the proposal is intended to determine if the work planned is sufficiently relevant to current goals to warrant a formal submission.
  2. Potential proposers must review current opportunities to determine if any solicitation already exists to which the potential project could be proposed.
  3. Potential proposers should review current awards (e.g., by doing key word searches at Research.gov, or at the NASA Shared Services Center (NSSC) grant status page, and the NASA Life and Physical Sciences Task Book) to learn what, if any, related work is already funded by NASA. Such preparation reduces the risk of redundancy, improves implementation, and sometimes results in collaboration.
After those three things have been done, the proposer may contact an appropriate NASA person to determine whether NASA has any interest in the type of work being proposed and if any funding is currently available. Proposals should be submitted at least six months in advance of the desired starting date.
NASAJohnsonSpace
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to sponsor deadline
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposals: Rolling through December 31, 2019 (see solicitation for schedule of review cycles)
Award Amount: Details below
 
This announcement is for the development of experiment hardware with enhanced capabilities; modification of existing hardware to enable increased efficiencies (crew time, power, etc.); development of tools that allow analyses of samples and specimens on orbit; enhanced ISS infrastructure capabilities (eg, communications or data processing); and specific technology demonstration projects. Submission of a white paper is recommended in advance of a full proposal.
 
Within the NASA International Space Station (ISS) Research Integration Office, the Technology and Science Research Office (TSRO) and Commercial Space Utilization Office (CSUO) act as "gateways" to the ISS. The Technology and Science Research Office serves as the gateway for NASA-funded technology demonstrations. The Commercial Space Utilization Office serves as the gateway for non-NASA government-funded investigations, as well as non-profit or commercially-funded investigations.
 
Proposed technology demonstrations submitted to TSRO should address at least one of the technology areas mentioned in the ISS Technology Demonstration Plans .

NASA also seeks technological concepts via CSUO related to the National Lab Thrust Areas and to expand the onboard research and analytical capabilities. The general thrust areas are:
  • Innovative uses of the ISS or ISS hardware that leverage existing capabilities to stimulate both utilization of the ISS and economic development in the U.S.
  • Other improvements to existing ISS capabilities, including but not limited to infrastructure, in situ analytical tools, and communication/data transmittal, to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the technology demonstrations and science investigations performed on the ISS.
  • Unique partnering arrangements that leverage NASA's existing capabilities but increase the commercial participation in research and on board services. 
Funds are not currently available for awards under this NASA Research Announcement (NRA). The Government's ability to make award(s) is contingent upon the availability of appropriated funds from which payment can be made and the receipt of proposals that NASA determines acceptable for award under this NRA. Successful proposals will have launch and integration costs covered by NASA. 
NASA_other
Other NASA Opportunities
National Institutes of Health (NIH)
NIH_R25
OSP Deadline: May 23, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 31, 2019
Award Amount:  Direct costs of up to $20,000 per year may be requested.  Programs that include a clinical immersion program outside the academic year and lasting 6 to 10 weeks may request an additional $20,000 to cover participant costs (see Participant Costs section below), yielding a total of $40,000 in direct costs.
 
The NIH Research Education Program (R25) supports research education activities in the mission areas of the NIH. The over-arching goal of this NIBIB R25 program is to support educational activities that  complement and/or enhance the training of a workforce to meet the nation's biomedical, behavioral and clinical research needs. To accomplish the stated over-arching goal, this FOA will support creative educational activities with a primary focus on  Courses for Skills Development .
 
This FOA seeks to support programs that include innovative approaches to enhance biomedical engineering design education to ensure a future workforce that can meet the nation's needs in biomedical research and healthcare technologies. Applications are encouraged from institutions that propose to establish new or to enhance existing team-based design courses or programs in undergraduate biomedical engineering departments or other degree-granting programs with biomedical engineering tracks/minors. This FOA targets the education of undergraduate biomedical engineering/bioengineering students in a team-based environment. While current best practices such as multidisciplinary/interdisciplinary education, introduction to the regulatory pathway and other issues related to the commercialization of medical devices, and clinical immersion remain encouraged components of a strong BME program, this FOA also challenges institutions to propose other novel, innovative and/or ground-breaking activities that can form the basis of the next generation of biomedical engineering design education.  
 
Please note that organizations are limited to submitting one proposal in response to this Request for Applications. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please contact Erin Hale in FAS Research Development at erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu.
OtherNIHOpps
National Science Foundation

National Science Foundation: Dear Colleague Letters
NSFDCL_revisions
OSP Deadline: varies/see details below
Sponsor Deadline: varies/see details below
Award Amount: varies/see details below
 
The NSF issued   guidance for its proposer and awardee community   regarding the initial resumption of operations following the recent lapse in appropriations and shutdown of the agency. With this Dear Colleague Letter, NSF is advising the community of revisions to the deadlines for its  Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS)   and  Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC)   programs. Specifically, the CPS program solicitation has been revised for fiscal year (FY) 2019 (see NSF 19-553) and is currently accepting proposals with a submission window of April 1, 2019 - April 12, 2019. For FY 2019 only, NSF anticipates a larger investment in the program as compared to the FY 2018 CPS solicitation (NSF 18-538). Research challenges with an S&CC focus are included as a core research area in the current CPS program solicitation (NSF 19-553). Proposals submitted to this CPS program solicitation with an S&CC focus must address foundational research that advances CPS, and are encouraged to include a demonstration or pilot activities that are designed and carried out with one or more communities. NSF anticipates issuing a revised S&CC program solicitation in spring 2019 with a deadline in fall 2019, offering a larger investment in the program in FY 2020 as compared to the previous FY 2018 solicitation (NSF 18-520).NSF also anticipates re-issuing a CPS program solicitation in FY 2020 with a smaller funding amount than in previous years.

NSFDCL_BIGDATA
Sponsor Deadline: varies/see details below
Award Amount: varies/see details below
 
With data science now established as a discipline in its own right, NSF is transitioning investments in the BIGDATA program into (i) a new phase of larger and more targeted programs as part of the NSF-wide   Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR) Big Idea , and (ii) increased investments in core programs related to BIGDATA. While NSF plans no further competitions under the BIGDATA program, NSF anticipates supporting many new and continuing programs that fund innovative, interdisciplinary research in data science. Principal investigators (PIs) who would have applied to BIGDATA are especially encouraged to consider the  Harnessing the Data Revolution: Institutes for Data-Intensive Research in Science and Engineering - Frameworks (HDR: DIRSE-FW)   program. This program is one of two conceptualization paths aimed at developing institutes to accelerate discovery and innovation in data-intensive science and engineering. The DIRSE-FW program encourages applications from teams of researchers proposing frameworks for integrated sets of science and engineering problems and data science solutions. PIs may also be interested in the other conceptualization path aimed at developing institutes, the  Harnessing the Data Revolution: Institutes for Data-Intensive Research in Science and Engineering - Ideas Labs   program, which aims to bring together scientists and engineers working on important data-intensive problems with data scientists and systems/ cyberinfrastructure specialists. Activities under the HDR Big Idea complement ongoing opportunities for advancing research and education in data-intensive science and engineering. PIs are encouraged to consider applying to the following core and crosscutting programs as well:

 
Finally, NSF anticipates additional relevant programs to be announced later in 2019 or in 2020.

NSF_fairness
OSP Deadline: N/A
Sponsor Deadline: N/A
Award Amount: N/A
 
With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), CISE invites principal investigators (PIs) to submit proposals to its core programs [spanning the   Computer and Network Systems (CNS) Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) , and   Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS)   divisions and the   Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) ] that contribute to discovery in research and practice related to fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency (FEAT) in computer and information science and engineering. Specifically, CISE is interested in receiving, through these programs:
 
  • Proposals pertaining to general topics in computer and information science and engineering while also integrating or applying approaches to advance FEAT; and
  • Proposals whose primary foci are on methods, techniques, tools, and evaluation practices as means to explore implications for FEAT.
 
In explorations and use of FEAT, PIs are strongly encouraged to select and articulate their own disciplinary or interdisciplinary definitions consistent or aligned with these concepts. This DCL is not a special competition or a new program. Proposals responsive to this DCL will be reviewed with other proposals submitted to CISE's core program solicitations and in accordance with NSF's merit review criteria as well as any additional solicitation-specific review criteria identified in the corresponding solicitations.
NSTDCSTEMFuture
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: varies by program
Award Amount: varies

Through this DCL, NSF aims to support STEM educational research and development projects whose results can enable our country to better prepare its scientific and technical workforce for the future; use technological innovations effectively for education; advance the frontiers of science; and adapt to both new work environments and new education pathways needed to prepare students at all levels for those environments. This DCL encourages educational research and development proposals that are original, creative, and tran sformative, and that can help the nation educate the STEM workforce of the future, in contexts of: 
This DCL will support three categories of proposals:
  1. Proposals focused on educational transformation: These proposals will leverage technology, computation and/or big data to develop, implement, and analyze educational interventions designed to prepare a diverse workforce, researchers, and innovators of the future. Proposals that explore how students learn to integrate knowledge across disciplines to solve complex problems fall into this category. 
  2. Proposals focused on the science of teaching and learning: These proposals will leverage technology, computation and/or big data to develop, implement, and analyze new tools for assessing and evaluating convergent education strategies that aim to promote student learning at all levels
  3. Planning grants, Research Coordination Networks, Conference, and Workshop Proposals: These proposals will create communities of STEM educators to address convergent curriculum and pedagogical challenges across disciplinary boundaries brought about by the human-technology frontier, the data revolution, or both.
To determine whether a research topic is within the scope of this DCL, principal investigators are strongly encouraged to contact the director(s) of the participating program(s) to which they plan to submit their proposal.
NSFDCL_SUS
OSP Deadline: March 15, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: March 22, 2019
Award Amount: up to $50,000


NSF is calling for conference  proposals on "Concepts for Advancing Sustainable Urban Systems (SUS) Research Networks." The conference proposals are to be submitted via FastLane to the Environmental Sustainability program ( PD 18-7643 ) in the Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport System Division of NSF's Directorate for Engineering. The most recent solicitation on Research Networks can be found here In January 2018, NSF's Advisory Committee for Environmental Research and Education (ACERE) completed the report entitled "Sustainable Urban Systems: Articulating a Long-Term Convergence Research Agenda." This report is accessible here . Preparation of conference proposals should be guided, but not constrained, by the ACERE report and the most recent Research Networks solicitation. In particular, it would be beneficial for conference proposals to include plans to identify activities that could catalyze strong industry-municipality-academia collaborations on use-inspired research that has high potential for significant societal and sustainability impacts. It would also be advantageous for proposals to describe activities that will develop a deeper understanding of urban systems as integrated, social-ecological-technological systems and that will improve education related to SUS themes.
NSFDCL_REUsupplemental
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: Request for supplemental funding may be submitted any time but priority will be given to requests received before March 30, 2019
Award Amount:  $8,000 per student per year

The NSF Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) invites grantees with active CISE awards to submit requests for  Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) Supplemental  funding, following the guidelines in the NSF REU program solicitation . To be eligible for this opportunity, a student must be a US citizen or permanent resident of the US. The duration for new requests is typically one year. REU stipend support helps encourage talented students to pursue research-based careers, while providing meaningful research experiences. The participation of students from groups underrepresented in computing - underrepresented minorities, women, and persons with disabilities - is strongly encouraged.  In addition, CISE encourages submission of REU supplemental funding requests that specifically afford US veterans an opportunity to engage in meaningful research experiences.
NSFDCLD3SC
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission 
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling; EAGER, RAISE, and supplemental funding requests can be submitted at any time but are encouraged by April 15, 2019
Award Amount:  varies by program type

This Dear Colleague Letter invites research proposals that utilize modern data science in the context of chemical and chemical engineering research. Successful D3SC proposals will emphasize  new information that can be obtained from better utilization of data (including data from multiple laboratories, techniques, and/or chemical systems), and how this can lead to new research directions . Proposals that foster and strengthen interactions among chemists and data scientists, and that jointly engage theory, modeling, and experimentation to advance research goals are strongly encouraged. The most competitive proposals will provide detailed discussion of specific data-enabled approaches to be used, the significant chemical problem to be studied, new fundamental chemical knowledge to be gained and the broader relevance of the proposed activities to other areas of chemical research. Proposal elements that consider error and uncertainty analysis, record and store appropriate metadata, and determine the robustness and reliability of data are encouraged. Examples of possible topics include (but are not limited to) using tools of data visualization, data mining, machine learning (including emerging approaches such as deep learning and active learning), or other data analysis approaches to:
  • Accelerate the discovery of homogeneous or heterogeneous catalysts with improved activity and selectivity, as well as the discovery of new catalytic transformations;
  • Advance the design of new chemical species and/or synthetic reactions, and forecast improved synthetic conditions;
  • Map the mechanisms by which chemicals interact and transform, both covalently and noncovalently, and predict structure/property relations based on existing chemical datasets;
  • Discover principles of multiscale organization underlying emergent chemical phenomena in macromolecular systems;
  • Enable real-time feedback loops between chemical data collection and processing for rapid identification and correlation of key events during chemical measurements;
  • Harness chemistry's rich, diverse but distributed datasets and identify novel ways of sharing and utilizing chemical data derived from multiple instruments, datatypes, and locations;
  • Develop innovative approaches for integrating, correlating, and analyzing chemical simulation or measurement data to provide new chemical insights.
NSFSitS
OSP Deadline: April 10, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for IUCRC Planning Grant Preliminary Proposal: April 17, 2019 (second round)
Award Amount:
The award amount for a planning grant seeking to establish a new IUCRC is $15,000 per academic institution with a 12-month duration. The $15,000 is for all applicable planning expenses including travel to the IUCRC "boot camp" and is inclusive of applicable Indirect Costs. 
 
This DCL encourages the submission of planning grant proposals, through the submission process described in the   IUCRC solicitation , for an eventual SitS-themed IUCRC. The planning grant theme should integrate fundamental science and engineering knowledge in different disciplines with the aim of developing a next generation of sensor systems capable of in situ measurement of dynamic soil biological, physical, and chemical variables over time and space in managed and unmanaged soils. These sensor systems will also require associated advances in ground penetration, data transmission, data analytics, dynamic models, and visualization tools. If successful, these research concepts will enable scientists and engineers to advance basic understanding of dynamic processes in soils and provide the underlying science and engineering to enable others to develop new ways of studying soil properties and managing soils and natural resources. Advances in measurement systems, understanding, and models will provide new capabilities that will enable practitioners to use new sensors, models, and time series data to achieve a better understanding of soil processes and higher efficiencies of resource use; this improved understanding will in turn help meet societal goals such as less contamination of soil and water supplies and greater food security, as well as address the "National Academy of Engineering Grand Challenge" of managing the Nitrogen cycle.
 
For information on the appropriate SitS themes, please see the earlier NSF DCL on Signals in the Soil (https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf18047). For submitting a SitS-Themed IUCRC planning grant preliminary proposal, please review the current IUCRC program solicitation (https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf17516). Submitters are strongly encouraged to contact IUCRC Program Officers Prakash Balan (pbalan@nsf.gov) or Andre Marshall (awmarsha@nsf.gov) and relevant SitS Program Officers at SitSquestions@nsf.gov for guidance and topic approval prior to submitting a preliminary proposal for an IUCRC planning grant. 
NSFDCL_CHE
OSP Deadline: April 24, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 1, 2019
Award Amount: unspecified; detailed budget required
 
The Division of Chemistry is inviting requests for supplemental funding from its existing awardees who may wish to add a new, or strengthen an existing, international dimension of their award when such collaboration advances the field of chemistry and enhances the U.S. investigator's own research and/or education objectives. Principal Investigators supported by NSF Division of Chemistry awards are advised to consult with their cognizant NSF program director prior to submitting a supplemental funding request.  Supplemental funding requests should address how the proposed international collaboration enhances intellectual merit and broader impacts in the following ways:
  • Mutual benefit of the collaboration for all partners;
  • True intellectual collaboration with the international partner(s);
  • Benefits to be realized from the expertise and specialized skills, facilities, sites and/or resources of the international counterpart; and
  • Active research engagement of U.S. students and early-career researchers.
NSFDCL_includes
OSP Deadline: April 29, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 6, 2019
Award Amount: The amount of supplemental funding requested must: (a) be less than 20% of the original award amount; and (b) not exceed $200,000 in direct costs.
 
Inclusion across the Nation of Communities of Learners of Underrepresented Discoverers in Engineering and Science ( NSF INCLUDES ) is a comprehensive effort to enhance U.S. leadership in science and engineering discovery and innovation by developing science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) talent from all sectors and groups in our society.  NSF welcomes supplemental funding requests from:

  1. Active NSF INCLUDES Design and Development Launch Pilot awards to maintain linkages to the NSF INCLUDES National Network by supporting DDLP efforts to collect data, communicate and participate in activities with the NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub and NSF INCLUDES Network. The amount of supplemental funding requested must: (1) be less than 20% of the original award amount; and (b) not exceed $15,000 in direct costs; and
 
  1. Any active NSF awards outside of the NSF INCLUDES National Network to develop:
    • Opportunities among currently funded NSF projects, including NSF broadening participation projects and projects from the other Ten Big Ideas for Future NSF Investments or other major Foundation investments, with the goal to build a collaborative infrastructure for broadening participation in NSF-funded research activities;
    • Linkages between current activities including working with the NSF INCLUDES Coordination Hub, Alliances, and Design and Development Launch Pilots to adopt common goals, shared measures, and mutually reinforcing activities;
    • New ideas to bring a community of NSF-funded projects into the NSF INCLUDES National Network.
 
Please Note:  Awardees of NSF grants from any directorate with an end date beyond September 15, 2019 may request supplemental funding. To be competitive, the supplemental funding must have the potential to enhance both the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts of the existing project. 

Eligible Principal Investigators are strongly encouraged to   contact both their cognizant NSF Program Director(s) and the   NSF INCLUDES team   at   NSFINCLUDES@nsf.gov   by   April 22, 2019   to discuss their request for supplemental support prior to submitting to NSF.

NSFDCL_disrupting
OSP Deadline: May 8, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 15, 2019
Award Amount: unspecified

With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), the National Science Foundation (NSF) invites proposals to the Operations Engineering program into operational methods to discover, disrupt and disable illicit supply networks. Projects must focus on fundamental research that advances the scientific understanding of the operations of illicit supply networks and methods for their disruption. While proposals must be responsive to the   Operations Engineering program description , the complexity of illicit supply networks requires a systems approach, and submissions from transdisciplinary teams are strongly encouraged. Proposed work must be framed in the context of one or more distinct illicit trafficking environment(s) and must demonstrate domain knowledge of the chosen setting. Teams should include strong operations research expertise as well as domain-specific expertise in other relevant fields, such as social science, data and computational science, economics, criminal justice, and public health. The benefits and skillsets of the proposed teams, including how they will collaborate, should be articulated.
NSFDCL_stemworkforce
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of proposal
Sponsor Deadline: varies; please see details
Award Amount: varies; please see details
 
NSF seeks proposals that will broadly inform development of personalized learning systems or generalize the research results generated during the deployment of online courses. This could be accomplished either by using the data generated by those systems or by studying the systems themselves. NSF encourages innovative educational research and development proposals that will help the nation educate the STEM workforce of the future. For example, proposals may address topics including but not limited to:
 
  • effective design of personalized learning systems for STEM education at any level;
  • factors that increase persistence, motivation, self-efficacy, and retention of learners;
  • the influence of public/private partnerships on workforce preparation;
  • the design of educational interventions that meet workplace expectations for knowledge and competencies; and
  • measuring the effectiveness of these interventions for different audiences.
 
Proposals responding to this DCL should be made through one of the existing NSF programs listed below. Supplemental funding requests responding to this DCL for existing awards in the programs listed below are also welcome. To determine whether a research topic is within the scope of this DCL, principal investigators are strongly encouraged to contact the managing NSF Program Officer(s) of the participating program(s) to which they plan to submit their proposal. These programs include:
 

NSFCISE_Stimulating
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Deadline: Rolling
Award Amount: Varies by award type
 
The  Integrative Strategies for Understanding Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS) program supports projects that provide new empirical insights, expand theoretical understanding, facilitate development of computational and bioengineered systems, promote new educational approaches, and generate new hypotheses that connect physical, biological, and cognitive mechanisms. With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), the National Science Foundation (NSF) seeks to stimulate work in educational neuroscience in the NCS program through foundational grants, noting that advances in neural systems can have significant implications for research on education. While the 2018 application period for the foundational component of this award has passed, NSF continues to accept applications on a rolling basis for capacity-building proposals through conference proposals and Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals. NSF will accept LOIs and proposals for Foundations awards again in 2019 and 2020.
NSFDCLPhotonics
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: varies by award
Award Amount: varies by award

With this Dear Colleague letter (DCL), the Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS) and the Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (IIP) within the Engineering Directorate of the National Science Foundation continue to encourage innovative exploratory and translational research by academic researchers and small businesses in all aspects of integrated photonics that utilize the current silicon photonics capabilities resident in AIM Photonics. Research projects utilizing the AIM Photonics fabrication process technologies via multi-project wafer runs should have an objective to bring a specific innovation to integrated photonics circuits and components or to demonstrate a new approach that uses integrated photonics as its differentiator. Examples of such challenges may include:
  • Research into new applications of PICs that have promise of breakthrough performance due to the use of an integrated photonic component;
  • New devices that are realizable within AIM Photonics standardized integrated silicon photonics processes;
  • PIC implementations that have innovative contributions to advancements of photonics circuits (i.e., low power, greater bandwidths and dynamic ranges, better tolerances, new topologies, etc.);
  • Innovative design approaches and new models of integrated photonics devices/circuits; and
  • Materials and attachment technologies for incorporating integrated photonics into novel packages.
Academic researchers   who plan on utilizing the capabilities of AIM Photonics may submit unsolicited proposals to the ECCS Electronic, Photonic, and Magnetic Devices (EPMD) core program via FastLane or Grants.gov at any time with no deadline
( https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=245720&org=ECCS ). Proposals responding to a specific solicitation must follow the solicitation's specified deadline date. Submission as CAREER proposals can be accepted by ECCS, with the solicitation deadline in July each year. 

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (NSF: CISE)
NSFcise_DIRSE
OSP Deadline: April 30, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 7, 2019
Award Amount:
It is anticipated that 8 - 10 awards will be made in FY 2019 pending availability of funds and the type, scale, and variety of project ideas proposed. Up to a total of $21 million is available for 8 - 10 two-year awards stemming from the Frameworks proposals.
 
The HDR Institutes activity seeks to create an integrated fabric of interrelated institutes that can accelerate discovery and innovation in multiple areas of data-intensive science and engineering. The HDR Institutes will achieve this by harnessing diverse data sources and developing and applying new methodologies, technologies, and infrastructure for data management and analysis. The HDR Institutes will support convergence between science and engineering research communities as well as expertise in data science foundations, systems, applications, and cyberinfrastructure. In addition, the HDR Institutes will enable breakthroughs in science and engineering through collaborative, co-designed programs to formulate innovative data-intensive approaches to address critical national challenges.
 
This program encourages applications from teams of researchers proposing Frameworks for integrated sets of science and engineering problems and data science solutions. The conceptualization phase will result in two-year awards aimed at building communities, defining research priorities, pursuing initial interdisciplinary fundamental research advances, and/or developing interdisciplinary prototypes of systems/cyberinfrastructure solutions. NSF anticipates implementing the subsequent convergence and co-design phase in the 2021 timeframe with awards that integrate and scale successful initial prototypes into larger, more comprehensive HDR Institutes that bring together multiple and new science and engineering communities with computer and computational scientists, mathematicians, statisticians, and information scientists around common data science approaches.
NSFcise_IUSECUE
OSP Deadline: May 2, 2019
Sponsor Deadline:  May 9, 2019
Award Information:   Proposals that do not include an ethics component may request a maximum budget of $300,000 over 18 months; and proposals that do include an ethics component may request a maximum budget of $350,000 over 18 months. NSF expects to fund 12-15 awards.

Increasingly, undergraduate computer science (CS) programs are being called upon to prepare larger and more diverse student populations for careers in both CS and non-CS fields, including careers in scientific and non-scientific disciplines. Many of these students aim to acquire the understandings and competencies needed to learn how to  use computation collaboratively across different contexts and challenging problems. However, standard CS course sequences do not always serve these students well. With this solicitation, NSF will support teams of Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) in re-envisioning the role of computing in interdisciplinary collaboration within their institutions. In addition, NSF will encourage partnering IHEs to use this opportunity to integrate the study of ethics into their curricula, both within core CS courses and across the relevant interdisciplinary application areas. Proposals must comprise a multi-institutional partnership, with a lead IHE and 2-4 additional IHE partners.
 
Please Note: Organizations may partner on at most two submitted proposals. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please contact Erin Hale in FAS Research Development at  erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu.

National Science Foundation: Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences (NSF: MPS)
NSFMPS_MIP
OSP Deadline: April 19, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: April 26, 2019
Award Amount: See description below
 
Materials Innovation Platforms (MIP) is a mid-scale infrastructure program in the Division of Materials Research (DMR) designed to accelerate advances in materials research. MIPs respond to the increasing complexity of materials research that requires close collaboration of interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary teams and access to cutting edge tools. These tools in a user facility benefit both a user program and in-house research, which focus on addressing grand challenges of fundamental science and meet national needs. MIPs embrace the paradigm set forth by the Materials Genome Initiative (MGI), which strives to "discover, manufacture, and deploy advanced materials twice as fast, at a fraction of the cost," and conduct research through iterative "closed-loop" efforts among the areas of materials synthesis/processing, materials characterization, and theory/modeling/simulation. In addition, they are expected to engage the emerging field of data science in materials research. Each MIP is a scientific ecosystem, which includes in-house research scientists, external users and other contributors who, collectively, form a community of practitioners and share tools, codes, samples, data and know-how. The knowledge sharing is designed to strengthen collaborations among scientists and enable them to work in new ways, fostering new modalities of research and education/training, for the purpose of accelerating discovery and development of new materials and novel materials phenomena/properties, as well as fostering their eventual deployment.
 
The scientific focus of the MIP program is subject to change from competition to competition. The first MIP competition in 2015 focused on developing new bulk and thin-film crystalline hard materials. The second MIP competition, in 2019, focuses on the convergence of materials research with biological sciences for developing new materials.
 
The number of awards will depend on the availability of funds and the quality of the proposals. Awards totaling $15,000,000 to $25,000,000 over a five-year period are anticipated. The proposed budget must be commensurate with the scope of the project and thoroughly justified in the proposal. MIP funding is provided yearly. Pending the availability of funds, it is anticipated that $12,000,000 will be available in Fiscal Year 2019.
 
Please Note: This is a limited submission opportunity and only one proposal may be submitted with Harvard as the lead. If you are interested in submitting a proposal, please contact Erin Hale in FAS Research Development at  erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu.
NSFMPS_CBMS
OSP Deadline: April 19, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: April 26, 2019
Award Amount: $35,000 for 1 year
 
The NSF-CBMS Regional Research Conferences in the Mathematical Sciences are a series of five-day conferences that usually feature a distinguished lecturer delivering ten lectures on a topic of important current research in one sharply focused area of the mathematical sciences. CBMS refers to the Conference Board of the Mathematical Sciences, which publicizes the conferences and disseminates the resulting conference materials. Support is provided for about 30 participants at each conference. Proposals should address the unique characteristics of the NSF-CBMS conferences, as outlined in the full summary.
National Science Foundation: Directorate for Engineering (NSF: ENG)
NSFeng_planning
OSP Deadline: May 24, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: June 3, 2019
Award Amount: up to $100,000 over 1 year
 
The ERC program is placing greater emphasis on research that leads to societal impact, including convergent approaches, engaging stakeholder communities, and strengthening team formation, in response to the NASEM study recommendations. The ERC program intends to support planning activities leading to convergent research team formation and capacity-building within the engineering community. This planning grant solicitation is designed to foster and facilitate the engineering community's thinking about how to form convergent research collaborations. To participate in a forthcoming ERC competition, one is not required to submit a planning grant proposal nor to receive a planning grant.
NSF:ENG
Other NSF: ENG Opportunities
National Science Foundation: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary
NSFCross_HDR
Harnessing the Data Revolution (HDR): Transdisciplinary Research in Principles of Data Science Phase I*
Letter of Intent Deadline (Required): March 25, 2019
OSP Deadline: 5 business days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Submission Window: April 24, 2019 - May 8, 2019
Award Amount: up to $1.5M (up to $500,000 per year for 3 years)

Phase I of the  HDR Transdisciplinary Research In Principles Of Data Science  (HDR TRIPODS) program will support the development of small collaborative Institutes that will bring together the four disciplines of electrical engineering, mathematics, statistics, and theoretical computer science. Proposals must address fundamental research and training in the theoretical foundations of data science, and describe the significant involvement of these communities. Phase I awards are intended to allow teams to develop capacity and demonstrate the ability to scale activities for full Institute operations by operating as smaller Institutes. While novel approaches are encouraged, it is anticipated that traditional center-like activities will be common, including but not limited to (in no particular order):
  • integration of research and education including the definition and development of data science curricula;
  • workforce development strategies in the emerging field of data science, including plans for full participation of groups underrepresented in STEM;
  • short- and medium-term collaborative gatherings of leading and early-career scientists;
  • hosting long-term visitors;
  • participation in research activities by and professional training opportunities for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows; and
  • direction-setting for research agendas.

Please Note:  Submission by an Authorized Organizational Representative (AOR) is required when submitting Letters of Intent. No PI, co-PI, or Senior Personnel for an award under the previous TRIPODS Phase I solicitation  NSF 16-615   may serve as a PI, co-PI, or Senior Personnel. An individual may serve as PI or co-PI on at most one project team but may serve as other Senior Personnel on any number of teams.
NSFCross_CSSI
Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI): Elements and Framework Implementations
OSP Deadline: April 1, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: April 8, 2019
Award Amount:  Estimated program budget, number of awards, and average award size/duration are subject to the availability of funds. Up to 25 Elements awards, and up to 10 Framework Implementations awards are anticipated . Up to $15,000,000 is expected to be available for Elements awards, and up to $31,500,000 is expected to be available for Framework Implementations awards .
 
The Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI) umbrella program seeks to enable funding opportunities that are flexible and responsive to the evolving and emerging needs in cyberinfrastructure. This program continues the CSSI program by removing the distinction between  software and data  elements/framework implementations, and instead emphasizing integrated cyberinfrastructure services, quantitative metrics with targets for delivery and usage of these services, and community creation. This particular CSSI solicitation requests only Elements and Framework Implementations classes of awards.
  • Elements: These awards target small groups that will create and deploy robust services for which there is a demonstrated need that will advance one or more significant areas of science and engineering.
  • Framework Implementations: These awards target larger, interdisciplinary teams organized around the development and application of common services aimed at solving common research problems faced by NSF researchers in one or more areas of science and engineering, resulting in a sustainable community framework providing Cyberinfrastructure (CI) services to a diverse community or communities.

Prospective Principal Investigators (PIs) should be aware that this is a multi-directorate activity and that they are encouraged to submit proposals with broad, interdisciplinary interests. PIs interested in responding to this solicitation are encouraged to refer to core program descriptions, Dear Colleague Letters, and recently posted descriptions on directorate and divisional home pages to gain insight about the priorities for the relevant areas of science and engineering to which their proposals may be responsive. Finally, it is strongly recommended that prospective PIs contact program officer(s) from the list of Cognizant Program Officers in the division(s) that typically support the scientists and engineers who would make use of the proposed work, to gain insight into the priorities for the relevant areas of science and engineering to which their proposals should be responsive. As part of contacting Cognizant Program Officers, prospective PIs are also encouraged to ascertain that the focus and budget of their proposed work are appropriate for this solicitation.
NSFCross_QLCI
Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes (QLCI)*
Letter of Intent Deadline (Required): April 1, 2019 (Conceptualization Grants); June 3, 2019 (Round I QLCI Proposals); August 3, 2020 (Round II QLCI Proposals)
Preliminary Proposal Deadline: August 1, 2019 (Round I QLCI Proposals); September 1, 2020 (Round II QLCI Proposals)
OSP Deadline: 5 days prior to submission
Sponsor Deadline: June 3, 2019 (Conceptualization Grants); January 2, 2020 (Round I QLCI Proposals); February 1, 2021 (Round II QCLI Proposals)
Award Amount: $100,000 - $150,000 for 12 months (Conceptualization Grants); up to $5M per year for 5 years (Challenge Institute Awards)
 
Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes are large-scale interdisciplinary research projects that aim to advance the frontiers of quantum information science and engineering. Research at these Institutes will span the focus areas of quantum computation, quantum communication, quantum simulation and/or quantum sensing. The institutes are expected to foster multidisciplinary approaches to specific scientific, technological, educational workforce development goals in these fields. Two types of awards will be supported under this program: (i) 12-month Conceptualization Grants (CGs) to support teams envisioning subsequent Institute proposals and (ii) 5-year Challenge Institute (CI) awards to establish and operate Quantum Leap Challenge Institutes. This activity is part of the Quantum Leap, one of the research Big Ideas promoted by the National Science Foundation (NSF). 
NSFCross_CyberPhysical
Cyber-Physical Systems*  
OSP Deadline: 5 days prior to submission of a full proposal
Sponsor Submission Window: April 1, 2019 - April 12, 2019 (Small and Medium); September 12, 2019 - September 26, 2019 (Frontier)
Award Amount: up to $500,000 for a period of up to 3 years (Small); $500,001 - $1.2M for up to 3 years (Medium); $1.2M - $7M (Frontier)

The Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) program aims to develop the core research needed to engineer complex CPS, some of which may also require dependable, high-confidence, or provable behaviors. Core research areas of the program include control, data analytics, autonomy, design, information management, internet of things (IoT), mixed initiatives including human-in- or on-the-loop, networking, privacy, real-time systems, safety, security, and verification. By abstracting from the particulars of specific systems and application domains, the CPS program seeks to reveal cross-cutting, fundamental scientific and engineering principles that underpin the integration of cyber and physical elements across all application domains. The program additionally supports the development of methods, tools, and hardware and software components based upon these cross-cutting principles, along with validation of the principles via prototypes and testbeds. This program also fosters a research community that is committed to advancing education and outreach in CPS and accelerating the transition of CPS research into the real world.
NSFCross_growing
Growing Convergence Research*
OSP Deadline: May 1, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 8, 2019
Award Amount: Proposals should include a five-year budget. The total budget for years 1 and 2 should not exceed $1,200,000, and the total for the remaining three years should not exceed $2,400,000.

This Growing Convergence Research solicitation is a call for proposals addressing complex problems that require convergence paradigms to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation at the nexus of traditional disciplines. Consistent with the two primary characteristics of convergence research , the problem motivating the research should be rooted in a societal and/or scientific grand challenge and the research strategy should embrace deep integration across multiple disciplines. Particular interest is with those problems that have potential for further advancement of convergence research and sustained interactions beyond the period of the award.

This GCR solicitation targets multi-disciplinary team research that crosses directorate or division boundaries and is currently not supported by NSF programs, initiatives and other research-focused Big Ideas. Proposers must make a convincing case that the research to be conducted cannot be supported by existing NSF programs and multidisciplinary initiatives. Proposals involving convergence in areas already covered by existing programs and solicitations will be returned without review. In determining the relationship between submitted proposals and existing programs, NSF will employ text analysis software and technical expertise of program directors across the foundation.

Please Note: To ensure suitability (vs. other NSF programs) of their proposal, researchers are encouraged to send a very brief synopsis (not to exceed one page) of their proposal to  gcrelig@nsf.gov   for feedback at least 30 days before the submission deadline.

NSFCross_signals
OSP Deadline: May 8, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: May 15, 2019
Award Amount: Projects will request three years of support with a total budget less than or equal to $800,000 per project for the US portion, and three years of support with a total budget less than or equal to £800,000 (at 80% full economic costs/FEC) per project for the UK portion. Funding requests for the UK partner(s) cannot be included in the US budget request.
 
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and Geosciences (GEO), the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems in the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO/IOS), and the Division of Computer and Network Systems in the Directorate Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE/CNS), in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA) and the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council (BBSRC), and the Science and Technology Facilities Council (STFC) of United Kingdom Research and Innovation (UKRI) encourage convergent research that transforms existing capabilities in understanding dynamic, near-surface soil processes through advances in sensor systems and modeling. To accomplish this research, multiple disciplines must converge to produce novel sensors and/or sensing systems of multiple modalities that are adaptable to different environments and collect data and report on a wide range of chemical, biological and physical parameters. This type of approach will also be necessary to develop next generation soil models, wireless communication and cyber systems capabilities, and to grow a scientific community that is able to address complex problems through education and outreach. This program fosters collaboration among the partner agencies and the researchers they support by combining resources and funding for the most innovative and high-impact projects that address their respective missions.
NSFCross_realtime
Real-Time Machine Learning*
OSP Deadline: May 30, 2019
Sponsor Deadline: June 6, 2019
Award Amount: up to $500,000 for 3 years; up to $1.5M for 3 years
 
The National Science Foundation and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) are teaming up through this Real-Time Machine Learning (RTML) program to explore high-performance, energy-efficient hardware and machine-learning architectures that can learn from a continuous stream of new data in real time, through opportunities for post-award collaboration between researchers supported by DARPA and NSF. A grand challenge in computing is the creation of machines that can proactively interpret and learn from data in real time, solve unfamiliar problems using what they have learned, and operate with the energy efficiency of the human brain. While complex machine-learning algorithms and advanced electronic hardware (henceforth referred to as 'hardware') that can support large-scale learning have been realized in recent years and support applications such as speech recognition and computer vision, emerging computing challenges require real-time learning, prediction, and automated decision-making in diverse domains such as autonomous vehicles, military applications, healthcare informatics and business analytics. A salient feature of these emerging domains is the large and continuously streaming data sets that these applications generate, which must be processed efficiently enough to support real-time learning and decision making based on these data. This challenge requires novel hardware techniques and machine-learning architectures. This solicitation seeks to lay the foundation for next-generation co-design of RTML algorithms and hardware, with the principal focus on developing novel hardware architectures and learning algorithms in which all stages of training (including incremental training, hyperparameter estimation, and deployment) can be performed in real time.
 
NSFCross_smart
OSP Deadline for Letter of Intent: July 30, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Letter of Intent: August 6, 2019
OSP Deadline for Full Proposal: August 29, 2019
Sponsor Deadline for Full Proposal: September 6, 2019
Award Amount: up to $150,000 for one year (Planning Grants); up to $1.5M (Integrative Research Grants - Track 2); $1.5M+ (Integrative Research Grants - Track 1)

The S&CC program encourages researchers to work with communities and residents to identify and define challenges they are facing, enabling those challenges to motivate use-inspired research questions. The S&CC program  supports integrative research that addresses fundamental technological and social science dimensions of smart and connected communities and pilots solutions together with communities. Importantly, the program is interested in projects that consider the sustainability of the research outcomes beyond the life of the project, including the scalability and transferability of the proposed solutions.
This S&CC solicitation will support research projects in the following categories:
  • S&CC Integrative Research Grants (SCC-IRGs) Tracks 1 and 2. Awards in this category will support fundamental integrative research that addresses technological and social science dimensions of smart and connected communities and pilots solutions together with communities.
  • S&CC Planning Grants (SCC-PGs). Awards in this category are for capacity building to prepare project teams to propose future well-developed SCC-IRG proposals.

Please Note: Letter of Inquiry submission is required for S&CC Integrative Research Grants (SCC-IRGs) Tracks 1 and 2.
OtherNSFCross2 
Other NSF: Crosscutting and Interdisciplinary Opportunities
_________________________________________

For assistance, please contact:

Erin Hale
Senior Research Development Officer
erin_hale@fas.harvard.edu | 617-496-5252

Jennifer Corby
Research Development Officer
jcorby@fas.harvard.edu | 617-495-1590


Research Development | Research Administration Services | research.fas.harvard.edu