Funding Wizard

Revolutionizing Engineering Departments (hereinafter referred to as RED) is designed to build upon previous efforts in engineering education research. Specifically, previous and ongoing evaluations of the NSF Engineering Education and Centers Division program and its predecessors, as well as those related programs in the Directorate for STEM Education, have shown that prior investments have significantly improved the first year of engineering students’ experiences, incorporating engineering material, active learning approaches, design instruction, and a broad introduction to professional skills and a sense of professional practice – giving students an idea of what it means to become an engineer. Similarly, the senior year has seen notable change through capstone design experiences, which ask students to synthesize the technical knowledge, skills, and abilities they have gained with professional capacities, using reflective judgment to make decisions and communicate these effectively. However, this ideal of the senior year has not yet been fully realized, because many of the competencies required in capstone design, or required of professional engineers, are only partially introduced in the first year and not carried forward with significant emphasis through the sophomore and junior years. The Directorates for Engineering (ENG) and STEM Education (EDU) are funding projects as part of the RED program, in alignment with the Improving Undergraduate STEM Education (IUSE) framework and Professional Formation of Engineers (PFE) initiative. These projects are designing revolutionary new approaches to engineering education, ranging from changing the canon of engineering to fundamentally altering the way courses are structured to creating new departmental structures and educational collaborations with industry. A common thread across these projects is a focus on organizational and cultural change within the departments, involving students, faculty, staff, and industry in rethinking what it means to provide an engineering program. In order to continue to catalyze revolutionary approaches, while expanding the reach of those that have proved efficacious in particular contexts, the RED program supports three tracks: RED Innovation, RED Adaptation and Implementation and RED Two-Year. This solicitation is limited to the Two-Year track. RED Two-Year projects will develop radically new approaches among multiple two-year institutions to expand the path to engineering and engineering technology four-year programs from two-year institutions with programs such as pre-engineering, engineering and engineering technology. Projects will include consideration of the cultural, organizational, structural, and pedagogical changes needed to transform the department to one in which students are engaged, develop their technical and professional skills, and establish identities as professional engineers. The focus of projects should be on the department’s disciplinary courses and program. RED project initiatives are expected to be institutionalized at the end of the funding period.

The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program provides support to enhance the research capabilities of minority-serving institutions (MSIs) through the establishment of centers that effectively integrate education and research. CREST promotes the development of new knowledge, enhancements of the research productivity of individual faculty, and an expanded presence of students who are members of groups underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. The CREST Postdoctoral Research Program (CREST-PRP) awards are part of the overarching CREST program and provide two years of support for research experience and training for early career scientists at active CREST Centers. The goal of the CREST-PRP awards isto increase the workforce presence of individuals from groups underrepresented in STEM fields. CREST-PRP awards recognize investigators with significant potential and provide them with research experiences that broaden perspectives, facilitate interdisciplinary interactions, and prepare CREST-PRP scholars for positions of leadership within the scientific community. Postdoctoral scholars conduct research on topics aligned with the research focus of the host CREST Center. The awards are also designed to provide active mentoring to the postdoctoral scholars by thescientific mentorwho, in turn, will benefit from the incorporation of these talented scientists into their research groups. Proposals must be submitted by individual postdoctoral candidates. However, if an award is recommended, the award will be transferred to the host institution where the postdoctoral scholar will be named as the PI. The award will be issued to the host institution as a regular research award, and the award will be administered by the host institution. Women, veterans, persons with disabilities, and members of groups underrepresented in STEM are especially encouraged to apply.

This initiative supports fundamentally new approaches in molecular sciences to drive new directions in biotechnology, a critical and emerging technology of the 21st century. This is the third year of a campaign targeting broad themes to be pursued through collaborative high risk/high reward projects. This MFB solicitation calls for creative, cross-disciplinary research and technology development proposals to accelerate understanding of RNA function in complex biological systems and to harness RNA research to advance biotechnology. The funding opportunity will be coordinated by the National Science Foundation together with the National Institutes of Health, National Human Genome Research Institute (NHGRI). The focus on RNA science advances (1) Biotechnology innovation for a sustainable, safe and secure American bioeconomy; (2) the NSF 2022-2026 Strategic Plan to create new knowledge and benefit society by translating knowledge into solutions; and (3) the NHGRI 2020 Strategic Vision for improving human health at the Forefront of Genomics. The program will support projects with a budgetary range of approximately $250,000 to $400,000 per year in direct costs and a duration of up to 3 years.

The current state of semiconductor microelectronic systems is at a crossroads. Continued advances in the capabilities of many technologies as well as the cost of the applications of these technologies across computing, sensing, and communications are threatened. The technology has expanded following the trends in miniaturization long characterized by Moore’s Law, underpinned by new materials, processes, devices, and architectures. The developments in these underpinning areas have often progressed independent of the application area, which has delayed their incorporation into the next-generation technologies. Closing that gap between the essential components in the technology chain is now required to ensure further progress. The materials, devices, and systems need to be co-designed, that is, they need to be designed with simultaneous consideration of elements of the technology chain. The benefits of a co-design approach as a principal methodology to advance semiconductor technology have been widely recognized in a variety of government and industry studies. This holistic, co-design approach can more rapidly create high-performance, robust, secure, compact, energy-efficient, and cost-effective solutions. The technological drivers include the need to: dramatically reduce the energy consumption of computation and communication technologies; reduce the impact of device and system manufacturing on the environment; increase performance speed and capacity; and develop new computing systems. The goal of this solicitation is to cultivate a broad coalition of researchers and educators from across science and engineering communities that utilizes a holistic, co-design approach to fundamental research and workforce education and training, to enable rapid progress in new semiconductor technologies. The future of semiconductor manufacturing will require the design and deployment of diverse new technologies in materials, chemical and materials processes, devices, and architectures through the development of application-driven systems. Partnerships between industry and academic institutions are essential to spur innovation and technology transfer, to inform the research needs, and to train the future workforce. The program seeks to fund research as well as curriculum and workforce development to improve science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) education at the nation’s institutions of higher education, spanning two-year colleges and four-year universities and inclusive of minority-serving institutions, to advance semiconductor design and manufacturing. NSF encourages bold, potentially transformative activities that address future semiconductor manufacturing technical challenges and shortages in the skilled scientist, engineer, and technician workforce. This solicitation encourages proposers to include a holistic perspective on workforce regarding diversity and equitable access to STEM career paths and education by engaging the academic community to broaden access and exposure to advanced technologies and research capabilities. All proposals should address workforce development plans and research. This solicitation seeks proposals to perform fundamental research to enable the development of a new paradigm in semiconductor capabilities through supporting research grants for teams that are practicing co-design approaches and solutions as well as facilitating and coalescing new teams with a vision for co-design methodologies. Teams of all sizes and co-design research proposals of all scopes (i.e., beyond the scope of research that could be submitted to a regular NSF program) are encouraged. Future of Semiconductor Co-Design Research and Education Grants (FuSe-REG) - Awards will be supported in FY 2023 up to $2M per award for up to a three-year grant period, commensurate with the scope and team size. This program seeks to fund collaborative team research that transcends the traditional boundaries of individual disciplines to achieve the program goals. The three research topic areas identified for support in FY 2023 under this solicitation are: Collaborative Research in Domain-Specific Computing; Advanced Function and High-Performance by Heterogenous Integration; and New Materials for Energy-Efficient, Enhanced-Performance and Sustainable Semiconductor-Based Systems. Details are provided under Program Description in Section II. Each proposal should explicitly identify at least one of these research topic areas to focus on, though proposals which merge ideas from multiple topic areas are encouraged. Every proposal should address co-design covering at least two of the areas in the technology stack (materials, devices, and systems) in the research approach. Please note that the program contact information is current at the time of publishing. See program website for any updates to the points of contact.

The NSF Expanding Capacity in Quantum Information Science and Engineering (ExpandQISE) program aims to increase research capacity and broaden participation in Quantum Information Science and Engineering (QISE) and related disciplines through the creation of a diversified investment portfolio in research and education that will lead to scientific and engineering breakthroughs, while securing a talent pipeline in a field where workforce needs of industry, government and academia continue to outgrow the available talent. The ExpandQISE program helps build and maintain a close connection between new efforts and existing impactful work in research, research training, education, outreach, and broadening participation done at the existing QISE Centers such as, for example but not limited to NSF QLCI Institutes, DOE National Research Centers, NSF Quantum Foundries, or leading QISE research Institutions, while creating and nurturing necessary critical mass at Institutions not yet fully involved in QISE. In keeping with the NSF goal of increasing the participation of all members of society in the scientific enterprise, institutions from EPSCoR jurisdictions, and institutions at which more than 50% of enrolled students come from groups that are currently under-represented in the sciences, e.g. minority-serving institutions (MSIs), are especially encouraged to apply. Followingthe agreement between the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation developed in the course of implementation of the National Quantum Initiative Act of 2018, the ExpandQISE program is coordinated with the Department of Energy (DOE), including sharing of information about submissions, the review processes and projects fundingcoordination. DOE Program Managers may also recommend reviewers and attend the review panels as observers. Principal Investigators submitting proposals to theNational Science Foundation (NSF) in response to this solicitation can expect that Program Managers from DOE will have access to the following information: letters of intent, white papers, proposals, unattributed reviews and panel summaries. DOE Program Managers may also recommend reviewers and attend the review panels as observers.Coordination with the DOE will help avoid duplication of funding by the agencies and contribute to enhancing the breadth and impact of the investments by each agency.

As noted in the 2022 National Strategy for Advanced Manufacturing (NSAM),advances in US manufacturing enable the economy to continuously grow as new technologies and innovations increase productivity, enable next-generation products, support our capability to address the climate crisis, and create new, high-quality, and higher-paying jobs. In accordance with that strategy, this solicitation aims to support fundamental research that will enable sustainable new manufacturing technologies and education to grow production and employment in America’s manufacturing sector. Manufacturing in the future will be dictated by a combination of the use of computation to ensure the reliable translation of product designs to manufacturing plans; process controls that provide assurances that the execution of those plans will produce products that meet specifications; inventions of new materials, chemicals, devices, systems, processes, machines, and design and work methods; and new social structures and business practices. Fundamental research to overcome significant barriers will be required in robotics, artificial intelligence, biotechnology, sustainable chemistry and production, materials science, education and public policy, and workforce development to lead this global competition. The importance of these areas of innovation has been emphasized in legislation, such as the CHIPS and Science Act, which supports research and education in semiconductor and microelectronics manufacturing and in other areas ranging from additive manufacturing to artificial intelligence. The importance of biomanufacturing is highlighted in the recent Executive Order on Advancing Biotechnology and Biomanufacturing Innovation for a Sustainable, Safe, and Secure American Bioeconomy, which aims to expand domestic biomanufacturing capacity for products spanning the health, energy, agriculture, and industrial sectors, with a focus on advancing equity, improving biomanufacturing processes, and connecting relevant infrastructure.The NSAM highlights the need to enhance environmental sustainability and address climate change through objectives which include decarbonization of processes and sustainable manufacturing and recycling. These documents lay out research and education priorities for the nation and for NSF. The goal of Future Manufacturing is to support fundamental research and education of a future workforce to overcome scientific, technological, educational, economic, and social barriers in order to catalyze new manufacturing capabilities that do not exist today. Future Manufacturing imagines manufacturing decades into the future. It supports research and education that will enhance U.S. leadership in manufacturing by providing new capabilities for established companies and entrepreneurs, by improving our health, quality of life, and national security, by expanding job opportunities to a diverse STEM workforce, and by reducing the impact of manufacturing on the environment. At the same time, Future Manufacturing enables new manufacturing that will address urgent social challenges arising from climate change, global pandemics and health disparities, social and economic divides, infrastructure deficits of marginalized populations and communities, and environmental sustainability. Future Manufacturing will require creative convergent approaches in science, technology and innovation, empirical validation, and education and workforce development. It will benefit from cross-disciplinary partnerships among scientists, mathematicians, engineers, social and behavioral scientists, STEM education researchers, and experts in arts and humanities to provide solutions that are equitable and inclusive. Future Manufacturing will require major advances in technologies for the sustainable synthesis and production of new materials, chemicals, quantum and semiconductor devices and integrated systems, and components and systems of assured quality with high yield and at reasonable cost. It will require advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, new cyber infrastructure, new approaches for mathematical and computational modeling, new dynamics and control methodologies, new ways to integrate systems biology, synthetic biology and bioprocessing, and new ways to influence the economy, workforce, human behavior, and society. Among this array of technologies and potential research subjects, three thrust areas have been identified for support in FY 2023 under this solicitation: Future Cyber Manufacturing Research, Future Eco Manufacturing Research, and Future Biomanufacturing Research. This solicitation seeks proposals to perform fundamental research to enable new manufacturing capabilities in one or more of these thrust areas. This solicitation will support the following two award tracks: Future Manufacturing Research Grants (FMRG) - up to $3,000,000 for up to four years; and Future Manufacturing Seed Grants (FMSG) - up to $500,000 for up to two years. Interdisciplinary teams commensurate with the scope of the proposed research, education plan, and budget are required. Proposals must include demonstrated expertise among the team members to carry out the proposed research, education, and workforce development activities. The use of a convergence approach is expected. Proposals that include evidence of significant participation from minority-serving institutions, primarily undergraduate institutions, community colleges, institutions from EPSCoR states, and/or incorporate expertise in improving diversity and inclusion are especially encouraged. The goal of this solicitation is to enable new manufacturing that represents a significant change from current practice. Therefore, proposers responding to this solicitation must include within the Project Description a section titled Enabling Future Manufacturing. Please see "Proposal Preparation Instructions" for additional details. Realization of the benefits of the fundamental research supported under this solicitation will require the simultaneous education of a skilled technical workforce that can transition new discoveries into U.S. manufacturing companies. The National Science Board has recently emphasized this perspective in its report, "THE SKILLED TECHNICAL WORKFORCE: Crafting America's Science and Engineering Enterprise." Therefore, proposers responding to this solicitation must include a plan to equip students and upskill the workforce to enable Future Manufacturing. Please see "Full Proposal Preparation Instructions" for additional details. FURTHER INFORMATION: An informational webinar will be held on Friday, February 10,2023 from 1:00-2:00 PM EST to discuss the Future Manufacturing program and answer questions about this solicitation. Details about how to join this webinar will be posted athttps://beta.nsf.gov/events/future-manufacturing-webinar. A recording and transcript will be posted there soon after the webinar is held.

The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) Core Programs Track supports research to understand why organisms are structured the way they are and function as they do. Proposals are welcomed in all of the core scientific program areas supported by the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS). Areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, developmental biology and the evolution of developmental processes, development, structure, modification, function, and evolution of the nervous system, biomechanics and functional morphology, physiological processes, symbioses and microbial interactions, interactions of organisms with biotic and abiotic environments,plant and animal genomics, and animal behavior. Proposals should focus on organisms as a fundamental unit of biological organization. Principal Investigators are encouraged to apply systems approaches that will lead to conceptual and theoretical insights and predictions about emergent organismal properties. The IntBIOTrackinvites submission of collaborative proposals totackle bold questions in biology thatrequire an integrated approach to make substantive progress. Integrative biological research spans subdisciplines and incorporates cutting-edge methods, tools, and concepts from each to produce groundbreaking biological discovery that is synergistic, such that the sum is greater than the parts. The research should produce a novel, holistic understanding of how biological systems function and interact across different scales of organization, e.g., from molecules to cells, tissues to organisms, species to ecosystems and the entire Earth.Where appropriate, projects should apply experimental strategies, modeling, integrative analysis, advanced computation, or other research approaches to stimulate new discovery and general theory in biology.

MCB supports research that promises to uncover the fundamental properties of living systems across atomic, molecular, subcellular, and cellular scales. The program gives high priority to projects that advance mechanistic understanding of the structure, function, and evolution of molecular, subcellular, and cellular systems, especially research that aims at quantitative and predictive knowledge of complex behavior and emergent properties. MCB encourages research exploring new concepts in molecular and cellular biology, while incorporating insights and approaches from other scientific disciplines, such as chemistry, computer science, engineering, mathematics, and physics, to illuminate principles that govern life at the molecular and cellular level. MCB also encourages research that exploits experimental and theoretical approaches and utilizes a diverse spectrum of model and non-model animals, plants, and microbes across the tree of life. Proposals that pursue potentially transformative ideas are welcome, even if these entail higher risk. This solicitation calls for proposals in research areas supported by the four MCB core clusters, including: (i) structure, dynamics, and function of biomolecules and supramolecular assemblies, especially under physiological conditions (Molecular Biophysics); (ii) organization, processing, expression, regulation, and evolution of genetic and epigenetic information (Genetic Mechanisms); (iii) cellular structure, properties, and function across broad spatiotemporal scales (Cellular Dynamics and Function); and (iv) systems and/or synthetic biology to study complex interactions through modeling or manipulation or design of living systems at the molecular-to-cellular scale (Systems and Synthetic Biology). All MCB clusters prioritize projects that integrate across scales, investigate molecular and cellular evolution, synergize experimental research with computational or mathematical modeling, and/or develop innovative, broadly applicable methods and technologies. Projects that bridge the intellectual edges between MCB clusters are welcome. Projects that integrate molecular and cellular biosciences with other subdisciplines of biology are also welcome through the new Integrative Research in Biology (IntBIO) track. MCB strives to achieve key goals laid out in the NSF Strategic Plan. Among these goals are: (i) to empower Science Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) talent to fully participate in science and engineering; (ii) to enable creation of new knowledge by advancing the frontiers of research and enhancing research capability; and (iii) to benefit society through translation of knowledge into solutions. In line with these goals, MCB seeks to increase the diversity of individuals and institutions in the molecular and cellular biosciences community we support. Hence, to be competitive, proposers must be intentional regarding broadening participation in their projects through efforts to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion of individuals traditionally underrepresented in STEM and of types of institutions, such as Minority-serving Institutions (MSIs), Primarily Undergraduate Institutions (PUIs), two-year colleges, institutions in jurisdictions associated with the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR), as well as major research institutions. Also aligned with the NSF Strategic Plan, MCB encourages basic research ideas that are inspired by curiosity and/or by their potential use for societal benefit, especially pertaining to pressing challenges such as, but not limited to climate change, clean energy, feeding the world sustainably, or health. With regard to health-related challenges, it should be noted that research using biomedical model systems to address questions of basic scientific interest is permissible. However, in accordance with the PAPPG,MCB does not normally support biological research on mechanisms of disease in humans, including on the etiology, diagnosis, or treatment of disease or disorder. Similarly, MCB does not normally support biological research to develop animal models of such conditions or testing of procedures for their treatment. Proposals motivated by such disease-related goals will be returned without review.

The Division of Environmental Biology (DEB) Coresupports research and training on evolutionary and ecological processes acting at the level of populations, species, communities, and ecosystems. DEB encourages research that elucidates fundamental principles that identify and explain the unity and diversity of life and its interactions with the environment over space and time. Research may incorporate field, laboratory, or collection-based approaches; observational or manipulative studies; synthesis activities; phylogenetic discovery projects; or theoretical approaches involving analytical, statistical, or computational modeling. Proposals should be submitted to the core clusters (Ecosystem Science, Evolutionary Processes, Population and Community Ecology, and Systematics and Biodiversity Science). DEB also encourages interdisciplinary proposals that cross conceptual boundaries and integrate over levels of biological organization or across multiple spatial and temporal scales.Research addressing ecology and ecosystem science in the marine biome should be directed to the Biological Oceanography Program in the Division of Ocean Sciences; research addressing evolution and systematics in the marine biome should be directed to the Evolutionary Processes or Systematics and Biodiversity Science programs in DEB. All DEB programs also encourage proposals that leverage NSF-supported data networks, databases, centers, and other forms of scientific infrastructure, including but not limited to the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON), Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER), Environmental Data Initiative (EDI), and Integrated Digitized Biocollections (iDigBio). The Division of Environmental Biology seeks to strengthen the U.S. Environmental Biology workforce by increasing the participation of all individuals in science. DEB is dedicated to expanding traditional broader impacts and supporting proposals that include inclusive and effective efforts to recruit and retain biology students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-investigators from groups historically underrepresented in the biological sciences.

This program aims to provide all U.S. students with the opportunity to participate in computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education in their schools at the preK-12 levels. With this solicitation, the National Science Foundation (NSF) focuses on both research and researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) that foster the research and development needed to bring CS and CT to all schools. Specifically, this solicitation aims to provide (1) high school teacherswith the preparation, professional development (PD) and ongoing support they need to teach rigorous computer science courses; (2) preK-8 teachers with the instructional materials and preparation they need to integrate CS and CT into their teaching; and (3) schools and districtswith the resources needed to define and evaluate multi-grade pathways in CS and CT.