This month marks the 35th anniversary of the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Directorate. CISE was founded on May 1, 1986, and it continues to support “investigator-initiated research and education in all areas of computer and information science and engineering,” including the Computing Community Consortium (CCC), which CISE funds through a cooperative agreement with the Computing Research Association.
Highlighted in their May newsletter, “One of CISE’s key early investments in information technology was the Digital Libraries Initiative (DLI). This initiative provided global, multilingual repositories of data, knowledge, sound, and images. Through the DLI, NSF supported a project that would ultimately result in the creation of Google.”
The National Robotics Initiative (NRI), is a program that has a long history with NSF CISE and the CCC. In 2009, the CCC published A Roadmap for US Robotics, From Internet to Robotics, which argued for the economic benefits of robotics technology and laid out a research roadmap to advance the field. Launched in 2011, NRI’s goal is to “accelerate the development and use of robots in the United States that work beside or cooperatively with people.” The roadmap, which has had several updates over the last decade (March 2013 update, November 2016 update, September 2020 update), was the basis for the original 2011 NRI. NRI is now in version 3.0: Innovations in Integration of Robotics.
Among their recent funding opportunities is the Resilient and Intelligent Next-Generation Systems (RINGS) program, which “seeks to accelerate research in areas with potentially significant impact on Next-Generation (NextG) networking and computing systems.”
From the program webpage:
“The RINGS program is NSF’s single largest effort to date to engage public and private partners to jointly support a research program. Partners include:
- Department of Defense Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering
- National Institute of Standards and Technology
- Apple
- Ericsson
- IBM
- Intel
- Microsoft
- Nokia
- Qualcomm Technologies
- VMware
The significance of the public-private partnership goes beyond leveraging funding. For example, private-sector partners in this coalition represent some of the users who would develop and implement NextG technologies; they bring experience and insight, as well as the potential to accelerate the translation of fundamental research findings into new technologies and solutions.”
Learn more about the history of CISE and the available funding opportunities in their May 2021 newsletter.
