“Will Support Fundamental R&D That Transforms Ability to Forecast Pandemic-scale Events, Detect Outbreaks Early, and Respond Efficiently.”
The COVID-19 pandemic had a devastating impact on the country, exposing our lack of preparedness and knowledge gaps in handling such events and understanding pathogens and disease emergence. NSF’s Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention (PIPP) initiative focuses on fundamental research and development activities needed to tackle grand challenges in infectious disease pandemics through prediction and prevention. The PIPP Phase II Centers Program builds upon Phase I Development Grant Program to establish a network of centers or large-scale awards/investments that will support interdisciplinary team-based approaches to accelerate research and development activities in emerging infectious diseases and pandemics.
The program invites proposals for Centers that have a principal focus in one of the following multidisciplinary themes:
-
Pre-emergence – Predicting and detecting rare events in complex, dynamical systems
-
Data, AI/ML and Design – Computing, manufacturing and technology innovation for pandemics
-
The Host as the Universe – Identifying host-pathogen tipping points that dictate control or spread of an infection
-
Human Systems – The role of human behavior, activities and environments in disease emergence, transmission, and response or mitigation
NSF plans to make approximately 4-7 Center awards for between $15 million and $18 million for seven years across the themes, depending on strength of submissions.
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) has published a series of three white papers pertaining to computing’s role in pandemic prevention research:
- Pandemic Informatics: Preparation, Robustness, and Resilience,
- Pandemic Informatics: Vaccine Distribution, Logistics, and Prioritization,
- Pandemic Informatics: Variants of Concern (VOC)
The CCC will continue to work in this area. Letters of intent are due August 25, 2023. Full proposals are due December 8, 2023. Learn more on the NSF website here.
