Moments ago, the National Science Foundation (NSF) wrapped up an informational webinar about its new multi-disciplinary Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB) program. Expanding on a solicitation first issued in spring 2011 by the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), the new program spans NSF’s CISE, Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) directorates — and calls for interdisciplinary proposals that address “fundamental technical and scientific issues that would support much needed transformation of healthcare from reactive and hospital-centered to preventive, proactive, evidence-based, person-centered and focused on wellbeing rather than disease.” In today’s webinar, NSF officials highlighted the goals and driving principles underlying the FY 2012 SHB solicitation, in the context of the two […]

Following an extensive review by a task force to determine if the merit review criteria used by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to evaluate all proposals remain appropriate, the National Science Board (NSB) yesterday released its report — National Science Foundation’s Merit Review Criteria: Review and Revisions — recommending that NSF “better define the two criteria for the benefit of the science community.” According to the press release announcing the report: The NSB task force was put in place in February 2010, with a charge to examine the two merit review criteria and their effectiveness in achieving the goals for NSF research support of science, engineering and education. Based on the task force’s […]

Last May, the X PRIZE Foundation and Qualcomm announced that they were joining forces to develop a competition to enhance integrated digital health. Earlier today, in his keynote at the 2012 International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas, NV, Qualcomm CEO Dr. Paul E. Jacobs announced the $10 million competition — with the aim of stimulating innovation and creating a new category of consumer device that “empowers the individual to become the ‘CEO of [his or her] own health’.” According to the X PRIZE Foundation:

Last month, the National Institutes of Standards and Technology (NIST) announced its FY 2012 Measurement Science and Engineering Research Grants Programs, with an emphasis on a number of areas of computing, including cyber-physical systems, intelligent systems, and systems integration. A key domain for NIST is energy and the environment, including the smart grid. According to the funding opportunity, relevant work supported by NIST’s Engineering Laboratory (EL) will include: Smart Grid and Cyber-Physical Systems Program. The program’s primary objective is to promote U.S.  innovation and industrial competitiveness in areas of critical national priority by anticipating and meeting the measurement science and standards needs for cyber-physical systems, such as smart grid, in ways that […]

The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) is unveiling a new website today allowing researchers to advertise undergraduate summer research positions and students to find such opportunities. These listings will appear from a link on the CCC’s relatively new Computer Science Research Opportunities & Graduate School (CSGS) website, which has information on summer research opportunities, a Q&A on “why do research,” and links to many recurring summer programs (e.g., NSF REUs, CRA-W, CREUC Canada, among others). The site also has information and advice on applying to graduate school in computing fields (with Q&As with faculty from around the country as well as current Ph.D. students) and a “Day in the Life” Blog where […]

(This post has been updated; scroll down for the latest.) As we’ve previously reported in this space, the National Science Foundation (NSF) recently issued a cross-directorate solicitation on Smart Health and Wellbeing (SHB), calling for interdisciplinary proposals addressing “fundamental technical and scientific issues that would support much needed transformation of healthcare from reactive and hospital-centered to preventive, proactive, evidence-based, person-centered and focused on wellbeing rather than disease.” The SHB program, with support from the NSF’s directorates for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Engineering (ENG), and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), expands a program first implemented by CISE in spring 2011. Today, the NSF is announcing that it will hold a webinar next Wednesday, Jan. 11 for individuals interested in the new […]