The National Science Foundation (NSF) has issued a new solicitation for Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE), a Foundation-wide program that supports international activities across all NSF-funded disciplines including CISE. The focus of the this year’s PIRE RFP is on the NSF-wide investment in sustainability (Science, Engineering, and Education of Sustainability, or SEES): Recognizing the value of international partnerships in addressing critical science and engineering questions, NSF established the Partnerships in International Research and Education (PIRE) program in 2005. PIRE is an NSF-wide program that supports fundamental, interdisciplinary, international research and education in physical, living, human, and engineered systems. PIRE enables research at the leading edge of science and […]

DARPA’s Information Innovation Office (I2O) has issued a new solicitation for “innovative research proposals in the area of social media in strategic communication” that will give rise to “a new science of social networks built on an emerging technology base.” Here’s the overview from the official broad agency announcement: The conditions under which our Armed Forces conduct operations are rapidly changing with the spread of blogs, social networking sites, and media-sharing technology (such as YouTube), and further accelerated by the proliferation of mobile technology. Changes to the nature of conflict resulting from the use of social media are likely to be as profound as those resulting from previous communications revolutions. […]

In a post on the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) Blog today, Deputy Director for Policy Tom Kalil noted the Administration’s keen interest in Big Data — and singled out the CCC’s recent white papers on data analytics: …Researchers in a growing number of fields are generating extremely large data sets, commonly referred to as “Big Data.” For example, the size of DNA sequencing databases is increasing by a factor of 10 every 18 months!  Researchers need better tools to help them store, index, search, visualize, and analyze these data, allowing them to discover new patterns and connections.   Increases in the ability to make predictions and […]

Just a heads up that NSF’s CISE Directorate has issued solicitations for its core programs: Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF) — Algorithmic Foundations, Communications and Information Foundations, and Software and Hardware Foundations. Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) — Human-Centered Computing, Information Integration and Informatics, Robust Intelligence, and Computer Graphics and Visualization. Computer and Network Systems (CNS) — Computer Systems Research (to include cloud computing, embedded and hybrid systems, pervasive computing, sustainable computing) and Networking Technology and Systems. As in the recent past, deadlines for small, medium, and large proposals are later this fall. To learn more, click on a link above to view the division’s core programs. (Contributed by Erwin […]

NSF/CISE Assistant Director Farnam Jahanian has issued the following letter to the community, describing the National Robotics Initiative (NRI) launched last week: Dear CISE Community,   On Friday, in a speech at Carnegie Mellon University, President Obama announced the plan for major federal investments in next-generation robotics. The National Robotics Initiative (NRI) is a bold program that supports the development and use of robots that work beside, or cooperatively with, people and that enhance individual human capabilities, performance and safety. NSF is the lead agency in this multi-agency program that also includes NASA, NIH and USDA. NRI calls for cross-agency investments of up to $70 million in the first year […]

In a Dear Colleague Letter issued earlier this month, the NSF’s Directorate for Geosciences and Office of Cyberinfrastructure call for “an open, adaptable, and sustainable framework (an ‘Earth-Cube’) to enable transformative research and education in Earth System Science”: In a new partnership, GEO and OCI recognize the multifaceted challenges of modern, data-intensive science and education and envision an environment where low adoption thresholds and new capabilities act together to greatly increase the productivity and capability of researchers and educators working at the frontiers of Earth system science.   With the new FY2012 NSF budget thrust, Cyberinfrastructure for the 21st century (CIF21), NSF places significant emphasis on computational and data-rich science […]