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CCF: Communications and Information Foundations (CIF)

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NSF 24-589

Important information about NSF’s implementation of the revised 2 CFR

NSF Financial Assistance awards (grants and cooperative agreements) made on or after October 1, 2024, will be subject to the applicable set of award conditions, dated October 1, 2024, available on the NSF website. These terms and conditions are consistent with the revised guidance specified in the OMB Guidance for Federal Financial Assistance published in the Federal Register on April 22, 2024.

Important information for proposers

All proposals must be submitted in accordance with the requirements specified in this funding opportunity and in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) that is in effect for the relevant due date to which the proposal is being submitted. It is the responsibility of the proposer to ensure that the proposal meets these requirements. Submitting a proposal prior to a specified deadline does not negate this requirement.

Supports research on the theoretical underpinnings of information acquisition, transmission and processing in communications and information processing systems.

Supports research on the theoretical underpinnings of information acquisition, transmission and processing in communications and information processing systems.

Synopsis

The Communications and Information Foundations (CIF) program supports research activities that address the theoretical underpinnings for information acquisition, transmission, and processing in communications and information processing systems. CIF projects have contributed to the development of the inter-related areas of communications, information theory, coding theory, and signal and image processing, areas that are expected to play key roles in future technology.

The CIF program also supports foundational research in networked systems, such as network information theory and cross-layer design in wireless systems. Examples include secure communication, sensor networks, and other scenarios that feature massive data aggregation from distributed sensing.

In addition to the traditional topics that have fueled the information revolution, there is continued interest within the CIF program in new paradigms. These include but are not limited to statistical learning and inference, signal processing on graphs and networks, multi-terminal communication problems, information-theoretic security, geometric methods in signal processing and machine learning, computational imaging, and communication-theoretic challenges associated with emerging communication technology. In the machine learning area in particular, CIF seeks to encourage research promoting paradigms based on foundational principles, rooted in information theory and statistical inference, that advance the explainability and generalizability of machine learning. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, scalability, performance guarantees, and fundamental limits, alongside fairness and robustness of machine learning techniques.

At its core, CIF is interested in the mathematical exploration of novel problem formulations rooted in the aforementioned application domains.

Program contacts

James E. Fowler
jafowler@nsf.gov (703) 292-8910 CISE/CCF
Alfred Hero
ahero@nsf.gov (703) 292-8910 CISE/CCF
Phillip A. Regalia
pregalia@nsf.gov (703) 292-8910 CISE/CCF