Information Technology Research for National Priorities (ITR)

In FY 2004, the Information Technology Research (ITR) Program is focusing on Information Technology Research in support of National Priorities, where National Priorities are defined as:

•       Advances in Science and Engineering (ASE);
•       Economic Prosperity and Vibrant Civil Society (ECS); and
•       National and Homeland Security (NHS). 

NSF encourages the submission of proposals targeting one or more of these National Priorities.

Today, networks link people, software, hardware, computational resources and data archives, and they enable unprecedented communications, coordination and collaboration among them. Powerful distributed applications enable new forms of scientific research by collecting, disseminating, and analyzing observational or experimental data, or data from models or simulations. Other powerful applications include the networked services essential to our daily lives, such as cell phones, email, banking systems, transportation systems, critical infrastructures, distributed inventory control systems, and modern environmental observing systems. New knowledge is needed to improve the design, use, behavior, and stability of these widely distributed systems. A better understanding of this historical shift towards increasing connections and interdependencies among heterogeneous systems and how to harness their potential in service to society is necessary.

The three National Priority Areas encompass a broad range of science and engineering research and education topics in which Information Technology (IT) plays a critical role. A number of Technical Focus Areas cut across these National Priorities, including: 

• Integration of computing, networking, human-computer interfaces, and information management to support reliable, complex, distributed systems (int);
• Innovative approaches to the integration of data, models, communications, analysis and/or control systems, including dynamic, data-driven applications for use in prediction, risk-assessment and decision-making (dmc);
• Interactions and complex interdependencies of information systems and social systems (soc); and
• Innovation in computational modeling or simulation in research or education (sim).

In this competition, proposers must identify at least one of the Technical Focus Areas described above, although proposers are encouraged to work over more than one area where applicable.

ITR is an activity that includes all NSF Directorates and programmatic Offices. The ITR Program places particular emphasis on interdisciplinary research and education projects.

Proposers should read this solicitation carefully as there are a number of important changes from last year’s announcement.