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Training-based Workforce Development for Advanced Cyberinfrastructure

Status: Archived

Archived funding opportunity

This document has been archived. See NSF 23-521 and NSF 23-520 for the latest documents.

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.

Synopsis

This program seeks to prepare, nurture, and grow the national scientific research workforce for creating, utilizing, and supporting advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) to enable and potentially transform fundamental science and engineering (S&E) research and education and contribute to the Nation's overall economic competitiveness and security. The goals of this solicitation are to (i) ensure broad adoption of CI tools, methods, and resources by the research community in order to catalyze major research advances and to enhance researchers’ abilities to lead the development of new CI; (ii) integrate core literacy and discipline-appropriate advanced skills in advanced CI as well as computational and data-driven methods for advancing fundamental research, into the Nation’s undergraduate and graduate educational curriculum/instructional materials; and (iii) build communities of research CI professional staff to deploy, manage, and collaboratively support the effective use of research CI, as well as establish career paths for those staff within and across institutions and science and engineering (S&E) disciplines. Proposals responding to the Pilot and Implementation project classes defined in this solicitation may target one or both of the first two solicitation goals, while proposals responding to the CIP project class must address the third goal. For the purpose of this solicitation, advanced CI is broadly defined as the set of resources, tools, methods, and services for advanced computation, large-scale data handling and analytics, and networking and security for large-scale systems that collectively enable potentially transformative fundamental S&E research and education.

This solicitation calls for innovative, scalable training, education, and curriculum/instructional materials, along with deeper incorporation of CI professionals into the research enterprise—targeting one or more of the solicitation goals—to address emerging needs and unresolved bottlenecks in S&E research workforce development, from the postsecondary level to active researchers to CI professionals. The funded activities, spanning targeted, multidisciplinary communities, should lead to transformative changes in the state of research workforce preparedness for advanced CI-enabled research in the short- and long-term. This solicitation also seeks to broaden CI access and adoption by (i) increasing adoption of advanced CI and of computational and data-driven methods to a broader range of S&E disciplines and institutions; (ii) enhancing the incorporation of CI professionals into the research enterprise – highlighting the value of those professionals in S&E research; and (iii) effectively utilizing the capabilities of individuals from a diverse set of underrepresented groups. Proposals from, and in partnership with, the aforementioned communities are especially encouraged.

There are three project classes as defined below:

  • Pilot Projects: up to $300,000 total budget with durations up to two years;
  • Implementation Projects: Small (with total budgets of up to $500,000) or Medium (with total budgets of up to $1,000,000) for durations of up to four years; and
  • CI Professional (CIP) Projects: up to two full-time equivalents (FTEs) per institution and four FTEs total with durations up to five years.

Section II. Program Description provides a more complete description of the project classes. Section V.A. Proposal Preparation Instructions describes the proposal elements required for the various project classes in order to address the suitable set of solicitation-specific review criteria.

The CyberTraining program is led by the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) in the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and has participation from other NSF directorates/divisions as described in Section II. Program Description, Programmatic Areas of Interest. Not all directorates/divisions are participating at the same level and some have specific research and education priorities. The appropriate contact for the CyberTraining program in any directorate/division is the Cognizant Program Officer (PO) for the respective directorate/division/office/program listed below.

All projects are expected to clearly articulate how they address important community needs, will provide resources that will be widely available to and usable by the research community, and will broaden participation from underrepresented groups. Prospective principal investigators (PIs) are strongly encouraged to contact the Cognizant Program Officers in CISE/OAC and in the participating directorate/division relevant to the proposal to ascertain whether the focus and budget of their proposed activities are appropriate for this solicitation. Such consultations should be completed at least one month in advance of the submission deadline. PIs should include the names of the Cognizant Program Officers consulted in a Single Copy Document as described in Section V.A. Proposal Preparation Instructions. The intent of the CyberTraining program is to encourage collaboration between CI and S&E domain disciplines. (For this purpose, units of CISE other than OAC are considered domain disciplines.) To ensure relevance to community needs and to facilitate adoption, those proposals of interest to one or more domain divisions must include at least one PI/co-PI with expertise relevant to the targeted research discipline. All proposals shall include at least one PI/co-PI with expertise relevant to OAC.

Prospective PIs contemplating submissions that primarily target communities relevant to directorates/divisions that are not participating in this solicitation are directed to instead explore the education and workforce development programs of the respective directorates/divisions.

Program contacts

Ashok Srinivasan
Program Director, CISE/OAC
asriniva@nsf.gov (703) 292-8970 CISE/OAC
Alan Sussman
CISE/OAC
alasussm@nsf.gov (703) 292-7563
Juan (Jenny) J. Li
CISE/OAC
jjli@nsf.gov (703)292-2625 CISE/OAC
Almadena Y. Chtchelkanova
CISE/CCF
achtchel@nsf.gov (703) 292-8910 CISE/CCF
Deepankar Medhi
CISE/CNS
dmedhi@nsf.gov (703) 292-2935 CISE/CNS
Wei Ding
CISE/IIS
weiding@nsf.gov (703) 292-8017 CISE/IIS
Victor P. Piotrowski
EHR/DGE
vpiotrow@nsf.gov (703) 292-8670 EHR/DGE
Li Yang
EHR/DGE
liyang@nsf.gov (703) 292-2677 EHR/DGE
Reha M. Uzsoy
ENG/CMMI
ruzsoy@nsf.gov (703) 292-0000 ENG/CMMI
Ronald Joslin
ENG/CBET
rjoslin@nsf.gov (703) 292-7030 ENG/CBET
Shahab Shojaei-Zadeh
ENG/CBET
sshojaei@nsf.gov (703) 292-8045 ENG/CBET
Eva Zanzerkia
GEO
ezanzerk@nsf.gov (703) 292-4734 GEO/EAR
Allen J. Pope
GEO/OPP
apope@nsf.gov (703) 292-8030 GEO/OPP
Bogdan Mihaila
bmihaila@nsf.gov (703) 292-8235 CISE/OAC
Nigel A. Sharp
nsharp@nsf.gov (703) 292-4905 MPS/AST
Daryl W. Hess
dhess@nsf.gov (703) 292-4942 MPS/DMR
Richard Dawes
MPS/CHE
rdawes@nsf.gov (703) 292-7486 MPS/CHE
Joseph M. Whitmeyer
SBE/SES
jwhitmey@nsf.gov (703) 292-7808 SBE/SES

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