Project Description: The Science Education Alliance supports faculty members to engage thousands of beginning undergraduate students in authentic scientific discovery, primarily through Course-based Research Experiences (CREs; also known as Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences, or CUREs).

The Science Education Alliance (SEA) supports a community of faculty members and institutions who embed research as a fundamental component of early undergraduate science curricula. By doing so, SEA supports educators to develop their students as contributors of scientific discoveries and integrate their students in the research ecosystem as part of an engaging educational experience that promotes their persistence in the sciences.

Phage Hunters Advancing Genomic and Evolutionary Science (PHAGES)

Gene-function Exploration by a Network of Emerging Scientists (GENES)

SEA PHAAGES & SEA GENES Program Announcement

Program Description: The Broadening Participation in Engineering (BPE) Program is a Directorate-wide initiative dedicated to supporting the development of a diverse and well-prepared engineering workforce. Across every educational juncture (e.g., elementary, secondary, and postsecondary levels), efforts to improve engineering interests, preparation, connections, experiences, and opportunities among underrepresented groups is of major importance to BPE.

In FY 2016, aligned with NSF-wide INCLUDES, BPE is interested in funding projects that bring together multiple groups (e.g., school districts, community colleges, engineering schools, industry, philanthropy, government, etc.) and offer the greatest return on investment by producing outcomes that are scalable, sustainable, and applicable to various contexts, settings, and demographics within the engineering enterprise. For example, it is interested research projects that help us to analyze and understand the problem of insufficient interest and poorly sustained participation in engineering across underrepresented demographic groups; insignificant preparation and scarce opportunities for members of underrepresented demographic groups to learn meaningful, relevant engineering and other STEM-related content; insufficient access to support systems and social networks that raises career awareness about different engineering pathways among underrepresented groups; and structural inequalities and biases within educational and workforce systems that may influence engineering persistence.

Program Description: The Petrology and Geochemistry Program supports basic research on the formation of planet Earth, including its accretion, early differentiation, and subsequent petrologic and geochemical modification via igneous and metamorphic processes. Proposals in this program generally address the petrology and high-temperature geochemistry of igneous and metamorphic rocks (including mantle samples), mineral physics, economic geology, and volcanology. Proposals that are focused on the development of analytical tools, theoretical and computational models, and experimental techniques for applications by the igneous and metamorphic petrology, and high temperature geochemistry communities are also invited.

Project Description: The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST) program provides support to enhance the research capabilities of minority-serving institutions (MSI) through the establishment of centers that effectively integrate education and research. MSIs of higher education denote institutions that have undergraduate enrollments of 50% or more (based on total student enrollment) of members of minority groups underrepresented among those holding advanced degrees in science and engineering fields: African Americans, Alaska Natives, American Indians, Hispanic Americans, Native Hawaiians, and Native Pacific Islanders. CREST promotes the development of new knowledge, enhancements of the research productivity of individual faculty, and an expanded presence of students historically underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. CREST Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (PRF) awards provide research experience and training for early career scientists at active CREST Centers. HBCU-RISE awards specifically target HBCUs to support the expansion of institutional research capacity as well as the production of doctoral students, especially those from groups underrepresented in STEM, at those institutions.

Program Description: The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) continues to support the Enabling Discovery through GEnomic Tools (EDGE) program, previously a component of the IOS Core Programs solicitation (NSF 16-505). EDGE is designed to provide support for research addressing current impediments to research progress in organismal biology. In particular, the ability to directly test gene function is essential to improve understanding of the genomes-to-phenomes relationship, an area relevant to Understanding the Rules of Life, one of 10 Big Ideas for future NSF investment (www.nsf.gov/about/congress/reports/nsf_big_ideas.pdf). EDGE projects should focus on development of functional genomic tools, approaches, and associated infrastructure to enable direct tests of hypotheses about gene function in diverse organisms for which such tools and infrastructure are presently unavailable.

Project Description: The recent advances in communications, computation, and sensing technologies offer unprecedented opportunities for the design of cyber-physical systems with increased responsiveness, interconnectivity and automation. To meet new challenges and societal needs, the Energy, Power, Control and Networks (EPCN) Program invests in systems and control methods for analysis and design of cyber-physical systems to ensure stability, performance, robustness, and security. Topics of interest include modeling, optimization, learning, and control of networked multi-agent systems, higher-level decision making, and dynamic resource allocation as well as risk management in the presence of uncertainty, sub-system failures and stochastic disturbances. EPCN also invests in adaptive dynamic programing, brain-like networked architectures performing real-time learning, and neuromorphic engineering. EPCN supports innovative proposals dealing with systems research in such areas as energy, transportation, and nanotechnology. EPCN places emphasis on electric power systems, including generation, transmission, storage, and integration of renewables; power electronics and drives; battery management systems; hybrid and electric vehicles; and understanding of the interplay of power systems with associated regulatory and economic structures and with consumer behavior. Also of interest are interdependencies of power and energy systems with other critical infrastructures. Topics of interest also include systems analysis and design for energy scavenging and alternate energy technologies such as solar, wind, and hydrokinetic. The program also supports innovative tools and test beds, as well as curriculum development integrating research and education. In addition to single investigator projects, EPCN encourages cross-disciplinary proposals that benefit from active collaboration of researchers with complementary skills.

Program Description: The Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research is designed to fulfill the mandate of the National Science Foundation (NSF) to promote scientific progress nationwide. Through this program, NSF establishes partnerships with government, higher education, and industry that are designed to effect sustainable improvements in a jurisdiction's research infrastructure, Research and Development (R&D) capacity, and hence, its R&D competitiveness. Eligibility to participate in the EPSCoR Workshop Opportunities program is described according to the Outreach Eligibility Map (see eligibility map).

EPSCoR welcomes proposals for workshops from institutions within EPSCoR-eligible jurisdictions. These workshops will focus on innovative ways to address multi-jurisdictional efforts on themes of regional to national importance with relevance to EPSCoR's goals and NSF's mission.

Program Description: The National Science Foundation (NSF) seeks to develop and nurture a national innovation ecosystem that builds upon fundamental research to guide the output of scientific discoveries closer to the development of technologies, products and processes that benefit society.

In order to jumpstart a national innovation ecosystem, NSF has established the NSF Innovation Corps Teams Program (NSF I-Corps Teams). The NSF I-Corps Teams purpose is to identify NSF-funded researchers who will receive additional support - in the form of mentoring and funding - to accelerate innovation that can attract subsequent third-party funding.

The purpose of the NSF I-Corps Teams grant is to give the project team access to resources to help determine the readiness to transition technology developed by previously-funded or currently-funded NSF projects. The outcomes of I-Corps Teams projects will be threefold:

1. a clear go or no go decision regarding viability of products and service,
2. should the decision be to move the effort forward, a transition plan for those projects to move forward
3. a technology demonstration for potential partners

Project Description: The Institute for Sustainability, Energy, and Environment (iSEE) has announced that it will provide seed funding for Illinois faculty members to assist in preparing a proposal for external funding that will include using campus sustainability features and projects in their research related to sustainability. Opportunities may be offered to campus sustainability units (iSEE, Facilities & Services, etc.) to enhance ongoing work and to students for improved sustainability education. Thus, seed funding promoting the use of campus as a living laboratory will offer a win-win-win solution for research and education and for campus sustainability enhancement.

Project Description: The goal of the RCN program is to advance a field or create new directions in research or education by supporting groups of investigators to communicate and coordinate their research, training and educational activities across disciplinary, organizational, geographic and international boundaries. RCN provides opportunities to foster new collaborations, including international partnerships, and address interdisciplinary topics. Innovative ideas for implementing novel networking strategies, collaborative technologies, and development of community standards for data and meta-data are especially encouraged. RCN awards are not meant to support existing networks; nor are they meant to support the activities of established collaborations. RCN awards do not support primary research. RCN supports the means by which investigators can share information and ideas, coordinate ongoing or planned research activities, foster synthesis and new collaborations, develop community standards, and in other ways advance science and education through communication and sharing of ideas.

Project Description: In today’s increasingly networked, distributed, and asynchronous world, cybersecurity involves hardware, software, networks, data, people, and integration with the physical world. Society’s overwhelming reliance on this complex cyberspace, however, has exposed its fragility and vulnerabilities that defy existing cyber-defence measures: corporations, agencies, national infrastructure and individuals continue to suffer cyber-attacks. Achieving a truly secure cyberspace requires addressing both challenging scientific and engineering problems involving many components of a system, and vulnerabilities that stem from human behaviors and choices. Examining the fundamentals of security and privacy as a multidisciplinary subject can lead to fundamentally new ways to design, build and operate cyber systems, protect existing infrastructure, and motivate and educate individuals about cybersecurity.

SBIR/STTR Phase IIa Diversity Collaboration Supplements provide an opportunity for existing SBIR/STTR Phase II projects to initiate collaborations with minority-serving institutions that have active CREST Center or HBCU-RISE awards. These supplemental proposals are administered by and co-funded with the NSF Directorate for Engineering Division of Industrial Innovation and Partnerships (ENG/IIP).