NSF Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering (CDS&E) Program

An opportunity for U.S. research universities to use Internet2's advanced network and collaboration facilities for innovation

The National Science Foundation's (NSF) strategic and agency-wide initiative, Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21), calls for a "comprehensive plan for education and outreach in computational science to support learning and workforce development for 21st century science and engineering." Computational and Data-Enabled Science and Engineering (CDS&E) is a new NSF program that is fundamentally important to the CIF21 initiative. CDS&E explicitly recognizes the importance of data-enabled, data-intensive, and data-centric science, and was developed to respond to the needs of scientific computation and the explosion in production of digital data. For more, see http://www.nsf.gov/mps/cds-e/.

Solicitations

Relevant programs across various NSF directorates and offices will collaborate in the CDS&E program.

CDS&E-ENG (NSF Program Announcement 12-549)

The proposal submission window for CDS&E-ENG is June 3–July 3, 2012, with $5 million available, funded jointly by the Engineering Directorate (Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems and Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation) and the Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI). NSF expects to make up to 15 awards.

CDS&E-MSS

The proposal submission window for CDS&E-MSS is November 25–December 10, 2012, with $5 million available, funded jointly by the Division of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences in the Directorate for Mathematics and Physical Sciences and the OCI. NSF expects to make up to 15 awards.

What Could the CDS&E Program Mean to Your Campus?

The CDS&E program is essentially "cyberinfrastructure in support of engineering research." Proposals could, for example, include:

  • Transporting, storing and providing access to "big data" across the supported disciplines
  • Supporting data and researcher collaborations among distributed laboratories
  • Making possible the remote control and use of central simulations by multiple institutions
  • Facilitating the coordinated use of a major engineering instrument (for example, wave tank, tensile tester, etc.) by multiple institutions

Proposals that focus on developing and providing these and similar services would make excellent use of not only the Internet2 Network and its new range of innovation-facilitating services, but also InCommon services for secure, coordinated access to facilities and data, and various new Internet2 NET+ services for handling big data in the cloud.

Getting Internet2 Support

Internet2 staff stand ready and willing to assist in any way possible, including brainstorming with you, if that is helpful in preparing your proposal, and writing letters of support for proposals that use—and even challenge—Internet2's spectrum of services.

To continue the conversation, contact Research Support at rs@internet2.edu.

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