Dear Colleagues,
The National Science Foundation is pleased to announce that applications for The Data Infrastructure Building Blocks Program are being accepted.
BACKGROUND: The National Science Foundation invites grant applications for support as a cross-directorate program focused upon data challenges confronting NSF’s scientific and engineering communities, scalable cyber-infrastructure capabilities that build upon existing community infrastructure and address programmatic areas of interest across the participating directorates.
Synopsis of Program:
The NSF vision for a Cyberinfrastructure Framework for 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) considers an integrated, scalable, and sustainable cyber-infrastructure to be crucial for innovation in science and engineering (see www.nsf.gov/cif21). The Data Infrastructure Building Blocks (DIBBs) program is an integral part of CIF21. The DIBBs program encourages development of robust and shared data-centric cyber-infrastructure capabilities, to accelerate interdisciplinary and collaborative research in areas of inquiry stimulated by data.
DIBBs investments enable new data-focused services, capabilities, and resources to advance scientific discoveries, collaborations, and innovations. The investments are expected to build upon, integrate with, and contribute to existing community cyberinfrastructure, serving as evaluative resources while developments in national-scale access, policy, interoperability and sustainability continue to evolve.
Effective solutions will bring together cyber-infrastructure expertise and domain researchers, to ensure that the resulting cyber-infrastructure address researchers’ data needs. The activities should address the data challenges arising in a disciplinary or cross-disciplinary context. (Throughout this solicitation, ‘community’ refers to a group of researchers interested in solving one or more linked scientific questions, while ‘domains’ and ‘disciplines’ refer to areas of expertise or application.) The projects should stimulate data-driven scientific discoveries and innovations, and address broad community needs, nationally and internationally.
This solicitation includes two classes of science data pilot awards:
Early Implementations are large “at scale” evaluations, building upon cyber-infrastructure capabilities of existing research communities or recognized community data collections, and extending those data-focused cyber-infrastructure capabilities to additional research communities and domains with broad community engagement.
Pilot Demonstrations address advanced cyber-infrastructure challenges across emerging research communities, building upon recognized community data collections and disciplinary research interests, to address specific challenges in science and engineering research.
Prospective PIs should be aware that DIBBs is a multi-directorate activity, and are encouraged to submit proposals that have broad, interdisciplinary interest. PIs are encouraged to refer to NSF core program descriptions, Dear Colleague Letters, and recently posted initiatives on directorate and divisional home pages to gain insight into the priorities for the relevant area(s) of science and engineering in which their proposals may be responsive. It is strongly recommended that a prospective PI contact a Cognizant Program Officer in the organization(s) closest to the major disciplinary impact of the proposed work to ascertain whether the scientific focus and budget of the proposed work are appropriate for this solicitation.
Award Information
Anticipated Type of Award: Standard Grant or Continuing Grant
Estimated Number of Awards: 12
Early Implementation Awards: up to 6 awards, pending availability of funds.
Pilot Demonstration Awards: up to 6 awards, pending availability of funds.
Anticipated Funding Amount: $25,000,000 pending availability of funds.
The award size for Early Implementation Awards is anticipated to be up to $4,000,000 total per award for up to 5 years.
The award size for Pilot Demonstration Awards is anticipated to be up to $500,000 total per award for up to 3 years.
Project size should be commensurate with the size/breadth of the community served.
General inquiries regarding this program should be made to:
Amy Walton, Program Director, CISE/ACI, telephone: (703) 292-8970, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Robert Chadduck, Program Director, CISE/ACI, telephone: (703) 292-8970, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Anita Nikolich, Program Director, CISE/ACI, telephone: (703) 292-8970, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Peter H. McCartney, Program Director, BIO/DBI, telephone: (703) 292-8470, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Sylvia Spengler, Program Director, CISE/IIS, telephone: (703) 292-8930, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
John C. Cherniavsky, Senior Advisor, EHR, telephone: (703) 292-5136, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Ronald Joslin, Program Director, ENG/CBET, telephone: (703) 292-7030, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Joanne D. Culbertson, Program Director, ENG/CMMI, telephone: (703) 292-4602, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Eva Zanzerkia, Program Director, GEO/EAR, telephone: (703) 292-8556, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Lin He, Program Director, MPS/CHE, telephone: (703) 292-4956, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Daryl W. Hess, Program Director, MPS/DMR, telephone: (703) 292-4942, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Bogdan Mihaila, Program Director, MPS/PHY, telephone: (703) 292-8235, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Cheryl L. Eavey, Program Director, SBE/SES, telephone: (703) 292-7269, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Seta Bogosyan, Program Director, OD/OISE, telephone: (703) 292-4766, email: DIBBsQueries@nsf.gov
Link to Additional Information: https://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf17500