Mind, Machine and Motor Nexus
This grant funds fundamental research on how humans and intelligent engineered systems interact in physical or virtual environments to improve safety, productivity, and well-being through innovative theories, models, and technologies.
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation
Due Dates: Proposals accepted anytime
Funding Amounts: No specified minimum or maximum; typical NSF award durations are 1–5 years; budgets should be appropriate to project scope.
Summary: Supports fundamental research on safe, productive, and adaptive bidirectional interaction between intelligent engineered systems and humans in physics-based environments.
Description
The Mind, Machine, and Motor Nexus (M3X) program funds fundamental research to advance the science and engineering of bidirectional interactions between humans and intelligent engineered systems—whether physical, virtual, or hybrid—operating in physics-based environments. The program seeks projects that deepen understanding of how humans and machines interact, adapt, and collaborate to enhance safety, productivity, and well-being in complex, dynamic settings such as elder care, disaster response, and dynamic workplaces.
Projects must focus on significant contributions to at least one of the following areas:
- Conceptual Frameworks and Theoretical Modeling: Developing new conceptual, mathematical, or computational frameworks for analyzing human-system interactions, including cognition, perception, and behavior.
- Dynamic Interaction Analysis and Simulation: Investigating dynamic, bidirectional human-system interactions in physical, virtual, or hybrid environments, including phenomena such as learning, co-adaptation, cooperation, and competition.
- Innovative Technologies for Enhanced Interaction: Creating new methods, tools, or technologies to enable novel or improved forms of bidirectional interaction, including new interfaces, measurement methods, and real-time integration of sensorimotor data.
Researchers are encouraged to submit a one-page Project Summary to m3x@nsf.gov for feedback prior to full proposal submission.
