Funder: National Science Foundation (NSF)
Due Dates: September 15-29, 2025 | September 14-28, 2027
Funding Amounts: $3,000,000 to $5,000,000 total; budgets capped at $1,000,000 per year; duration 3-5 years
Summary: Supports large, collaborative, interdisciplinary research projects in computing, communications, and information science that cross multiple CISE core program boundaries.
Key Information: Proposals must address research topics spanning two or more CISE core programs; a Management and Coordination Plan and a Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) plan are required; proposals focused on research infrastructure are not eligible.
Description
The National Science Foundation's Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) invites proposals for large-scale, collaborative research projects that develop new knowledge in computing, communications, and information science and engineering. This solicitation targets ambitious fundamental research problems that cross the boundaries of two or more CISE core programs, requiring integrated efforts from teams with complementary expertise.
The participating CISE divisions and their core programs include:
- Division of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF): Algorithmic Foundations (AF), Communications and Information Foundations (CIF), Foundations of Emerging Technologies (FET), Software and Hardware Foundations (SHF)
- Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS): Computer Systems Research (CSR), Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS)
- Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS): Human-Centered Computing (HCC), Information Integration and Informatics (III), Robust Intelligence (RI)
Proposals must demonstrate that the research problem requires a large, integrated collaborative effort and that the combined impact of the team will exceed the sum of individual contributions. The solicitation encourages partnerships across a wide range of institutions, including academia, industry, and nonprofits.
Proposals focused solely on research infrastructure are not appropriate for this solicitation.
Key Features
- Teams must include two or more investigators (PI, co-PI(s), or other Senior/Key Personnel) with complementary expertise.
- Proposals must clearly justify why smaller-scale CISE core programs are insufficient to address the research challenge.
- A Management and Coordination Plan (up to 3 pages) is required as a supplementary document, detailing roles, coordination mechanisms, evaluation metrics, and budget support for management activities.
- A Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plan is required, addressing goals, intended populations, strategies, measurement, and PI engagement.
- Proposals may request cloud computing resources via CloudBank but must exclude these costs from the NSF budget and describe them in a supplementary document.
- Access to NSF-supported experimental research infrastructure is encouraged.
Due Dates
- September 15 - 29, 2025 (submission window)
- September 14 - 28, 2027 (submission window)
Proposals must be submitted by 5 p.m. local time of the submitting organization within these windows.
Funding Amount
- Total budgets between $3,000,000 and $5,000,000
- Maximum of $1,000,000 per year
- Duration of 3 to 5 years
- Estimated 4 to 6 awards per cycle
- Anticipated funding amount approximately $20 million per cycle
Eligibility
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Who May Submit:
- Non-profit, non-academic organizations in the U.S. directly associated with educational or research activities (e.g., independent museums, observatories, research labs, professional societies)
- Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs), including two- and four-year accredited colleges and universities located in the U.S., acting on behalf of their faculty members
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Who May Serve as PI:
- Must hold a tenured or tenure-track position, or a primary, full-time, paid research or teaching appointment at a U.S.-based eligible organization
- Exceptions for family or medical leave may apply
- Individuals with primary appointments at for-profit non-academic organizations or overseas branch campuses of U.S. IHEs are not eligible
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Proposal Limits:
- No limit on number of proposals per organization
- An individual may participate as PI, co-PI, or Senior/Key Personnel in no more than one Core Programs, Large Projects proposal per submission window
- Proposals duplicating or substantially similar to others under concurrent NSF consideration are not allowed
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Additional Restrictions:
- Research activities must use facilities and resources located in the U.S.
- Subawards to international branch campuses of U.S.-based organizations are not permitted
Application Process
- Proposals must be submitted electronically via Research.gov or Grants.gov following the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) in effect at the time of submission.
- Collaborative proposals from multiple organizations must be submitted via Research.gov.
- Proposal title format:
- Single institution: "CISE: Large: [Project Title]"
- Collaborative: "Collaborative Research: CISE: Large: [Project Title]"
- Project Summary must include an overview, intellectual merit, broader impacts, and 3-6 keywords (last paragraph of the overview).
- Project Description limited to 20 pages, must include a section titled "Relevance to Solicitation Goals."
- Supplementary Documents required:
- List of Project Personnel and Partner Institutions
- Management and Coordination Plan (up to 3 pages)
- Broadening Participation in Computing (BPC) Plan (Standalone or Connected)
- Cloud Computing Resources description (if applicable, up to 2 pages)
- Letters of Collaboration (if applicable, no letters of support allowed)
- Budgets must not exceed $1,000,000 per year and $5,000,000 total (excluding cloud computing costs via CloudBank).
- Voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited.
Additional Information
- Proposals will be reviewed based on NSF's two merit review criteria: Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts, plus additional solicitation-specific criteria including justification of project scope, management plan quality, and BPC plan effectiveness.
- Management and coordination activities will be monitored through annual reports and may be subject to post-award site visits.
- Awardees must participate in evaluations of BPC activities.
- Data Management and Sharing Plans must ensure availability of software, data, and results beyond the project lifecycle to support reproducibility.
- Issues of fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency (FEAT) are encouraged to be addressed in proposals.
- The program encourages submissions from EPSCoR-eligible institutions and collaborative proposals led by EPSCoR institutions to promote geographic and institutional diversity.
External Links
Contact Information
This funding opportunity is ideal for researchers leading large, interdisciplinary teams aiming to tackle fundamental, transformative problems in computing and information science that require collaboration across multiple CISE core programs.