Engineering Design and Systems Engineering
The EDSE program funds research that advances design and systems understanding to create new knowledge about engineered artifacts through rigorous scientific inquiry and multidisciplinary collaborations in areas like robotics, design cognition, and data science.
This grant is no longer accepting proposals
U.S. National Science Foundation has archived this opportunity.
Funder: U.S. National Science Foundation
Due Dates: Archived (Proposals are not accepted) | August 19, 2026 (Archive date)
Funding Amounts: No current awards; funding levels not specified for archived opportunity.
Summary: Supported fundamental research advancing design and systems science for engineered artifacts, with a focus on multidisciplinary and collaborative approaches.
Key Information: This program is archived and not accepting proposals.
Description
The Engineering Design and Systems Engineering (EDSE) program supported fundamental research aimed at advancing design science and systems science, particularly as they relate to the creation and understanding of engineered artifacts. These artifacts include devices, products, processes, platforms, materials, organizations, systems, and systems of systems. The program emphasized a systems approach to design, considering designers, artifacts, methods, and their environments as subjects of rigorous scientific inquiry.
The EDSE program encouraged multidisciplinary collaborations, integrating expertise from design science, systems science, and other domains such as social, behavioral, computational, and natural sciences. Competitive proposals were expected to be theoretically grounded, demonstrate the potential for improving design, and include robust plans for assessing research effectiveness.
Research areas of interest included, but were not limited to:
- Design representation and optimization
- Design validation and mechanism design
- Robotics and intelligent systems
- Engineered materials systems
- Design cognition and collaboration
- Data science and AI in design
- Design for under-resourced communities
- Immersive design and extreme environments
Note: This opportunity is now archived and not accepting proposals.
