CISE

Dear Colleague:

In every aspect of our lives we now rely on software of unprecedented scope and complexity, arising from multiple technological and societal forces. The relentless advances in processor and memory performance have enabled and been consumed by software of ever increasing complexity and functionality, higher-level programming languages, sophisticated user interfaces, increasing security needs, and the expectation for compatibility with legacy systems. Further, today’s computing platforms range from supercomputers and clusters of processors to highly resource-constrained embedded processors and mobile devices; biological, nanotechnology, and quantum substrates loom on the horizon. Software is ultimately designed, maintained, supported, and used by people in increasingly diverse and novel ways. Among the overarching challenges in software is to understand how we can develop software systems that function and perform effectively across a heterogeneous range of platforms and in diverse and complex settings and usage.

CISE invites researchers to rethink the science and engineering of software – from the basic concepts of design, evolution, and adaptation to advanced systems that seamlessly integrate human and computational capabilities. Emerging technologies, such as multi-core processors and pervasive computing heighten the urgency for new thinking. CISE seeks ground-breaking, transformative research that will produce fundamentally new ways of thinking about how to develop, sustain, and reason about software, both during its design and deployment. Such research will articulate new software research challenges that cannot be addressed with existing software concepts, methods and tools. Research projects that span multiple disciplines within CISE, as well as those that import ideas from elsewhere, are especially welcome. Research results may be theoretical or experimental. The CISE community is encouraged to submit proposals that address issues of designing, developing, operating, maintaining, supporting, and evolving complex, software-intensive systems.

To foster these scientific ambitions, CISE will be placing a premium on software-related proposals that push the frontiers of software research. We welcome projects that cultivate partnerships between traditional software researchers and those from other areas within and outside of computing. CISE has designated a team of program directors from across the directorate who will collectively be responsible for coordinating the review process to seek out projects of this sort. PIs proposing research in this area should continue to submit their projects to any of the software-relevant CISE programs (see list in the Appendix below) that they feel would be most suitable, and are encouraged to include "software" as one of the keywords in their submissions.

Sincerely,
Jeannette M. Wing
Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate, Assistant Director

Haym Hirsh
Information and Intelligent Systems, Division Director

Sampath Kannan
Computing and Communications Foundations, Division Director

Ty Znati
Computer and Network Systems, Division Director

Appendix

Below is a roadmap to the relevant software-focused programs in CISE to which researchers may submit proposals. Interested investigators should submit proposals on software research and/or education to the most appropriate CISE program. Recognizing that that some of the most exciting ideas may span multiple programs CISE will accommodate such proposals by coordinating the proposal review process across the directorate. We will make sure that each proposal finds a home and that no proposal falls between the cracks.

• CCF Software and Hardware Foundations (SHF) Program. Foundational research on core topics of software science and engineering is solicited by the Software and Hardware Foundations (SHF) program in the Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF): Core Programs solicitation. The SHF program supports new formal semantics, models, methods, logics and languages and tools for specifying, designing, programming, analyzing, evaluating and reasoning about software for current and future systems. We welcome collaborations with researchers in theoretical computer science, artificial intelligence, the social sciences or other fields in pursuit of software science and engineering goals. Advances should be driven by the need to address desired system functional and performance behavior, including properties such as correctness; efficiency in time, space, and energy; composability; predictability and provability; maintainability and usability; adaptability to changing requirements and dynamic environments; and integrity, security, and privacy. Software-related research that does not fit any other CISE solicitation should be submitted to the SHF program as the primary destination.
  
  
• CNS Computer Systems Research (CSR) Program. Systems research on a broad range of topics is solicited by the Computer Systems Research (CSR) program in the Computer and Network Systems (CNS): Core Programs solicitation. While the intellectual goals of the CSR program are similar to those of the SHF program, the focus here is on experimental research through the engineering and building of "real-world" software-intensive systems. Thus design, implementation, and experimental evaluation of system efficacy will be the primary modes of investigation supported by the program. The target software audience for the CSR research program is the research community that strives to transform and rethink the software stack for computer systems in many different application domains.
  
  
• Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) Programs. Research related to the practice of software is supported by CISE's IIS division's three core programs (see Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS): Core Programs). (1) Research centered on the people, tools, and processes involved in creating, integrating, updating, managing, and supporting complex software, ranging, for example, from novel user interaction technologies and end-user programming systems to the study of open-source software creation processes, is appropriate for the Human-Centered Computing program. (2) Research focused on, for example, mining the data and meta-data produced during software development and maintenance, such as run traces, bug reports, and version control is appropriate for the Information Integration and Informatics program. (3) Research on the architecture, correctness, reliability, and performance of software-intensive intelligent systems that operate in complex, realistic, and unpredictable environments is appropriate for the Robust Intelligence program.
  
  
• CISE Cross-Cutting Programs: FY 2009 and FY 2010. The CISE Cross-Directorate Programs: FY 2009 and FY 2010 solicitation contains three cross-cutting programs: Data-Intensive Computing, Network Science and Engineering (NetSE), and Trustworthy Computing. Data-Intensive Computing calls for research to rethink the storage, retrieval, exploration, analysis, and communication of enormous digital datasets. NetSE seeks proposals focused on the development of new theoretical foundations, principles, and methodologies to understand and reason about the complex dynamics and behaviors of current and future large-scale networks. Trustworthy Computing supports research to explore novel frameworks, theories, and approaches towards realizing a trustworthy (secure, reliable, privacy-preserving, and usable) computing future. Research that advances software science and engineering goals may fit into any of these three programs.
  
  
• NSF Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) Program. A future solicitation for Cyber-Physical Systems (CPS) is planned as a cross-cutting program within CISE, and joint with the NSF Engineering Directorate. CPS will support transformative research breakthroughs in computational and communication capabilities for future generations of physical and engineered systems, with a strong emphasis on multidisciplinary system development. The CPS challenge is motivated by cyber and physical elements that are deeply integrated into their environments and networked at all scales, and systems that exploit ubiquitous cyber control of physical components. The term "cyber" refers to the integration of computation, communication, storage, and control. Software is a critical component of any CPS.
  
  

Our CISE team of program directors, representing all these software-related programs, will work together to ensure that each proposal is appropriately reviewed and considered for funding. For further information, please contact one of these primary points of contact: Sol Greenspan (CCF), Krishna Kant (CNS), and Ephraim Glinert (IIS).