Title: Dear Colleague Letter to Polar Research Community concerning the 
       "Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI)" solicitation

Date: 10/30/08




Dear Colleague Letter to Polar Research Community concerning the 
"Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI)" solicitation

 Preliminary proposal deadlines:

    * Type I:         December 8, 2008
    * Type II:        December 9, 2008



 Dear Colleagues:

 I would like to call your particular attention to the new
 "Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI)" proposal
 solicitation, which has just been announced. 

 It is available at:
 http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf08604

 CDI seeks ambitious, transformative, multidisciplinary research
 proposals that utilize computational thinking within or across the
 following three thematic areas:

   1. From Data to Knowledge: enhancing human cognition and
      generating new knowledge from a wealth of heterogeneous
      digital data;
   2. Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social
      Systems: deriving fundamental insights on systems comprising
      multiple interacting elements; and
   3. Building Virtual Organizations: enhancing discovery and
      innovation by bringing people and resources together across
      institutional, geographical and cultural boundaries.

 Some highlights of the changes since last year's solicitation are:

    * Letter of Intent is no longer required or accepted

    * Preliminary and full proposal deadlines were revised:

 Preliminary Proposal deadlines:
 Type I: December 8, 2008
 Type II: December 9, 2008

 Full Proposal Deadline (by invitation only): May 20, 2009

    * The description of the theme “Designing, Building, and
      Understanding Virtual Organizations” has been revised.

    * Changes in preliminary and full proposal preparation
      instructions, under single copy documents:

 PIs are required to send by e-mail two Excel files: one file with
 list of PIs, Co-PIs, and other senior personnel and their conflicts
 of interest (CoI), and another file indicating primary and other
 relevant CDI themes, and keywords relevant to the proposal; both
 Excel files are to use templates made available through NSF CDI web
 site; keywords should be selected from the CDI keyword list
 provided on
 http://www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/cdi/ or of the PI's own choosing; the
 Excel files are to be e-mailed to cdi@nsf.gov.  PIs are to include
 a PDF file of the CoI information as a single-copy document in the
 preliminary or full proposal itself.

 If you have any questions, you can reach us at dlubin@nsf.gov
 (703-292-8030) or cdi@nsf.gov (703-292-8080).



 Karl A. Erb
 Director

 Office of Polar Programs