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CISE - News
18 March 2009
Dear Colleague,
On Tuesday, February 17th 2009, President Barack Obama signed the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (the Recovery Act) into law. The Recovery Act provides $3 billion for the National Science Foundation, recognizing the enormous potential that investments in scientific research have to stimulate innovation and economic growth. Many of you in the community helped make this happen. Thank you for your unflagging and relentless support. It made a difference.
Today NSF released plans for allocating Recovery funds; please read about these plans at http://nsf.gov/pubs/issuances/in131.pdf. Please also monitor the NSF website www.nsf.gov/recovery/ for continuous updates. You’ll be pleased to know that the additional funds allocated to CISE will allow us to realize funding rates approaching 30% in FY 2009 -- a significant increase over levels experienced in recent years. With approximately 4,000 CISE proposals currently undergoing merit review, we have many, many meritorious proposals to consider for award. We will be able to support more investigators, including faculty, post-docs, graduate students, and undergraduates, ensuring that we continue to attract and retain the Nation’s computing talent in these trying times.
The Recovery Act also specifically allocates $500 million to support the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) and Academic Research Infrastructure (ARI) programs. Please note that new MRI and ARI program solicitations will be released shortly, and they will provide new funding opportunities for the CISE community – so stay tuned! The MRI solicitation will seek research instrumentation proposals and the ARI solicitation will provide funding opportunities to modernize existing research facilities, including upgrading existing campus-based cyberinfrastructure and its connectivity to regional and national broadband networks.
In the coming months, NSF will be processing a workload roughly ~50% greater than normal with the same number of people. We need YOUR help to do this work effectively and efficiently.
So how can you help? Here’s how:
- If you are asked to serve as a reviewer on a panel, or as an ad-hoc mail reviewer, just say "YES!" Please make this service one of your highest priorities.
- If you have existing NSF awards, please submit any annual or final reports that may be due in the next 6 months for NSF awards NOW! Delays caused by overdue reports create more work for everyone, and may result in a proposal not being funded due to the pressing time constraints imposed by the Recovery Act.
This historic event provides the computing research community with an opportunity to demonstrate what advances in computing can do for the economy and for society at large. United in the interests of computing and the Nation, we must push the frontiers of our field forward in collaboration with other national stakeholders, including our colleagues in the private sector. I am excited about the unique opportunities before us, and hope you are too.
Thank you in advance for your support.
Jeannette M. Wing
CISE, Assistant Director
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