Date: November 17, 2011

Subject: Research Partnerships Between the U.S. and Europe on Cyberinfrastructure

The Office of Cyberinfrastructure (OCI), the Office of the Assistant Director in the Directorate for Geosciences (GEO/OAD) and the Office of the Assistant Director in the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences (OAD/MPS) have strong interests in supporting innovative collaborative cyberinfrastructure proposals that advance the goals of the Cyberinfrastructure Framework for the 21st Century Science and Engineering (CIF21) (https://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=504730) in the context of data enabled science and engineering research.

OCI, GEO/OAD and MPS/OAD would like to highlight the recent solicitations by the European Commission, INFRA-2012-3.1 and INFRA-2012-3.2. These solicitations are part of the FP7 Framework and are intended to provide a coordination platform with the USA for common data policies and standards relevant to global research infrastructures in the environment field and common e-infrastructure for scientific data. These solicitations are in line with the goals of the Office of Cyberinfrastructure and emerging interests for the Directorate for Geosciences and the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences in establishing mechanisms and infrastructures that address standardization, interoperability and access for scientific data across disciplines and borders.

Please note that the aim of this activity is to provide a coordination framework that leverages existing or potential NSF-funded initiatives to lead to demonstrable prototypes that are effective for scientific data sharing.

OCI, GEO/OAD, and MPS/OAD may provide support to NSF researchers wishing to partner with their European colleagues through several existing mechanisms, including supplements. Full proposals may be submitted to the Strategic Technologies for Cyberinfrastructure (STCI) program (PD 11-7684).

NSF researchers should contact OCI, GEO, and MPS program officers using the contact information below to discuss their plans in regard to this activity.

For more information and background, please look at the European Commission (EC) solicitation, and the data-centric projects funded by the EC.

Point of contact for OCI: Rob Pennington (rpenning@nsf.gov, 703-292-7025)
Point of contact for GEO/OAD: Maria Uhle (muhle@nsf.gov, 703-292-2250)
Point of contact for MPS/OAD: Marv Goldberg (mgoldber@nsf.gov, 703-292-7374)