This program has been archived.


Addressing Systems Challenges through Engineering Teams  (ASCENT)


CONTACTS
Name Email Phone Room
Paul  A. Lane plane@nsf.gov (703) 292-2453   
Jenshan  Lin jenlin@nsf.gov (703) 292-7950   
Anil  Pahwa apahwa@nsf.gov (703) 292-2285   


PROGRAM GUIDELINES

Solicitation  20-511

Important Information for Proposers

A revised version of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 22-1), is effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after October 4, 2021. Please be advised that, depending on the specified due date, the guidelines contained in NSF 22-1 may apply to proposals submitted in response to this funding opportunity.


DUE DATES

Archived


SYNOPSIS

The Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems Division (ECCS) supports enabling and transformative engineering research at the nano, micro, and macro scales that fuels progress in engineering system applications with high societal impact. This includes fundamental engineering research underlying advanced devices and components and their seamless penetration in power, controls, networking, communications or cyber systems. The research is envisioned to be empowered by cutting-edge computation, synthesis, evaluation, and analysis technologies and is to result in significant impact for a variety of application domains in healthcare, homeland security, disaster mitigation, telecommunications, energy, environment, transportation, manufacturing, and other systems-related areas. ECCS also supports new and emerging research areas encompassing 5G and Beyond Spectrum and Wireless Technologies, Quantum Information Science, Artificial Intelligence, Machine Learning, and Big Data.

ECCS, through its ASCENT program, offers its engineering community the opportunity to address research issues and answer engineering challenges associated with complex systems and networks that are not achievable by a single principal investigator or by short-term projects and can only be achieved by interdisciplinary research teams. ECCS envisions a connected portfolio of transformative and integrative projects that create synergistic links by investigators across its three ECCS clusters: Communications, Circuits, and Sensing-Systems (CCSS), Electronics, Photonics and Magnetic Devices (EPMD), and Energy, Power, Control, and Networks (EPCN), yielding novel ways of addressing challenges of engineering systems and networks. ECCS seeks proposals that are bold and ground-breaking, transcend the perspectives and approaches typical of disciplinary research efforts, and lead to disruptive technologies and methods or enable significant improvement in quality of life. 

  • ASCENT supports fundamental research projects involving at least three collaborating PIs and co-PIs, up to four years in duration, with a total budget between $1 million and $1.5 million.
  • ASCENT proposals must highlight the engineering leadership focus of the proposal within the scope of ECCS programs.
  • ASCENT proposals must articulate a fundamental research problem with compelling intellectual challenge and significant societal impact. The topic at the heart of the proposal must lie within the scope of at least one of the three ECCS clusters (CCSS, EPMD, EPCN). Research proposals spanning multiple clusters are highly encouraged.
  • ASCENT proposals must demonstrate the need for a concerted research effort by an integrated and interdisciplinary team, and strongly justify the interdisciplinary nature of the proposed work. They should include a timeline for research activities, with a strong justification of the explicit mechanisms for frequent communication between team members and effective assessment to achieve proposed goals.

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What Has Been Funded (Recent Awards Made Through This Program, with Abstracts)

Map of Recent Awards Made Through This Program