May 28, 2020

Dear Colleagues:

With this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL), the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is notifying members of the research community about an important change to submission windows for proposals for Small projects (under $500,000 and no more than three years) to all core research programs within its divisions of Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF), Computer and Network Systems (CNS), and Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS). This change does not apply to proposals for Medium or Large projects submitted to the CISE core research programs, nor to proposals for Small projects submitted to the Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure's (OAC) core program.

In order to allow principal investigators (PIs) more flexibility and to better facilitate interdisciplinary research across disciplines, CISE anticipates removing deadlines for submission of proposals for Small projects to all core research programs in CCF, CNS, and IIS, effective October 1, 2020. For those unfamiliar with the "no-deadline" submission process, Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) and other relevant information will be provided on the divisional (CCF, CNS, and IIS) webpages.

By accepting proposals at any time, PIs will have greater opportunities to prepare their proposals, build strong collaborations, converse with cognizant NSF program directors, and think more creatively without the pressure of a deadline, thereby resulting in projects that have the potential to dramatically advance computer and information science and engineering. We anticipate that the elimination of deadlines will reduce the burden on organizations and the community by expanding the submission period over the course of the year, in contrast to the previous fixed annual deadlines.

We anticipate no changes to the number of proposals that can be submitted per PI.

This change applies only to submission of proposals for Small projects to the CCF, CNS, and IIS core research programs. PIs submitting proposals to other NSF or CISE programs (including Small project proposals submitted to the OAC core research program) must continue to meet the specified deadlines.

Additional information about this change will be in a forthcoming FAQs document, and in the eventual core programs solicitation; we strongly encourage you read those before contacting your cognizant NSF program officer.

Sincerely,

Margaret Martonosi
Assistant Director, CISE
NSF