Large-Center Opportunity: NSF Science and Technology Centers, Campus Deadline 11/30/21
The Office of Research Affairs would like to remind all investigators with interest that NSF has released a new solicitation for the Science and Technology Centers (STC): Integrative Partnerships program, and internal pre-applications are now being accepted.
STCs represent an opportunity to advance the unique, creative, and highly interdisciplinary research for which UC San Diego is recognized. Examples of comparably prestigious NSF programs, similar in scale and competitiveness but complementary in focus, in which UC San Diego teams have recently achieved success, are the new Materials Research Science and Engineering Center (MRSEC) and the new Institute for Learning-Enabled Optimization at Scale (TILOS).
Awards provide up to $30M over 5 years and may involve any area of science and engineering that NSF supports. Among other attributes, centers will:
Develop exceptionally innovative, complex research and education projects that require large-scale, long-term funding;
Focus on creating new scientific paradigms and transformative technologies that have the potential for broad scientific or societal impact;
Establish multi-institutional collaborations with other universities/colleges, national laboratories, research museums, private sector research laboratories, government organizations, and international collaborations;
Integrate research, education, broadening participation, and knowledge transfer activities across all partners and affiliates;
Incorporate diverse teams at all organizational levels; and
Provide research and education opportunities for U.S. students, postdoctoral researchers and faculty.
UC San Diego may submit no more than three pre-proposals as lead institution. For consideration to lead one of the three institutional submissions, the deadline for required, internal pre-application is November 30, 2021. Due to anticipated interest, late applications will not be accepted. Solicitations for this program recur on an irregular basis, with the next projected cycle beginning in or after 2024.
For background, prospective PIs are encouraged to review NSF’s recent announcement of 2021 STC awards, as well as planning resources available through the internal Research Development website (SSO login with @ucsd.edu email address).
