Co-chair: Thomas Russell, Office of Integrative Activities Co-chair: Richard Behnke, Directorate for Geosciences

Co-chair: Thomas Russell, Office of Integrative Activities Co-chair: Richard Behnke, Directorate for Geosciences

INSPIRE Responding to: National Academies National Science Board Other community and internal reports

Science Nov. 18, 2011 Article by J. Mervis http://www.sciencemag.org/co ntent/334/6058/883.full.pdf

INSPIRE Working Group Co-chair: Thomas Russell, Office of Integrative Activities Co-chair: Richard Behnke, Directorate for Geosciences DeAndra Beck, Office of International Science and Engineering Deborah Lockhart, Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering Carmiña Londoño, Directorate for Mathematical & Physical Sciences Paul Morris, Office of Integrative Activities Melur Ramasubramanian, Directorate for Education & Human Resources Sohi Rastegar, Directorate for Engineering Marc Rigas, Office of Cyberinfrastructure Neil Swanberg, Office of Polar Programs Alan Tessier, Directorate for Biological Sciences Mark Weiss, Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences

Goals: Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) Demonstrate that NSF is open to unusually novel cross-disciplinary ideas: Welcome groundbreaking or unconventional ideas and approaches, and unusually novel, creative interdisciplinary proposals Encourage Program Directors to promote such ideas: Empower PDs with flexibility and new resources and mechanisms to enable cross-cutting collaboration and risk-taking in developing their awards portfolio FY 2012 budget: $20 million FY 2013 request: $63 million First pilot INSPIRE award activity for 2012-13: Creative Research Awards for Transformative Interdisciplinary Ventures (CREATIV) [projects henceforth to be designated publicly as INSPIRE awards] Second pilot under development for 2013: Larger mid-scale projects (responds to NSB Task Force on Unsolicited Mid-scale Research)

First INSPIRE Pilot Open to all NSF-supported areas of science, engineering, and education research unsolicited, no favored topics Provides substantial funding, not limited to the exploratory stage (maximum award $1,000,000; maximum duration 5 years) Proposals must be interdisciplinary and potentially transformative Only internal merit review by program directors is required (stays within established NSF policy allowing up to 5% of $$ w/o external review) Not for proposals that are more appropriate for existing mechanisms: Primarily advance a single discipline, or Can be expected to receive an appropriate evaluation through external review in regular programs, or Continue a well-established line of research, leading to the next expected step Through inquiry process, PI must have at least 2 program directors authorizations in advance in order to submit a proposal

The First Year of INSPIRE Strong response: about 400 inquiries (short white papers) 50 proposals authorized by program directors 46 proposals submitted 40 awards in process $30.7 million (approx) total spending All directorates and programmatic offices involved Next slides: two glances at the awards and inquiries In NSF organizational structure As unstructured cross-cutting content

Analysis of the INSPIRE Inquiries Received ( 400) Text-Driven Classification into 10 Clusters

Clusters of Inquiries and Awards

Summary and Next Steps Strong internal and external response Attracted out-of-the-box projects with unusual connections Example 1: Human cognition, linguistics, animal behavior, dynamical systems engineering Example 2: Molecular biology, systems biology, statistical physics, protein chemistry 18 of 40 FY 2012 awards have been announced to date Remaining awards to be finalized in the coming weeks FY 2013: budget request increases to $63 million Similar level of investment in first INSPIRE pilot Second mid-scale pilot, internal/external review

The First INSPIRE Awards (1) PI PI Institution Title Amount Co-funders Apon, Amy Clemson University Evaluating the Effect of Cyberinfrastructure on Universities' Production Process $600,000 SBE/OAD, OCI Chrisey, Doug Rensselaer Polytechnic Novel Ceramic Membrane Electrode Assemblies for High Efficiency Thermo-Electrochemical $600,000 ENG/ECCS, ENG/CBET Institute Converter Dankowicz, Harry University of Illinois at Urbana- Champaign Asynchronous communication, self-organization, and differentiation in human and insect networks $999,850 SBE/BCS, BIO/IOS, ENG/CMMI Davidson, Eric CalTech Paleodevelopmental Evolution in Echinoids $800,000 GEO/EAR, BIO/IOS Deisseroth, Karl Stanford Fully-assembled Biology via Light-field Illumination and Intact-tissue Imaging Iskarous, Khalil University of Southern California Dynamical Principles of Animal Movement Kaiser, Hartmut Louisiana State STAR: Scalable toolkit for Transformative University Astrophysics Research Kuhl, Ellen Stanford University Optogenetic Control of the Human Heart - Turning Light into Force Lin, Bill UCSD Stochastic Processing Calculus: A New Methodology for Advanced Semiconductor Manufacturing and Data Center Networking Minai, Ali University of The Hunting of the Spark: A Systematic Study of Cincinnati Natural Creativity in Human Networks $1,000,000 BIO/IOS, CISE/IIS, BIO/DBI, BIO/EF $973,963 SBE/BCS, BIO/IOS $799,682 MPS/AST, CISE/CCF $600,000 ENG/CMMI ENG/CBET $750,000 CISE/CNS, ENG/CMMI CISE/CCF $999,762 SBE/BCS, CISE/IIS

The First INSPIRE Awards (2) PI PI Institution Title Amount Co-funders Misra, Satyajayant New Mexico State University Towards Ubiquitous Adoption of Wireless Sensor Networks in Experimental Biology Research $800,000 CISE/CNS, BIO/IOS Omenetto, Fiorenzo Tufts University Resorbable Electronics - Materials, Manufacturing, and Modeling $1,000,000 MPS/DMR, ENG/CMMI Onuchic, Jose Rice University Molecular Underpinnings of Bacterial Decision- Making $1,000,000 BIO/MCB, MPS/PHY, MPS/CHE, MPS/DMR Paerl, Hans University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill An Ecologically-Driven Strategy for Ensuring Sustainability of Anthropogenically and Climatically Impacted Lakes Peccoud, Jean Virginia Tech Modeling and optimization of DNA manufacturing processes Weiss, Jeffrey Williams, Cranos Woodbury, Neal University of Colorado, Boulder North Carolina State University Arizona State University Nonequilibrium Statistical Mechanics of Natural Climate Variability: Sea-Surface Temperature and Ocean Heat Content Dynamic Regulatory Modeling of the Iron Deficiency Response in Arabidopsis thaliana Mimicking the Functional Complexity of Biology with Man-Made Systems $450,709 ENG/CBET, BIO/DEB, OISE $999,531 BIO/DBI, BIO/MCB, ENG/CMMI $709,682 GEO/OCE, MPS/DMR, MPS/PHY, $999,758 BIO/MCB, ENG/CBET, BIO/DBI, OCI $999,904 BIO/MCB, MPS/PHY, MPS/CHE, ENG/CBET