A new solicitation is under development.

CONTACT(S)

SCOPE

The goal of this solicitation is to stimulate research and education projects that build the Science of Design. This solicitation focuses on the scientific study of the design of software-intensive systems that perform computing, communications and information processing.  Complex interdependencies strain our ability to create, maintain, comprehend and control these systems. The Science of Design seeks to rectify this situation by building a foundation for the systematic creation of software-intensive systems.  This foundation will consist of a body of theoretical and empirical knowledge on design, computational methods and tools for design, and new design curriculum for the next generation of designers.

Topics that are relevant to the Science of Design solicitation include: formal theories and computational methods for the representation, synthesis, and evaluation of designs and requirements; design processes supporting compositionality, maintainability, adaptability and evolution; the role of requirements and specifications in design; computer-aided design for software-intensive systems; studies of designs, designers and design methodologies; development of design education and the integration of knowledge about design methodologies into educational curriculum and training for computer scientists, software engineers and systems engineers.

NSF Document: NSF 04-552

Abstracts of Awards

Additional Information

The Science of Design solicitation describes a new CISE funding area. It is not sufficient to speak of "developing" or "programming" software-intensive systems - they need to be "designed." We look to the community to propose research and education projects that will contribute to the science underlying design.

An early reference on the need for, and potential content of, the Science of Design is Herbert Simon's 1969 book, Sciences of the Artificial, MIT Press, 1969. (3rd edition, 1996).

Several NSF-sponsored workshops were held to elicit input from a broad community.

• Workshop on Science of Design for Software-Intensive Systems was held in November, 2003. 60 brief position papers present a variety of ideas and challenges. See http://www.cs.virginia.edu/~sullivan/sdsis.
  
  
• Workshop on Science of Design for Information Systems was held in September, 2003. See http://www.cs.wisc.edu/sdis03/.
  
  
• Workshop on Software Design in Open Source Software Communities. See http://www.isr.uci.edu/events/ContinuousDesign/UCI/index.html and http://www.isr.uci.edu/events/ContinuousDesign/UIUC/organizers.html

An earlier workshop stimulated by the Software Design and Productivity inter-agency working group has material that is still relevant:

• New Visions for Software Design & Productivity. It was held in 2001, initiated as the result of inter-agency activities. See http://www.hpcc.gov/iwg/sdp/vanderbilt/.