| |
A. INTEGRATIVE STRATEGIES
NSF employs three integrative strategies that guide the
entire agency in establishing priorities, identifying
opportunities, and designing new programs and activities.
They cut across all NSF programs and activities, and
each is critical to accomplishing NSF's strategic
goals.
(1) Develop Intellectual Capital
| The work of very successful programs, such as
the Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation
(LSAMPs), and of the individual and institutional winners
of the U.S. Presidential Award for Excellence in
Science, Mathematics, and Engineering Mentoring
provides increasing evidence of the pervasive
importance of mentoring. |
NSF invests in projects that enhance individual and
collective capacity to perform – to discover,
learn, create, identify problems and formulate solutions.
It seeks investments that tap into the potential evident
in previously underutilized groups and institutions of
the Nation's human resource pool. This strategy is key
to developing a competitive S&E workforce. In
all of NSF's research programs, developing new knowledge
goes hand-in-hand with educating and mentoring students,
and informing the public through outreach.
(2) Integrate Research and Education
NSF invests in activities that integrate research and
education, and that develop reward systems to support
teaching, mentoring and outreach. Effective integration
of research and education at all levels infuses learning
with the excitement of discovery. It also ensures that
the findings and methods of research are quickly and
effectively communicated in a broader context and to a
larger audience. This strategy is vital to the
accomplishment of its strategic goals.
| International partnerships are vital
to achieving NSF's goals. The very nature of the science
and engineering enterprise is global, often requiring
access to geographically dispersed materials, phenomena,
and expertise. It requires open and timely
communication, sharing, and validation of findings.
NSF integrates international cooperation in all
S&E programs in order to ensure U.S. access
to worldwide talent, ideas, information, S&E
infrastructure, and partnerships. |
(3) Promote Partnerships
Collaboration and partnerships between disciplines
and institutions and among academe, industry and
government enable the movement of people, ideas and
tools throughout the public and private sectors.
Furthermore, these partnerships optimize the impact
of people, ideas and tools on the economy and on
society.
B. INVESTMENT STRATEGIES
The majority of NSF's research funds support the best
new ideas generated by scientists and engineers working
at the forefront of discovery. This broad and highly
flexible support ensures the vitality of a broad array of
scientific and engineering fields that are needed for the
U.S. to maintain leadership in science and engineering.
This support is also extremely important in invigorating
the research community since they promote emergence of
new ideas and fields, especially in areas where disciplines
are blurred and new technologies emerge. These investments
also foster the development of new mechanisms for supporting
research and education and require a continuing commitment
to agile and flexible business processes.
NSF PRIORITY AREAS
In implementing its goals, NSF also invests in selected areas
of high priority that hold exceptional promise for accelerating
S&E progress, advancing the frontiers of knowledge, and
addressing national interests. In close collaboration with
the NSB and the S&E community, NSF identifies priority
areas in which to make a sustained level of investment—usually
five years—to move research forward rapidly while
training a new cadre of scientists and engineers who can transform
fields and spur industrial innovation. Each priority area
contributes to strengthening U.S. world leadership in areas
of global economic and social significance, as is evidenced
by their natural overlap with the R&D priorities established
by the Administration. NSF's current priority areas are:
FEDERAL CROSS-CUTTING ACTIVITIES
In addition to the priority areas, NSF participates in a wide
range of cross-cutting activities. An important set of these
activities are identified annually by the Office of Science
and Technology Policy and the Office of Management and Budget
as the Administration's interagency research and development
priorities. The FY 2004 priorities are:
It is important to note that there is considerable synergy
among NSF's investments in investigator-initiated research
and education programs, the priority areas, and the
cross-cutting activities. For example, much of the research
in the cross-cutting activities is actually supported
through investigator initiated grants within NSF's
disciplinary programs. Also, results from these broader
investments help identify prospects for more intensive
investment—the priority areas. In turn, the priority
areas lift the capabilities of the disciplines, enabling
them to advance in new directions.
C. ESTABLISHING PRIORITIES
NSF establishes priorities through a process that integrates
broad-based input provided by the science and engineering
community with the overall strategic direction set by the
Foundation's leadership, through interactions with the NSB,
OMB, OSTP, Congress, and other R&D agencies and institutions.
With hundreds of proposal competitions, meetings with experts,
formal workshops and reports from commissions throughout the year,
NSF is constantly listening, analyzing and responding to thoughts
from the research and education community. External advice,
information, and recommendations are also formally sought
through interactions with Committees of Visitors (COVs) and
Advisory Committees. Indeed, a key mechanism for identifying
emerging opportunities is through more than 35,000 solicited
and unsolicited proposals that NSF evaluates annually through
its competitive merit-review process.
NSF's budget process focuses on identifying the most promising
opportunities and giving them increased attention. In establishing
budget priorities, NSF works very closely with the NSB, which has
the responsibility for establishing NSF policies. In particular,
the NSB Committee on Strategy and Budget closely works with NSF
management to develop budget policies and strategies. The full NSB
reviews and approves NSF's budgets and long-range plans, as well
as new programs and major projects. The final stage of priority
setting occurs when OMB considers NSF's request in the context
of the overall Administration budget. Congressional guidance
is manifested through hearings, testimony, committee reports,
and other interactions reflected in authorization and
appropriations legislation.
| The independent studies carried
out by various scientific and engineering
communities—often funded in part by
NSF—provide valuable guidance in setting
priorities within a discipline and can even
provide information useful in setting
cross-disciplinary priorities and
balancing the nation's investment among
various scientific endeavors. |
NSF and the NSB consider many factors in determining budget
priorities. Most important are NSF's merit review criteria of
intellectual merit and broader impacts and
OMB/OSTP's investment criteria of quality, relevance.
and performance. Other
considerations include readiness, technical feasibility,
response to national needs, affordability, international
benchmarks and balance with existing programs of NSF and
other agencies. Consideration is also given to resource
limitations, policy concerns, and GPRA performance goals
and results.
One issue that has been raised in a number of settings, including
the PART assessments, is the transparency of NSF's priority-setting
process. NSF is currently addressing this issue. For example,
for the first time the FY 2004 budget justification includes
a rank-ordered priority list of projects funded through the
Major Research Equipment and Facilities Construction Account
(MREFC). In addition, NSF has entered into a contract with
the National Academy of Public Administration for a major
organizational review that will include an analysis of
NSF's investment processes.
Source:
NSF
Strategic Plan 2003-2008 [pdf]
MEANS AND STRATEGIES
The means and strategies NSF uses to accomplish its mission
of promoting the progress of science and engineering research
and education have both process-based and programmatic components.
The Strategic Plan identifies three process-based
strategies – developing intellectual capital (i.e.,
investing in projects that enhance individual and
collective capacity to perform), integrating research
and education (i.e., investing in projects that infuse
learning with the excitement of discovery), and promoting
partnerships (i.e., investing in projects that optimize
the impact of PEOPLE, IDEAS, and TOOLS on the economy
and on society)—that span all NSF activities. They
guide the agency in establishing priorities, identifying
opportunities, and designing new programs and activities.
Programmatic strategies focus on specific NSF programs
and activities, and on the funding needed to support them.
These activities reflect the Foundation's funding priorities.
They show how the agency balances its highly targeted
investments with its broad-based, disciplinary support in
order to address workforce issues, maintain the nation's
capacity to produce new discoveries, and identify areas
of unmet opportunities in which future investments will be productive.
The Strategic Plan gives priority to: (1) support for
competitive investigator-initiated research and education along
a broad, expanding frontier of science and engineering;
(2) identification of and support for "unmet
opportunities" that will strengthen and cross-fertilize
the science and engineering disciplines and that promise
significant future payoffs for the nation; and (3) emphasis
on several "transcendent" areas of emerging
opportunity that enable research and education across a
broad frontier of science and engineering. The transcendent
areas identified in the Strategic Plan are Information
Technology, Biocomplexity in the Environment, Nanoscale
Science and Engineering, and 21st Century Workforce.
Source:
FY
2004 GPRA Performance Plan [pdf]
NSF PRIORITY AREAS
- Biocomplexity in the Environment
(BE): The BE priority area is a multidisciplinary
effort that draws on new scientific and technological
capabilities to investigate the interactions among
biological, ecological, social, engineered and earth
systems. The primary goals are to: synthesize
knowledge across disciplines; improve science-based
forecasting capabilities for complex environmental
systems; and advance a broad range of methods, tools,
and infrastructure to support
interdisciplinary activities.
- Human and Social Dynamics
(HSD): This investment seeks to better understand
the causes and ramifications of change in order to
increase our collective ability to anticipate and prepare
for its effects on us as individuals and our institutions.
HSD will also support research on the dynamics of the human
mind. Through understanding the cognitive and social
structures that create and define change, people and
organizations will be better able to manage the profound
and rapid changes that define our world.
- Information Technology
Research (ITR): This priority area exploits and
deepens fundamental research on the challenges facing the
expansion and utilization of IT across science and engineering.
From the investigation, development, and strengthening of
large-scale networks to the creation of new integrative
software and advanced architectures for high-end computing,
IT will continue to be essential in the growth of our
economy and in solving critical problems facing
our nation.
- Mathematical Sciences:
The mathematical sciences provide both powerful tools for insight
and a common language to enable S&E progress in such
areas as genomics, climate science, and information technology
and allow scientists and engineers to tackle a broad range
of important challenges long considered intractable. This
investment supports fundamental research in the mathematical
sciences and the integration of mathematical and statistical
research and education across the full range of science
and engineering disciplines.
- Nanoscale Science and
Engineering: This priority area encompasses the
systematic organization, manipulation and control of
matter at atomic, molecular and supramolecular levels.
With the capacity to manipulate matter at this scale,
science, engineering, and technology are realizing
revolutionary advances, in areas such as
individualized pharmaceuticals, new drug delivery systems,
more resilient materials and fabrics, and order of magnitude
faster computer chips.
- Workforce for the 21st
Century: NSF will actively pursue research and
education efforts that create a deeper understanding of
what draws students to S&E careers, how to ensure
broader participation, how to better prepare students
to pursue S&E careers, how to address critical
S&E workforce needs, and how to put all of this
knowledge into practice.
FEDERAL CROSS-CUTTING ACTIVITIES
- Networking and Information
Technology Research & Development (NITRD): Networking
and computing technologies are increasingly important
technologies for the American economy, national and
homeland security, and progress across science and
engineering. More on the most
recent government-wide plan for research in
this area…
- National Nanotechnology Initiative
(NNI): This initiative holds great promise broadly
across many scientific fields and most sectors of the
economy. NSF emphasizes long-term fundamental research
aimed at discovering novel materials, phenomena, processes
and tools; addressing NNI Grand Challenges; supporting
new interdisciplinary centers and networks of excellence,
including shared user facilities; supporting research
infrastructure; and addressing research and educational
activities on the societal implications of advances in
nanoscience and nanotechnology.
The most recent information
on NNI…
- Climate Change Science: A key
aspect of the Administration's science-based climate change
policy is investment in research and development (R&D)
that will address major climate policy decisions and provide
a framework for understanding and addressing long-term
climate change. Priority funding areas include understanding
the cycling of carbon in and around North America, research
on climate change risk management, developing sensors to
measure carbon dioxide and methane, and measuring and
understanding the impact of black carbon.
More…
- Homeland Security and
Antiterrorism R&D: Data mining to support
antiterrorism analysis requires the ability to construct
patterns from multiple, heterogeneous, data sources, some
of which occur as massive streaming data sources in
multiple languages. NSF will support research on ways to
identify portions of these data that should be saved for
analysis, or that contain new information on a developing
knowledge structure. Of equal importance, NSF will support
research on sharing data across agencies and from data
sets that are separated by policy and by law. In these
circumstances, research will explore methods to share
data that either preserve privacy or include
"probable cause" as a part of the data
representation to be enriched by mining. Additional effort
is being planned via workshops to engage the university
research community in management of knowledge-intensive,
high technology organizations, biometrics, geospatial
information fusion, and biological sensors and
sensor networks.
- Molecular-level Understanding of
Life Processes: The past few years have seen major
advances in our ability to sequence, analyze, and utilize
complex genomic information from plants, animals, and
microorganisms. Coupling such sequence and structural data
to modern computational power and new experimental approaches
that permit molecular manipulation of biological systems
has the potential to unravel the complexity of life at
all structural levels. Sequence data has already proven
itself to be critical for homeland security
forensic purposes.
Efforts such as the Interagency Microbe Project, a microbe
sequencing and physiology effort; the Interagency Working
Group on Metabolic Engineering; the National Plant Genome
Initiative; and The Ecology of Infectious Diseases Program
all address fundamental patterns of molecular interactions
that are reflected in function and behavior at the
cellular, tissue, organismal, and population levels. NSF
will focus on many of these areas; for instance, the
'Living Networks' area of emphasis will foster a
molecular understanding of life at all levels of
biological organization from genes to ecosystems.
Other interdisciplinary programs such as 'Frontiers
in Integrative Biological Research' specifically
seek the most innovative approaches to understanding
the complexity and integration of life processes across
all levels of organization.
- Education Research: Continuing
as a high priority of the Administration, the No Child
Left Behind (NCLB) Act of 2002 calls for research that
enables the successful development and implementation
of science-based programs and practices in K-12
education.
More
information on the government-wide
Interagency Education Research Initiative…
|
