CISE Community Research Infrastructure | 19 512

Opportunity Information: Apply for 19 512

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Community Research Infrastructure (CCRI) program is a discretionary grant opportunity designed to build, expand, and sustain shared, world-class research infrastructure for the broader computer and information science and engineering community. The program sits within NSF's CISE directorate and supports the core disciplinary areas covered by its three participating divisions: Computing and Communication Foundations (CCF), Computer and Network Systems (CNS), and Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS). The central goal is to enable research and learning advances that would be difficult or impossible using today’s commonly available infrastructure, by investing in community-facing platforms, testbeds, data resources, tools, and services that multiple research groups can use to pursue focused CISE research agendas.

A defining feature of CCRI is that it is not just about buying or building technical assets; it emphasizes the full ecosystem needed for infrastructure to be genuinely useful to a broad research community. Projects are expected to pair infrastructure development with strong user services, outreach, and engagement activities that attract users, help them onboard, and support them over time. The intent is to cultivate an active community that does more than consume resources: users should meaningfully influence the infrastructure’s direction and, over time, help shape its governance and management. This community-driven model is meant to improve long-term sustainability, so the infrastructure can remain valuable and operational beyond the immediate award period through shared ownership, leadership, and ongoing participation.

The program is explicitly structured to broaden access and participation across the CISE landscape. NSF highlights the importance of making these community resources available to researchers from a wide range of institutions, including minority-serving institutions and predominantly undergraduate institutions, as well as eligible researchers in non-profit and other non-academic organizations. In practice, this means competitive proposals typically need credible plans for inclusive access, thoughtful community outreach, and support mechanisms that lower barriers for institutions or groups that may not already have strong infrastructure locally.

CCRI supports two main classes of awards. "New" awards fund the creation of entirely new community research infrastructure that integrates technical capabilities with tools, resources, user support, and community outreach. Within the New category, NSF describes several tracks or scales, including Grand Ensemble (Grand), Medium Ensemble (Medium), and Planning awards, which allow applicants to propose efforts ranging from early-stage planning and community-building through larger, more comprehensive infrastructure deployments. In parallel, "Enhance/Sustain" (ENS) awards focus on improving and extending existing CISE community infrastructure, with an emphasis on maintaining world-class capability and ensuring it continues to serve broad communities that extend well beyond the proposing organization or consortium.

Across both New and ENS awards, NSF also recognizes that infrastructure must be operated, not just developed. CCRI awards may therefore support operational activities necessary to deliver a high-quality user experience, such as documentation, help desks or user support, training, community events, software maintenance, reliability and performance engineering, and other service components. The expectation is that awardee organizations are positioned to provide dependable service to the external CISE researchers who will rely on the infrastructure to carry out their research goals.

From the published opportunity details, the funding opportunity is titled "CISE Community Research Infrastructure," with Funding Opportunity Number 19-512, administered by the National Science Foundation under CFDA 47.070 (science and engineering research and development). It uses a grant funding instrument, was created on October 26, 2018, and listed an original closing date of February 20, 2019. The opportunity indicated an award ceiling of $5,000,000 and anticipated around 20 awards, reflecting NSF’s intent to make multiple investments that collectively strengthen and diversify the national CISE research infrastructure portfolio. Eligibility is described broadly as "Others" with clarification in the solicitation’s eligibility section, signaling that applicants should confirm organizational eligibility in the full text before preparing a submission.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "CISE Community Research Infrastructure" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.070.
• This funding opportunity was created on Oct 26, 2018.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 20, 2019. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $5,000,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 20 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for 19 512

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