Cyberenabled Discovery and Innovation CDI

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Cyber-enabledDiscovery and Innovation (CDI)
Enhancing American competitiveness by enabling
discovery and innovation through the use of
computational thinking
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CDI is Unique Within NSF

• Five-year initiative
• All directorates, programmatic offices involved
• To create bold, revolutionary, radical,
  paradigm-changing, transformative science and
  engineering research outcomes
• Multidisciplinary activities that significantly
  advance more than one field of science and
  engineering
• Through innovations in, or innovative use of,
  computational thinking (concepts, methods,
  models, algorithms, tools)

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The Funding Potential for CDI Could be Significant

• All NSF directorates are participating in this
  activity (subject to budget approval)

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CDI Philosophy

• Business as usual need not apply
• Projects that make straightforward use of
  existing computational concepts, methods, models,
  algorithms and tools to significantly advance
  only one discipline should be submitted to an
  appropriate program in that field instead of to
  CDI.  
• No place for incremental research
• Untraditional approaches and collaborations
  welcome

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NSF Review Criteria

• Intellectual Merit
• Broader Impacts
• New language on Transformative Research to what
  extent does the proposed activity suggest and
  explore creative, original, or potentially
  transformative concepts?

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CDI Review Criteria

• The proposal should define a bold
  multidisciplinary research agenda that, through
  computational thinking, promises
  paradigm-shifting outcomes in more than one field
  of science and engineering.
• The proposal should provide a clear and
  compelling rationale that describes how
  innovations in and/or innovative use of
  computational thinking will lead to the desired
  project outcomes.
• The proposal should draw on productive
  intellectual partnerships that capitalize upon
  knowledge and expertise synergies in multiple
  fields or sub-fields in science or engineering
  and/or in multiple types of organizations.

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CDI Review Criteria

• Potential for extraordinary outcomes, such as,
• Revolutionizing entire disciplines,
• Creating entirely new fields, or
• Disrupting accepted theories and perspectives as
  a result of taking a fresh, multi-disciplinary
  approach.
• Special emphasis will be placed on proposals that
  promise to enhance competitiveness, innovation,
  or safety and security in the United States.

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Three CDI Themes

•  
• From Data to Knowledge enhancing human cognition
  and generating new knowledge from a wealth of
  heterogeneous digital data
• Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and
  Social Systems deriving fundamental insights on
  systems comprising multiple interacting elements
  
• Virtual Organizations enhancing discovery and
  innovation by bringing people and resources
  together across institutional, geographical, and
  cultural boundaries. 

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From Data to Knowledge

• Improving our ability to gather, organize,
  analyze, model, and visualize large, multi-scale,
  heterogeneous data
• Data aggregation and annotation
• Modeling and algorithm development
• Statistical analysis and stochastic simulation
• Approaches to visualization and pattern
  recognition informed by knowledge of human
  cognition and perception
• Data confidentiality, privacy, regulatory issues

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Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and
Social Systems

• Identifying general principles and laws that
  characterize complexity and capture the essence
  of complex systems is one of the major challenges
  of 21st century science. 
• Attaining the breakthroughs to overcome these
  challenges requires transformative ideas in the
  following areas
• Simulation and computational experiments
• Mathematical and statistical modeling and
  analysis, including agent-based modeling and
  neural networks
• Nonlinear couplings across multiple scales

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Virtual Organizations (VOs)

• Creating systematic knowledge about the
  interwined social and technical issues of
  effective VOs.
• Advances in VOs bring together domain needs with
  computational thinking, including algorithm
  development, systems operations, organizational
  studies, social computing, and interactive
  design.
• CDI encourages
• Multidisciplinary and potentially international
  research and education teams advancing the
  design, development, and assessment of VOs
• Exploring VOs as a primary vehicle for broadening
  participation in not just research but also
  education, with the potential to reach students
  at all levels and the public at large.

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Broadening Participation

• Diversity of sciences and engineering, academic
  departments
• Junior researchers, students, and
  underrepresented minorities (especially in STEM)
• Intellectual partnerships involving investigators
  from academe, industry, and/or other types of
  organizations, including international entities
• (NB Generally speaking, for-profit entities and
  international partners must support their
  participation in CDI from other funding sources)

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Types of Projects

• CDI defines research modalities
• Project size not measured by
• Projects classified by magnitude of effort
• Three types are defined Types I, II, and III
• Type III, center-scale efforts, will not be
  supported in the first year of CDI

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Type I Projects

• Research and education efforts roughly comparable
  to that of up to two investigators with summer
  support, two graduate students, and their
  research needs (e.g., materials, supplies,
  travel), for a duration of three years
• For example, focused aims that tackle discrete,
  high-risk problems that, once resolved, may
  enable transformative breakthroughs in multiple
  fields of science or engineering through
  computational thinking

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Type II projects

• Several intellectual leaders, larger teams
• Significant education component
• Likely to be distributed collaborative projects
  with more extensive project coordination needs
• Greater effort than in Type I, and, for example,
  roughly comparable to that of up to three
  investigators with summer support, three graduate
  students, one or two other senior personnel
  (post-doctoral researchers, staff), and their
  research needs (e.g., materials, supplies,
  travel), for a duration of four years
• For example, multiple major aims that tackle
  complementary facets of complex solutions for
  advancing multiple fields of science and
  engineering through computational thinking.

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Type III Projects

• Collaborative research, potentially distributed
  across several institutions
• May involve center-type activities, demanding
  substantial coordination efforts
• Greater effort than in Type II in terms of scope
  and in the order of magnitude of expected
  outcomes
• Type III projects will not be supported in FY08,
  but will be supported in future years, subject to
  the availability of funds

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An SBE Hypothetical Example

• As hypotheses in the social, behavioral, and
  economic sciences have become more sophisticated,
  so have basic data needs. Merging biomedical
  data with survey and administrative data is a
  relatively untested area, but it is becoming more
  crucial for understanding hypotheses emerging
  from behavioral economics and other fields.
  Understanding human/environmental interactions
  requires the merging of data across multiple
  scales, such as remote sensing data, surveys of
  households, and ecological data. The creation
  and use of these sophisticated data sets raises
  many issues. For example, more and more of our
  data are geocoded. This raises serious questions
  regarding data confidentiality. How do
  researchers maintain the usability of data while
  protecting confidentiality when the identifying
  variables also are variables in the analysis?
  Research in this area lends itself to potential
  advances in the social, behavioral, and economic
  sciences, computer science, and the mathematical
  sciences.
• CDI Theme From Data to Knowledge.

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Key Dates

• Letters of Intent (required) due
• Nov 30, 2007
• Preliminary Proposals due
• Jan 8, 2008
• Full proposals due
• April 29, 2008
• Full proposals by invitation only!
• Awards no later than October 2008

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More Information on CDI

• CDI Solicitation
• http//www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_k
  eynsf07603
• CDI Overview, References, FAQ, Calendar of
  Events
• http//www.nsf.gov/crssprgm/cdi/index.jsp
• Contact members of CDIIT
• Contact the CDIIT Co-chairs Sirin Tekinay
  (CISE), Tom Russell (MPS), Eduardo Misawa (ENG)
• SBE Reps Terry Langendoen and Cheryl Eavey
• cdi_at_nsf.gov [phone]