Smart and Connected Communities (S&CC)
NSF 22-529   https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2022/nsf22529/nsf22529.htm
Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Directorate for Education and Human Resources; Directorate for Engineering - Div. of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation; Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences

Proposals for research projects in the following categories will be considered:

S&CC Integrative Research Grants (SCC-IRGs) Tracks 1 and 2. This category has two funding levels. Track 1 proposals may request budgets ranging between $1,500,001 and $2,500,000, with durations of up to four years. Track 2 proposals may request budgets up to $1,500,000, with durations of up to three years.  These awards will support integrative research that addresses fundamental technological and social science dimensions of smart and connected communities and pilots solutions together with communities. Importantly, the program is interested in projects that consider the sustainability of the research outcomes beyond the life of the project, including the scalability and transferability of the proposed solutions. This includes, for example, projects that consider pursuing collaborations that link research outcomes to planned efforts within the community, identify joint investment models for implementing innovative research solutions, or consider how research will be transitioned to full-scale implementation, if successful.

S&CC research and education activities may also benefit from access to cloud computing platforms, which provide robust, agile, reliable, and scalable infrastructure. In particular, real-time data acquisition, storage, as well as tools for machine learning and data analytics could be leveraged through these platforms. Proposals may request cloud computing resources to use public clouds such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform (GCP), Microsoft Azure, and IBM Cloud. Cloud computing resources may be obtained through CloudBank (Cloudbank.org) (see Section V.3. Proposal Preparation Instructions and Supplementary Documents for more information).

S&CC Planning Grants (SCC-PGs). Awards funded in this category will provide support for a period of one year and may be requested at a level not to exceed $150,000 for the total budget. PG awards should prepare project teams to submit well-developed SCC-IRG proposals near or after the conclusion of the planning grant.  These awards will support a range of planning activities intended to, for example, foster the research to effectively integrate multiple disciplinary perspectives; explore community contexts and build collaborations with relevant stakeholders; and hone research gaps, questions, and hypotheses. Activities within scope include, but are not limited to, travel, multidisciplinary workshops, stakeholder meetings, data collection, preliminary experiments, and pilots.