NSF Opens Five Foundational Engineering Research Programs; EDA Offers Regional Planning Grants via New Portal

NSF Mechanics and Structures Programs

The National Science Foundation's Mechanics of Materials and Structures (MOMS) program (opportunity PD-19-1630) supports fundamental research in mechanics as related to the behavior of deformable solid materials and structures under internal and external actions. The program emphasizes transformative advances in experimental, theoretical, and computational methods. According to the program description, research topics are broad and include advances in understanding of deformation, fracture, and fatigue; contact and friction; nonlinear deformation; instability and collapse; and wave propagation. The program specifically encourages proposals that explore reduced-order modeling, data-driven techniques, and stochastic methods with a strong emphasis on validation, as well as proposals addressing data analytics for deformation or damage response deduction from large experimental and computational data sets. The program carries no cost-sharing or matching requirement. Proposers are actively encouraged to email a one-page project summary to [email protected] before full proposal submission to determine whether the research topic falls within the program's scope.

The Biomechanics and Mechanobiology (BMMB) program (opportunity PD-19-7479), part of the Mechanics of Materials cluster within the Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation, supports fundamental and transformative research advancing understanding of engineering biomechanics and mechanobiology. The program description states that BMMB projects must have a clear biological component, a clear mechanics component, and must improve understanding of the mechanical behavior of a living system. The program encompasses investigations of biological molecules, cells, tissues, and living systems, and is also interested in efforts to translate recent biomechanical and mechanobiological discoveries into engineering science. The program's award ceiling is $400,000 and its award floor is $5,000, with no cost-sharing or matching requirement. The program description notes that the duration of unsolicited proposal awards is generally up to three years and that single-investigator award budgets typically include support for one graduate student (or equivalent trainee) and up to one month of PI time per year.

NSF Civil Infrastructure and Design Programs

The Engineering for Civil Infrastructure (ECI) program (opportunity PD-19-073Y) supports fundamental research in geotechnical, structural, materials, architectural, and coastal engineering. The program states that it promotes research that can shape the future of the nation's physical civil infrastructure and contribute to climate change adaptation and mitigation, and hazards and disaster resilience. Covered infrastructure types include buildings, residential construction, earth and earth retaining structures, and components of flood protection systems; water, waste disposal, and wastewater systems; energy infrastructure (excluding nuclear); and transportation systems (excluding pavements). The ECI program also supports research contributing to NSF's role in the National Earthquake Hazards Reduction Program (NEHRP) and the National Windstorm Impact Reduction Program (NWIRP), and encourages investigators to leverage NSF's Natural Hazards Engineering Research Infrastructure (NHERI) resources. The program carries no cost-sharing or matching requirement and explicitly does not support research addressing natural resource exploration or recovery, blast and explosion investigations, sensor and measurement technology development, or hazard characterization. Proposers are actively encouraged to email a one-page project summary to ECI Program Officers before submitting a full proposal.

The Engineering Design and Systems Engineering (EDSE) program (opportunity PD-19-072Y) supports fundamental research that advances design science and systems science through the creation of new knowledge about the design of engineered artifacts. The program description defines engineered artifacts broadly to include devices, products, processes, platforms, materials, organizations, systems, and systems of systems. EDSE focuses on design as a system — encompassing designers, the artifacts they create, the methods they use, and the environment in which design occurs. The program strongly encourages proposals that embrace the multidisciplinary nature of design, and supports well-defined collaborations of experts in design science with experts in other domains including social, behavioral, computational, and natural sciences. The program carries no cost-sharing or matching requirement. Prospective investigators are encouraged to discuss their research ideas with the Program Director in advance of proposal preparation and submission.

EDA Seattle Planning and Technical Assistance

The Department of Commerce's Economic Development Administration (EDA) has an open funding opportunity (EDA-SEA-TA-SRO-2021-2006853) for Seattle-area FY 2021–FY 2023 Planning and Local Technical Assistance, with an award ceiling of $300,000 and a cost-sharing or matching requirement. According to the notice, EDA makes planning and local technical assistance investments to support economic development, foster job creation, and attract private investment in economically distressed areas of the United States. Under the Planning program, EDA makes Partnership Planning, Short-Term Planning, and State Planning awards to eligible recipients to create and implement regional economic development plans designed to build capacity and guide the economic prosperity and resiliency of an area or region. Partnership Planning investments specifically support designated planning organizations serving EDA-designated Economic Development Districts and Indian Tribes to facilitate development, implementation, revision, or replacement of Comprehensive Economic Development Strategies (CEDS). Under the Local Technical Assistance program, EDA makes awards to strengthen the capacity of local or state organizations, institutions of higher education, and other eligible entities to undertake effective economic development programs through projects such as feasibility studies, impact analyses, disaster resiliency plans, and project planning.

Eligible applicants include District Organizations, Indian Tribes or a consortium of Indian Tribes, states, cities, or other political subdivisions of a state, institutions of higher education, and public or private non-profit organizations acting in cooperation with officials of a political subdivision of a state, pursuant to section 3 of the Public Works and Economic Development Act of 1965 (42 U.S.C. § 3122) and EDA's regulation at 13 C.F.R. § 300.3.

What to Watch

A significant procedural change governs this EDA opportunity: as of April 6, 2023, applications can no longer be submitted on Grants.gov and will only be accepted through EDA's new grants management platform, the Economic Development Grants Experience (EDGE), accessible at sfgrants.eda.gov. The notice states that EDGE was developed to streamline the application and grants management process through a single platform with increased transparency, improved user experience, higher data quality, and more efficiency throughout the entire grant lifecycle. Applicants to the Partnership Planning program will be invited to submit through EDGE; the notice directs prospective applicants to reach out to their EDA point of contact for more information. For NSF's MOMS and ECI programs, early contact with program officers via one-page summaries is actively encouraged before full proposal submission.