The NSF information technology research program

By the time you read this notice, the $90 million Information Technology Research (ITR) program at the National Science Foundation will be well underway. In mid-November, the NSF received nearly 1,400 letters of intent to submit a preproposal with a budget over $500,000. We expect to see at least that many letters in early January for smaller-budget proposals and to award grants for both large and small proposals by the end of the summer, after the usual peer-review process. ITR will support basic research in many areas of computer science and engineering, but the President's Information Technology Advisory Committee (PITAC)-the key group in articulating IT research needs for the nation and requesting this new funding-put the spotlight squarely on software. They argued in their final report that we must make "fundamental research in software.., one of the Nation's highest ... JR&D] priorities" and develop "the science, technologies, and methods needed to build robust software systems." The NSF intends to follow this advice by identifying and funding excellent proposals that address the problems of building real-world software, a theme we have elaborated over the last year through workshops , speeches, Web pages, and other publications. I will report more details after the ITR decisions later in the year. In the meantime, let me bring a couple of important points to your immediate attention: The PITAC recommended to the president that the government increase its information technology research efforts by $1.37 billion over the next five years. We believe that the response to ITR-one program at one agency-has demonstrated that the computer science and engineering research community can put that kind of money to productive use. If each letter of intent for the larger grants represents a project with the minimum budget of $500,000-an exceptionally conservative assumption-then the first round of letters proposes $700 million worth of research. More realistically, the number is probably well over a billion. Thus, we have reason to hope that ITR will both remain a part of the NSF budget and increase each year towards the PITAC goal. Given the likely number of proposals and preproposals coming on top of our usual programs, the Foundation will need special assistance from reviewers. If a program director asks you to serve on a panel, please do everything possible to help and to encourage your colleagues to help. ITR is the result of a marvelous cooperative effort between government and …