Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation

Expected Number of Awards: 30
Estimated Total Program Funding:$36,000,000
Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) is NSF's bold five-year initiative to create revolutionary science and engineering research outcomes made possible by innovations and advances in computational thinking. Computational thinking is defined comprehensively to encompass computational concepts, methods, models, algorithms, and tools. Applied in challenging science and engineering research and education contexts, computational thinking promises a profound impact on the Nation's ability to generate and apply new knowledge. Collectively, CDI research outcomes are expected to produce paradigm shifts in our understanding of a wide range of science and engineering phenomena and socio-technical innovations that create new wealth and enhance the national quality of life. CDI seeks ambitious, transformative, multidisciplinary research proposals within or across the following three thematic areas: 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; and Virtual Organizations: enhancing discovery and innovation by bringing people and resources together across institutional, geographical and cultural boundaries. With an emphasis on bold multidisciplinary activities that, through computational thinking, promise radical, paradigm-changing research findings, CDI promotes transformative research within NSF.