Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) Pilot Seeks Proposals

The Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education (INSPIRE) pilot seeks to support bold interdisciplinary projects in all NSF-supported areas of science, engineering, and education research. INSPIRE has no targeted themes and serves as a funding mechanism for proposalsthat are required both to be interdisciplinary and to exhibit potentially transformative research (IDR and PTR, respectively). Complementing existing NSF efforts, INSPIRE was created to handle proposals whose:

• Scientific advances lie outside the scope of a single program or discipline, such that substantial funding support from more than one program or discipline is necessary.
• Lines of research promise transformational advances.
• Prospective discoveries reside at the interfaces of disciplinary boundaries that may not be recognized through traditional review or coreview.

Proposals meeting INSPIRE criteria will be considered for funding on any NSF-supported topic and may be submitted after August 1, 2014. Awards will generally support an individual principal investigation or a small team and must be substantively cofunded by at least two intellectually distinct NSF divisions or disciplinary programs. A maximum budget of $1 million applies for INSPIRE proposals/awards regardless of the number of sponsoring programs beyond the minimum of two, with a duration of up to 5 years.

Proposers should submit their proposals electronically to one of the prospective cofunding programs via the NSF FastLane system or Grants.gov.