Computer Science for All (CSforAll) Grants (local and regional commitments)

Computer Science for All (CSforAll) Grants (local and regional commitments) is sponsored by CSforAll (national coalition) with various corporate and foundation partners. Supports institutions that commit to expanding rigorous and inclusive computer science education; Raspberry Pi projects can be a core implementation strategy for hands-on CS in K–12 and higher-ed partnerships.

NSF 18-537: Computer Science for All (CSforAll: Research and RPPs) | NSF - U.S. National Science Foundation Archived funding opportunity This solicitation is archived. NSF 18-537: Computer Science for All (CSforAll:RPP) Researcher Practitioner Partnerships Download the solicitation (PDF, 0.

7mb) National Science Foundation Directorate for Education & Human Resources Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering Division of Computing and Communication Foundations Division of Information & Intelligent Systems Division of Computer and Network Systems Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p. m.

submitter's local time): Second Tuesday in February, Annually Thereafter Important Information And Revision Notes This solicitation updates NSF 17-525 .

The updates are as follows: An additional strand has been added to allow proposals that focus on designing pathways facilitating school districts in developing policies and supports for incorporating computer science and computational thinking across preK-12 or preK-14; Proposals submitted to this solicitation may be eligible for co-funding from organizations partnering with NSF as described in Section II; and The two Additional Criteria on Broadening Participation have been made more prominent in the text.

Any proposal submitted in response to this solicitation should be submitted in accordance with the revised NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) ( NSF 19-1 ), which is effective for proposals submitted, or due, on or after February 25, 2019.

Summary Of Program Requirements Computer Science for All (CSforAll:RPP) Researcher Practitioner Partnerships This program aims to provide all U.S. students the opportunity to participate in computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education in their schools at the preK-12 levels.

With this solicitation, the National Science Foundation (NSF) focuses on researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) that foster the research and development needed to bring CS and CT to all schools.

Specifically, this solicitation aims to provide high school teachers with the preparation, professional development (PD) and ongoing support that they need to teach rigorous computer science courses; preK-8 teachers with the instructional materials and preparation they need to integrate CS and CT into their teaching; and schools and districts the resources needed to define and evaluate multi-grade pathways in CS and CT.

Cognizant Program Officer(s): Please note that the following information is current at the time of publishing. See program website for any updates to the points of contact.

Janice Cuny, Program Officer, CISE/CNS, Karen King, Program Director, EHR/DRL, Applicable Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s): --- Computer and Information Science and Engineering --- Education and Human Resources Anticipated Type of Award: Estimated Number of Awards: approximately 10 small, 11 medium, and 3 large awards.

Anticipated Funding Amount: Subject to the availability of funds Who May Submit Proposals: The categories of proposers eligible to submit proposals to the National Science Foundation are identified in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), Chapter I.E. There are no restrictions or limits. Limit on Number of Proposals per Organization: There are no restrictions or limits.

Limit on Number of Proposals per PI or Co-PI: There are no restrictions or limits. Proposal Preparation and Submission Instructions A. Proposal Preparation Instructions Letters of Intent: Not required Preliminary Proposal Submission: Not required Full Proposals submitted via FastLane: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) guidelines apply.

The complete text of the PAPPG is available electronically on the NSF website at: https://www. nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ.

jsp? ods_key=pappg . Full Proposals submitted via Research.

gov: NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG) guidelines apply. The complete text of the PAPPG is available electronically on the NSF website at: https://www. nsf.

gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp? ods_key=pappg .

Full Proposals submitted via Grants. gov: NSF Grants. gov Application Guide: A Guide for the Preparation and Submission of NSF Applications via Grants.

gov guidelines apply (Note: The NSF Grants. gov Application Guide is available on the Grants. gov website and on the NSF website at: https://www.

nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp?

ods_key=grantsgovguide ). Cost Sharing Requirements: Inclusion of voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited. Indirect Cost (F&A) Limitations: Other Budgetary Limitations: Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.

m. submitter's local time): Second Tuesday in February, Annually Thereafter Proposal Review Information Criteria National Science Board approved criteria. Additional merit review considerations apply.

Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information. Award Administration Information Standard NSF award conditions apply. Additional reporting requirements apply.

Please see the full text of this solicitation for further information. A key goal of this program is to provide all U.S. students the opportunity to participate in computer science (CS) and computational thinking (CT) education in their schools at the preK-12 levels.

CT refers to the thought processes involved in formulating problems and their solutions in such a way that the solutions can be effectively carried out by an information-processing agent (usually a computer ) [1] . CT activities do not require the presence of a computing tool, but involve the requisite reasoning needed to capitalize on the use of computational tools.

CS, as used in this solicitation, includes CT but also the broad range of understandings, competencies, and skills needed to apply computation in our digital world.

It includes topics of problem specification and representation; algorithm development; software design, programming, and debugging; the Internet and networking; big data; cybersecurity; and application across a wide range of disciplines, including the associated societal impact and ethical considerations.

This solicitation focuses on CS and CT instruction, as distinct from the mere use of computers or the use of common computational tools such as word processors or video editing or presentation software. The ability to use such tools is often referred to as computational literacy. This solicitation supports education beyond computational literacy.

As the lead Federal agency for building the research knowledge base for CS and CT education, NSF aims to build upon past and ongoing efforts to enable rigorous and engaging CS and CT education in schools across the Nation, including over $20 million spent in FY 2017 in support of these efforts.

This program supports researcher-practitioner partnerships (RPPs) with the goal of building knowledge from research and development to support efforts that aim to provide opportunities for all students to participate in CS and CT formal STEM learning at the elementary, middle, and high school grade levels.

Proposals will be funded in three “strands” that foster design, implementation at scale, and research: For the high school strand, the focus is on preparing and supporting teachers to teach rigorous CS courses; For the preK-8 strand, the focus is on designing, developing, and piloting instructional materials that integrate CS and CT into preK-8 classrooms; and For preK-12 or preK-14 pathways strand, the focus is on designing pathways that support school districts in developing policies and supports for incorporating CS and CT across all grades and potentially into introductory levels at community or four-year colleges and universities.

A proposal can be submitted to only one strand and that strand must be designated in the first line of the Project Summary. In order to ensure that advances in computing education are inclusive of our diverse student populations (the “for All” part of “CS for All”), proposals on any strand must address, in a significant manner, longstanding underrepresentation in computing.

Groups traditionally underrepresented or underserved in computing include women, persons with disabilities, African Americans/Blacks, Hispanic Americans, American Indians, Alaska Natives, Native Hawaiians, Native Pacific Islanders, and persons from economically disadvantaged backgrounds. All proposals will be evaluated on the two additional Broadening Participation Criteria specific to this solicitation (see Section V.

A, Project Description, below). Proposals in any strand must come from RPPs, defined in the literature as “long-term, mutualistic collaborations between practitioners and researchers that are intentionally organized to investigate problems of practice and solutions for improving district [and school] outcomes" [1] .

RPPs require well-organized teams of academic researchers and preK-12 practitioners (teachers, administrators, and counselors), possibly augmented with other community, foundation, policy, and industry partners. Members of these teams work together to iteratively define and refine common goals, research questions, metrics, and implementations. There are a variety of ways in which these RPPs can be organized.

Examples include Research Alliances, Design-Based Implementation Research, and Networked Improvement Communities as described in the implementation and improvement science literature. See http://researchandpractice. org/csforall or the following links for resources on RPPs: http://edr.

sagepub. com/content/45/4/243. full.

pdf+html ; http://www. carnegiefoundation. org/ under Improvement Resources; http://rpp.

wtgrantfoundation. org/ ; http://researchandpractice. org/ ; and RPPs aim to strengthen the capacity of an organization to reliably produce valued CS and CT education outcomes for diverse groups of students, educated by different teachers in varied organizational contexts.

The focus is on building efforts that can succeed when implemented at scale. These studies have less prescriptive research designs and methods, with research occurring in rapid, iterative, and context-expanding cycles.

They require the deep engagement of researchers and practitioners during the collaborative research on problems of practice that are co-defined and of value to researchers and education agencies, such as a school district or community of schools.

These types of projects seek to: study implementation in the local context; employ rapid changes in implementation with short-cycle methods; capitalize on variation in educational contexts to address the sources of variability in outcomes to understand what works, for whom, and under what conditions; address organizational structures and processes and their relation to innovation; employ measurement of change ideas, key drivers, and outcomes to continuously test working theories and to learn whether specific changes actually produce improvement; and reform the system in which the approach is being implemented as opposed to overlaying a specific approach on an existing system.

High School Strand. As schools attempt to respond to the increasing demand for CS and CT in their curricula, they are often faced with a critical shortage of teachers.

Proposals in this strand should address key issues in the preparation, professional development (PD), and ongoing support of teachers of high school CS, recognizing the need for quickly scaling effective efforts to reach thousands of teachers, many of whom have had little or no formal CS preparation.

Additional issues include but are not limited to: differential PD based on prior experiences; creating robust PD materials for teachers and facilitators; establishing online and hybrid PD approaches; assessing the effectiveness of PD models with respect to content knowledge, pedagogy, classroom equity, and student outcomes; adapting and scaling PD models for greater impact, especially with respect to inclusion and equity; establishing certification programs and pre-service paths for teacher PD; undertaking studies to inform state or local policy about CS requirements; or designing, piloting and assessing scalable mechanisms for ongoing support of classroom teachers.

While the focus of the high school strand is RPPs conducting implementation and improvement research on teacher preparation and support, it is possible within a project to adapt or enhance instructional materials for high school students.

However, PIs are encouraged to focus their RPPs on studying supports for teachers who are interested in using instructional materials that already have been developed and piloted and are now scaling nationally, such as Exploring Computer Science (ECS), curricula based on the Advanced Placement® (AP) Computer Science Principles (CSP) framework, or Bootstrap.

Strong proposals will document the wide use of the proposed instructional materials and include any available results about their effectiveness as part of the argument for focusing on the materials of choice, and they will address how findings from the research will inform practitioners' choices about CS and CT materials. PreK-8 Strand. Thus far, there has been less attention paid to teaching CS and CT in preK-8 than in high school.

RPPs proposed in this strand may address a wide range of topics on the teaching and learning of CS and CT in preK-8 grades, including but not limited to: development and study of prototype instructional materials for preK-8 both for stand-alone CS and CT courses or modules as well as teaching and testing of CS and CT concepts with other content; creation of developmentally-appropriate learning progressions that underlie the design of instructional materials; design of classroom-based assessments to inform teaching and learning along the way; or development of PD and teacher support—including face-to-face and online learning communities, coaching, and mentoring—as needed for piloting of instructional materials, along with research about their use and effectiveness.

While RPPs focused on innovation in research and development of instructional materials for preK-8 are allowed, the investigators must make a clear case that curricula and materials do not currently exist to address the teaching and learning of CS and CT in the relevant grade levels or cannot be adapted to those contexts.

Strong proposals must document how the new curricula or instructional materials differ in significant ways from already available materials and tools. PreK-12/PreK-14 Pathways Strand. Many districts have begun to make progress at the elementary, middle, and high school levels, but need to coordinate the overall efforts, particularly to address articulation across the years of schooling.

RPPs proposed in this strand may address the creation of pathways, including but not limited to: research and development of school district course pathways and alignment tools for students for preK-12; research and development on articulation from preK-12 to community or four-year colleges in preparation for entry into university CS or computationally intensive majors; or design and development of school, district, and/or state systems to assess and track student progress on pathways.

High-quality proposals in any strand will: delineate clearly the CS/CT content to be taught; address working with underrepresented or underserved communities, demonstrating knowledge of the relevant literature on working with the identified communities, and providing concrete plans of action and clear metrics for documenting outcomes [2] ; document the extent to which the approach has already scaled and its potential for further scaling; specify jointly-developed research questions and document the investment of the partners in those questions; provide work plans for implementation, improvement, data collection, analysis, and use; and draw from RPP literature on assessing/evaluating the quality of the partnership to articulate plans for assessing the success of the work of the RPP.

All projects should provide research results or findings on one or more of the following: strategies for improvement or implementation that address the shared goal of the researcher/practitioner collaborators; conceptual frameworks that address issues of scale, human capacity, and technical support for implementation and improvement in educational systems; measures of organizational learning that assess the progress of implementation and improvement; sustainable communities that can support implementation and improvement in the identified educational system; or documented practices with an ongoing forum for continued engagement of collaborators from various levels of the educational system.

Proposals may be submitted in the following size classes : Small proposals (maximum of $300,000 for up to 2 years) are designed to support the initial steps in establishing a strong and well-integrated RPP team that could successfully compete for a Medium or Large proposal in the near future; Medium proposals (maximum of $1,000,000 for up to 3 years) are designed to support the modest scaling of a promising approach by a well-defined RPP team; and Large proposals (maximum of $2,000,000 for up to 4 years) are designed to support the widespread scaling of an evidence-based approach by a RPP team that builds on prior collaborations.

The size class should also be specified in the first line of the Project Summary. NSF may enter into partnerships with other agencies, foundations, and organizations interested in co-funding projects submitted to this solicitation.

Principal Investigators (PIs) on proposals that meet the general eligibility requirements of one or more of these partners will be contacted by the cognizant NSF program director following submission of their proposals, and be given the option of having their proposals considered jointly by NSF and the partner(s).

If a PI so chooses, a given partner’s representatives will have access to the corresponding proposal, be invited to sit in on the NSF review panel’s discussion of that proposal, and be able to discuss the reviews with the NSF CSforAll:RPP Program Directors.

This consideration by one or more partners will be strictly optional; PIs who choose not to avail themselves of this option will have their proposals reviewed solely by the NSF.

The CISE Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS) and EHR Division of Research on Learning in Formal and Informal Settings (DRL) will be responsible for receiving submitted proposals, determining compliance of proposals with the guidelines specified in the program solicitation, selecting proposals for NSF funding, and negotiating the award budgets.

Once NSF’s decisions on funding have been made, relevant partner(s) will be able to choose to co-fund any of the awards submitted for their consideration. An updated list of partners, including partner-specific eligibility requirements, will be maintained on the CSforAll:RPP program webpage. [1] Coburn, C.

E. , Penuel, W. R.

, & Geil, K. E. (January 2013).

Research-Practice Partnerships: A Strategy for Leveraging Research for Educational Improvement in School Districts. William T. Grant Foundation, New York, NY, pg.

2. [2] Proposers are encouraged to leverage the resources of the Broadening Participation in Computing Alliances: https://www. nsf.

gov/funding/pgm_summ. jsp? pims_id=503593 .

Anticipated Type of Award: Standard Grant Estimated Number of Awards: 24, approximately 10 small, 11 medium, and 3 large awards. Anticipated Funding Amount: $20,000,000 Estimated program budget, number of awards and average award size/duration are subject to the availability of funds. IV.

Eligibility Information Who May Submit Proposals: The categories of proposers eligible to submit proposals to the National Science Foundation are identified in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), Chapter I.E. There are no restrictions or limits. Limit on Number of Proposals per Organization: There are no restrictions or limits. Limit on Number of Proposals per PI or Co-PI: There are no restrictions or limits.

V. Proposal Preparation And Submission Instructions A. Proposal Preparation Instructions Full Proposal Preparation Instructions : Proposers may opt to submit proposals in response to this Program Solicitation via FastLane, Research.

gov, or Grants. gov. Full proposals submitted via FastLane: Proposals submitted in response to this program solicitation should be prepared and submitted in accordance with the general guidelines contained in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG). The complete text of the PAPPG is available electronically on the NSF website at: https://www.

nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp?

ods_key=pappg . Paper copies of the PAPPG may be obtained from the NSF Publications Clearinghouse, telephone (703) 292-7827 or by e-mail from nsfpubs@nsf. gov .

Proposers are reminded to identify this program solicitation number in the program solicitation block on the NSF Cover Sheet For Proposal to the National Science Foundation. Compliance with this requirement is critical to determining the relevant proposal processing guidelines. Failure to submit this information may delay processing.

Full Proposals submitted via Research. gov: Proposals submitted in response to this program solicitation should be prepared and submitted in accordance with the general guidelines contained in the NSF Proposal and Award Policies and Procedures Guide (PAPPG). The complete text of the PAPPG is available electronically on the NSF website at: https://www.

nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp?

ods_key=pappg . Paper copies of the PAPPG may be obtained from the NSF Publications Clearinghouse, telephone (703) 292-7827 or by e-mail from nsfpubs@nsf. gov .

The Prepare New Proposal setup will prompt you for the program solicitation number. Full proposals submitted via Grants. gov: Proposals submitted in response to this program solicitation via Grants.

gov should be prepared and submitted in accordance with the NSF Grants. gov Application Guide: A Guide for the Preparation and Submission of NSF Applications via Grants. gov .

The complete text of the NSF Grants. gov Application Guide is available on the Grants. gov website and on the NSF website at: ( https://www.

nsf. gov/publications/pub_summ. jsp?

ods_key=grantsgovguide ). To obtain copies of the Application Guide and Application Forms Package, click on the Apply tab on the Grants. gov site, then click on the Apply Step 1: Download a Grant Application Package and Application Instructions link and enter the funding opportunity number, (the program solicitation number without the NSF prefix) and press the Download Package button.

Paper copies of the Grants. gov Application Guide also may be obtained from the NSF Publications Clearinghouse, telephone (703) 292-7827 or by e-mail from nsfpubs@nsf. gov .

In determining which method to utilize in the electronic preparation and submission of the proposal, please note the following: Collaborative Proposals. All collaborative proposals submitted as separate submissions from multiple organizations must be submitted via the NSF FastLane system. PAPPG Chapter II.

D. 3 provides additional information on collaborative proposals. See PAPPG Chapter II.

C. 2 for guidance on the required sections of a full research proposal submitted to NSF. Please note that the proposal preparation instructions provided in this program solicitation may deviate from the PAPPG instructions.

By their very nature, RPPs responding to this solicitation will almost certainly be working with Human Subjects (looking at outcomes for teachers, students or both). If that is the case, on the cover sheet, mark the Human Subjects box as pending, approved, or exempted (with exemption subsection indicated). This box should not be left blank.

The Human Subjects box should be marked as pending if an IRB is either (1) reviewing the project plan and has not yet determined a ruling of "approved" or "exempt", or (2) the project plan has not yet been submitted to an IRB for review. Additional guidance on the use of Human Subjects is available in the PAPPG, Chapter II. D.

5 . The Project Summary consists of an overview, a statement on the intellectual merit of the proposed activity, and a statement on the broader impacts of the proposed activity. The first line of the Project Summary should identify the proposal strand: High School Strand , PreK-8 Strand , or PreK-12/PreK-14 Pathways Strand.

In addition it should list the size class of the proposal (Small, Medium or Large). Please provide between two and six sets of keywords at the end of the overview in the Project Summary. EHR and CISE personnel will use this information in implementing the merit review process.

The keywords should describe the main scientific/engineering areas explored in the proposal. Keywords should be prefaced with "Keywords" followed by a colon, and should be separated by semi-colons. Keywords should be of the type used to describe research in a journal submission, and may include technical areas of expertise necessary to review the proposal.

They should be included at the end of the overview in the project summary. This program solicitation is particularly interested in broadening participation in CS and CT for groups that have been traditionally underrepresented or underserved in CS.

All proposals must explicitly address broadening participation with respect to the two Additional Criteria: Does the proposal identify the characteristics and needs of the identified underrepresented or underserved groups (public or professional) to be served?

Does the proposal include specific plans or strategies for addressing or accommodating the particular needs of participants of the identified underrepresented or underserved groups? Reviewers will be asked to specifically evaluate the proposal on these two criteria as well as the two standard NSF Merit Review Criteria (Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts).

Proposals that do not adequately address these additional criteria will be declined.

In addition to the guidance provided in the PAPPG on Project Description preparation, the Project Description for Medium and Large size classes must also: specify initial, jointly-developed research questions and document the investment of the partners in those questions; provide work plans for implementation, data collection, analysis, improvement, and use; describe the management and administrative structures with the capacity to administer the program; and draw from RPP literature on assessing/evaluating the quality of the partnership to articulate plans for assessing the success of the work of the RPP.

Medium and Large projects must describe appropriate mechanisms to assess success through project-specific external review and feedback processes. All projects must have external, critical reviews of their designs and activities (including their theoretical frameworks, as well as data collection, analysis, and reporting plans).

These might include an external review panel or advisory board proposed by the project or a third-party evaluator. The external critical review should be sufficiently independent and rigorous to influence the project's activities and improve the quality of its findings.

Successful proposals will (1) describe the expertise of the external reviewer(s); (2) explain how that expertise relates to the goals and objectives of the proposal; and (3) specify how the PI will report and use results of the project's external, critical review process. Proposers may wish to consider resources on evaluating RPPs, such as http://rpp. wtgrantfoundation.

org/evaluating-research-practice-partnerships .

For Small size class proposals, the Project Description must describe: what is known about the issue to be investigated; the contributions of collaborators representing multiple perspectives; how the development of the collaboration will have the potential to result in a future RPP with education researchers, experts in CS/CT and schools or districts; the steps to build effective collaborations for achieving the project goals; the steps and actions to further refine and develop the research question(s) and methods or design and development approaches, leveraging the expertise of the collaborators.

SPECIAL INFORMATION AND SUPPLEMENTARY DOCUMENTS: In addition to guidance provided in the PAPPG on required Special Information and Supplementary Documents, provide current, accurate information for all personnel and institutions involved in the project. NSF staff will use this information in the merit review process to manage reviewer selection.

The list should include all PIs, Co-PIs, Senior Personnel, paid/unpaid Consultants or Collaborators, Subawardees, Postdocs, and project-level advisory committee members. This list should be numbered and include (in this order) Full name, Organization(s), and Role in the project, with each item separated by a semi-colon. Each person listed should start a new numbered line.

For example: Mary Smith; XYZ University; PI John Jones; University of PQR; Senior Personnel Jane Brown; XYZ University; Postdoc Bob Adams; ABC Community College; Paid Consultant Susan White; DEF Corporation; Unpaid Collaborator Tim Green; ZZZ University; Subawardee Collaborators and Other Affiliations Information: Proposers should follow the guidance specified in Chapter II. C. 1.

e of the NSF PAPPG. Grants. gov Users: The COA information must be provided through use of the COA template and uploaded as a PDF attachment.

Note the distinction to the Project Personnel specified above under Special Information and Supplementary Documents: the listing of all project participants is collected by the project lead and entered as a Supplementary Document, which is then automatically included with all proposals in a project.

The Collaborators and Other Affiliations are entered for each participant within each proposal and, as Single Copy Documents, these are available only to NSF staff. In an effort to assist proposal preparation, the following checklists are provided as a reminder of the items that should be checked before submitting a CSforAll:RPP proposal to this solicitation. These are a summary of the requirements described above.

For the items marked with (RWR), the proposal will be returned without review if the required item is noncompliant at the submission deadline. Note that there are five lists: (1) for all proposals, unique to this solicitation; (2) for all proposals, selected items from the PAPPG; (3) additional requirements for Small proposals; (4) additional requirements for Medium proposals; and (5) additional requirements for Large proposals.

For all proposals, regardless of size: On the cover sheet, mark the Human Subjects box as pending, approved, or exempted (with exemption subsection indicated). This box should not be left blank. The Human Subjects box should be marked as pending if an IRB is either (1) reviewing the project plan and has not yet determined a ruling of "approved" or "exempt"; or (2) the project plan has not yet been submitted to an IRB for review.

Additional guidance on the use of Human Subjects is available in the PAPPG, Chapter II. D. 5 .

The first line of the overview of the Project Summary must indicate the proposal strand and size class from among the options specified in the Program Description of this solicitation. The last line of the Project Summary should consist of the word “Keywords” followed by a colon and between 2-6 keywords, separated by semi-colons.

In addition to addressing Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts, all proposals must address the two additional broadening participation criteria listed above under “Project Description. A list of Project Personnel should be included as a Supplementary Document. Letters of Collaboration are permitted as Supplementary Documents.

Letters of Support are not allowed; reviewers will be instructed not to consider those letters in reviewing the merits of the proposal. (RWR) All proposals must address evaluation plans. (RWR) The budget shown on the cover page and on the budget sheets must not exceed $300,000, plus funds for embedded REU supplements.

(RWR) The budget shown on the cover page and on the budget sheets must not exceed $1,000,000, plus funds for embedded REU supplements. (RWR) The budget shown on the cover page and on the budget sheets must not exceed $2,000,000, plus funds for embedded REU supplements. Proposals that do not comply with the requirements will be returned without review.

Inclusion of voluntary committed cost sharing is prohibited. Budget Preparation Instructions: Projects should budget to have two members attend a meeting of principal investigators annually. Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.

m. submitter's local time): Second Tuesday in February, Annually Thereafter D. FastLane/Research.

gov/Grants. gov Requirements For Proposals Submitted Via FastLane or Research. gov: To prepare and submit a proposal via FastLane, see detailed technical instructions available at: https://www.

fastlane. nsf. gov/a1/newstan.

htm . To prepare and submit a proposal via Research. gov, see detailed technical instructions available at: https://www.

research. gov/research-portal/appmanager/base/desktop? _nfpb=true&_pageLabel=research_node_display&_nodePath=/researchGov/Service/Desktop/ProposalPreparationandSubmission.

html . For FastLane or Research. gov user support, call the FastLane and Research.

gov Help Desk at 1-800-673-6188 or e-mail fastlane@nsf. gov or rgov@nsf. gov .

The FastLane and Research. gov Help Desk answers general technical questions related to the use of the FastLane and Research. gov systems.

Specific questions related to this program solicitation should be referred to the NSF program staff contact(s) listed in Section VIII of this funding opportunity. For Proposals Submitted Via Grants. gov: Before using Grants.

gov for the first time, each organization must register to create an institutional profile. Once registered, the applicant's organization can then apply for any federal grant on the Grants. gov website.

Comprehensive information about using Grants. gov is available on the Grants. gov Applicant Resources webpage: http://www.

grants. gov/web/grants/applicants. html .

In addition, the NSF Grants. gov Application Guide (see link in Section V. A) provides instructions regarding the technical preparation of proposals via Grants.

gov. For Grants. gov user support, contact the Grants. gov Contact Center at 1-800-518-4726 or by email: support@grants.

gov . The Grants. gov Contact Center answers general technical questions related to the use of