Pillars of Open Source Science, Engineering, and Ecosystems (POSES)

Pillars of Open Source Science, Engineering, and Ecosystems (POSES) is sponsored by National Science Foundation (NSF). The POSES program supports the translation of open-source science and engineering-focused research products into safe and sustainable ecosystems that address national and societal challenges.

NSF 24-606: Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) | NSF - U.S. National Science Foundation Archived funding opportunity This solicitation is archived. Important information for proposers and award recipients All proposals must be submitted in accordance with the requirements specified in the funding opportunity and in the Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) and its supplements .

All NSF grants and cooperative agreements are subject to the applicable set of NSF award terms and conditions . NSF has updated its research security policies for NSF funded projects. NSF 24-606: Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) Posted: September 13, 2024 To save a PDF of this solicitation, select Print to PDF in your browser's print options.

Program Solicitation NSF 24-606 U.S. National Science Foundation Directorate for Biological Sciences Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate for STEM Education Directorate for Engineering Directorate for Geosciences Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Full Proposal Deadline(s) (due by 5 p.

m.

submitting organization's local time): Second Tuesday in January, Annually Thereafter First Tuesday in September, Annually Thereafter Phase I and Phase II Proposals Important Information And Revision Notes Any proposal submitted in response to this solicitation should be submitted in accordance with the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) that is in effect for the relevant due date to which the proposal is being submitted.

The NSF PAPPG is regularly revised and it is the responsibility of the proposer to ensure that the proposal meets the requirements specified in this solicitation and the applicable version of the PAPPG. Submitting a proposal prior to a specified deadline does not negate this requirement.

Summary Of Program Requirements Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) The Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (POSE) program aims to harness the power of open-source development for the creation of new technology solutions to problems of national and societal importance.

Many NSF-funded projects result in publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable open-source products, including software, hardware, models, specifications, programming languages, or data platforms that catalyze further innovation.

In some cases, an open-source product that shows potential for wide adoption forms the basis for a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem (OSE) that comprises a leadership team; a managing organization with a well-defined governance structure and distributed development model; a cohesive community of external intellectual content developers; and a broad base of users across academia, industry, and/or government.

The overarching vision of POSE is that proactive and intentional formation of managing organizations will ensure broader adoption of open-source products; increased coordination of external intellectual content developer contributions; and a more focused route to technologies with broad societal impact.

Toward this end, the POSE program supports the formation of new OSE managing organizations based on an existing open-source product or class of products, whereby each organization is responsible for the creation and management of processes and infrastructure needed for the efficient and secure development and maintenance of an OSE.

POSE constitutes a new pathway to translate scientific innovations, akin to the Lab-to-Market Platform that NSF has pioneered over many decades.

Whereas programs like the NSF Innovation Corps (NSF I-Corps™) and America's Seed Fund [Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR)] represent an integrated set of programs to provide researchers with the capacity to transform their fundamental research into deep technology ventures, POSE is specifically focused on another translational pathway – supporting the transition from open-source research artifacts to OSEs.

Importantly, the POSE program is not intended to fund the development of open-source products, including tools and artifacts. The POSE program is also not intended to fund existing well-resourced, open-source communities or ecosystems. Instead, the program aims to support new managing organizations to catalyze distributed, community-driven development and growth of new OSEs.

The expected outcomes of the POSE program are to grow the community of researchers and innovators who develop and contribute to OSE efforts, and to enable pathways for the safe and secure development of OSEs that have broad societal impacts. OSEs can emerge from any areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) research and development.

This solicitation seeks two types of proposals, allowing teams to propose specific activities to scope and plan the establishment of an OSE (Phase I), and to establish a sustainable OSE based on a robust open-source product that shows promise in the ability to both meet an emergent societal or national need and build a community to help develop it (Phase II).

Phase I: OSE Scoping and Planning Proposals Phase I projects are for open-source research products with a small community of external users though the product may not necessarily have external content developers.

The objectives of Phase I projects are to: (1) enable scoping activities that will inform the transition of promising research products that are already available in open-source formats into sustainable and robust OSEs that will have broad societal impacts, and (2) provide training to teams interested in building such an OSE. Phase I awardees are not obligated to submit Phase II proposals in the future.

Phase II: Establishment and Expansion Proposals Phase II projects are for open-source research products with small, existing communities of external users and external content developers. The objective of Phase II projects is to support the transition of a promising open-source product into a sustainable and robust OSE.

Phase II proposal teams are expected to have already conducted the scoping activities needed to develop a detailed project plan to support the community-driven distributed development and deployment of successful open-source tools into operational environments (not necessarily via a Phase I award). An NSF POSE Phase I award is not required for the submission of a Phase II proposal.

Broadening Participation in STEM: NSF has a mandate to broaden participation in science and engineering, as articulated and reaffirmed in law since 1950. Congress has charged NSF to “develop intellectual capital, both people and ideas, with particular emphasis on groups and regions that traditionally have not participated fully in science, mathematics, and engineering."

Cognizant Program Officer(s): Please note that the following information is current at the time of publishing. NSF POSE Program: pose@nsf. gov Applicable Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA) Number(s): 47.

049 --- Mathematical and Physical Sciences 47. 070 --- Computer and Information Science and Engineering 47. 074 --- Biological Sciences 47.

075 --- Social Behavioral and Economic Sciences 47. 076 --- STEM Education 47. 079 --- Office of International Science and Engineering 47.

083 --- Office of Integrative Activities (OIA) 47.

084 --- NSF Technology, Innovation and Partnerships Anticipated Type of Award: Standard Grant or Continuing Grant Estimated Number of Awards: 30 to 50 Approximately 20 Phase I awards of up to $300,000 per award with durations up to 1 year and 10 Phase II awards of up to $1,500,000 per award with durations up to 2 years are anticipated, subject to the availability of funds and quality of proposals received.

If a proposal involves multiple organizations, it must be submitted as a single proposal with sub-awards; separately submitted collaborative proposals are not permitted. Anticipated Funding Amount: $27,800,000 Estimated program budget, number of awards and average award size/duration are subject to the availability of funds.

Who May Submit Proposals: Proposals may only be submitted by the following: Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) - Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members.

Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of sub-awards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.

Non-profit, non-academic organizations: Independent museums, observatories, research laboratories, professional societies and similar organizations located in the U.S. that are directly associated with educational or research activities. For-profit organizations: U.S.-based commercial organizations, including small businesses, with strong capabilities in scientific or engineering research or education and a passion for innovation.

State and Local Governments Tribal Nations: An American Indian or Alaska Native tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community that the Secretary of the Interior acknowledges as a federally recognized tribe pursuant to the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994, 25 U.S.C. §§ 5130-5131.

For Institutions of Higher Education: By the submission deadline, any PI, co-PI, or other Senior/Key Personnel must hold either: a tenured or tenure-track position, or a primary, full-time, paid appointment in a research or teaching position, or a staff leadership role in an Open-Source Program Office or equivalent position at a U.S.-based campus of an Institution of Higher Education (see above), with exceptions granted for family or medical leave, as determined by the submitting organization.

Individuals with primary appointments at overseas branch campuses of U.S. institutions of higher education are not eligible. Researchers from foreign academic institutions who contribute essential expertise to the project may participate as Senior/Key Personnel or collaborators but may not receive NSF support. Individuals with primary appointments at non-U.S. based non-profit or non-U.S. based for-profit organizations are not eligible.

For all other eligible proposing organizations: The PI must be an employee of the proposing organization who is normally resident in the U.S. and must be acting as an employee of the proposing organization while performing PI responsibilities. The PI may perform the PI responsibilities while temporarily out of the U.S. 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 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. submitting organization's local time): Second Tuesday in January, Annually Thereafter First Tuesday in September, Annually Thereafter Phase I and Phase II Proposals Proposal Review Information Criteria National Science Board approved criteria. Additional merit review criteria apply.

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

Standard NSF reporting requirements apply. The term " open-source " has often referred to software systems for which the source code is widely distributed to anyone and for any purpose, including for further development and refinement in a collaborative public manner.

However, increasingly, "open-source" refers to a much broader range of products such as programming languages or formats; hardware instruction sets; designs or specifications; scientific methodologies, models, or processes; manufacturing processes or process specifications; material formulations; and data platforms.

Academic and industrial researchers worldwide are extensively using the open-source model to make research artifacts such as software, tools, and prototypes openly available with a goal of enabling collaboration and catalyzing further innovation. An open-source product can be shared via a web page on the Internet, but a more common approach uses a version control system.

Multiple NSF research infrastructure programs support further development of open-source projects with the goal of serving the research community and enabling advances in science and engineering research and education, including the Community Infrastructure for Research in Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CIRC) , Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI ), Infrastructure Capacity for Biological Research (Capacity) , and Human Networks and Data Science – Infrastructure (HNDS-1) .

Some open-source projects expand well beyond their original research teams, catalyzing broad adoption across academia, industry, government, and other sectors, and resulting in communities of users and intellectual content developers/contributors who coalesce around them into "ecosystems."

Examples of NSF-funded open-source research projects and products that have transitioned into OSEs with broad measurable and transformative impact include: LLVM , a modular and reusable compiler infrastructure to construct, optimize, and produce intermediate and/or binary machine code that has seen wide adoption in industry; Galaxy , a scientific workflow, data integration / analysis, and publishing platform that makes computational biology accessible to researchers who do not have computer programming or systems administration experience; and RISC-V , an open, standard instruction set architecture (ISA) that enables researchers, developers, and manufacturers to design and experiment with building hardware with a proven and freely available ISA.

There are many such open-source projects in all areas of science and engineering that have benefited from open collaboration and innovation. An Open-Source Ecosystem (OSE) is a self-sustaining organization that enables the ongoing, distributed, asynchronous development of an open-source product that is designed to be publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable by anyone under an open-source licensing model.

An OSE organization has several key components: a leadership team that is responsible for governance and management of distributed development processes and infrastructure, a decentralized and open network of intellectual content contributors/developers who are committed to the vision of the OSE and contribute their time and expertise to develop and maintain the core product, and users whose needs serve to guide the evolution of the product.

The intellectual content contributors are a key part of an OSE because they help develop, grow, and maintain the core open-source product. Building a successful open-source ecosystem depends on many different elements, including recruiting, motivating, mentoring, managing, and mediating disputes among community members.

There are many existing models of OSEs, ranging from non-profit institutions that are well-coordinated community efforts to build and support open source products (e.g., the Apache Software Foundation , the Linux Foundation , and the Mozilla Foundation ), to for-profit companies that release open-source products and then coordinate an open-source community around them (e.g., IBM's Qiskit and Google's TensorFlow ).

OSEs are an important alternative to more common for-profit technology companies and offer several key strengths: they are well suited to multidisciplinary efforts aimed at solving large-scale problems; they create a sense of ownership among all participants and encourage contributions from new technical disciplines as the OSE evolves; and they avoid costs, delays, and disputes that frequently arise in circumstances where proprietary solutions are developed.

OSEs encourage rapid prototyping in moving value from the conception to execution phases, serving as important catalysts for innovation. A key aspect of successful OSEs is their value in demonstrating the potential of a technology at scale in varied application scenarios. While not always easy to quantify, the significant technological, societal, and economic impacts of OSEs over the past decades are undeniable.

For example, a recent European Commission Study estimated that companies located in the European Union invested around 1 billion Euros in open-source software alone in 2018, which brought about a positive impact on the European economy of between 65 and 95 billion Euros.

The purpose of the POSE program is to support a new pathway for translating research or innovation results by supporting the establishment of managing organizations that facilitate the creation and growth of sustainable, high-impact OSEs around already-developed open-source products, tools, and artifacts.

The POSE program aims to grow the community of individuals who develop and contribute to OSE efforts, and enable pathways to intentionally transition promising, robust open-source innovations into self-sustaining OSEs that could lead to new technology products or services with broad societal impacts. Importantly, the POSE program does not itself support further development of open-source products.

A key attribute of OSEs is a distributed development model in which external intellectual content contributors use a continuous development, integration, and deployment model to develop and/or maintain the core open-source product. Projects lacking this distributed development aspect are not well suited for POSE and may be better suited for infrastructure programs.

For example, a data repository with a centralized development model where external content developers only upload data would not be suitable for POSE. Likewise, the POSE program is not intended for open-source product development or focused communities with limited impact.

Instead, POSE proposals are expected to build an ecosystem around an existing, robust, open-source product that has active users and contributors outside of the founding team. Note that development of open-source software specific to the advanced cyberinfrastructure of a particular scientific community may be better served as a submission to the "Transition to Sustainability" track in the NSF CSSI program .

Finally, POSE is also not intended to support the development of products that are proprietary and/or intended for profit; Such efforts may be better suited for NSF's SBIR/STTR programs. The transition from open-source research or innovation project to an OSE requires an organized and intentional approach with multiple elements.

These include: (1) the vision of the founding team and a set of guiding principles, (2) one or more specific open-source products under development, (3) documented demand for the product(s) within the current technological landscape, (4) the need for adaptability and flexibility in deployment scenarios, (5) a distributed community of intellectual content developers who will drive the collaborative development of the technology, and (6) a community of users who adopt and engage with the technology.

OSEs are frequently supported by a national or international community of users and developers from different sectors, including academia, non-profits, and industry. POSE strongly encourages proposers to consider mechanisms to intentionally involve all these groups. Note the eligibility requirements for funded organizations that appear in Section IV.

As shown in Figure 1, the transition from open-source product to OSE can be conceived as a continuum. At one end of this continuum is an early stage open-source artifact that, for example, may have been developed by a scientist for a specific use and has been adopted by a small number of users.

At the other end is a fully developed OSE based on a robust open-source artifact, managed by an organization that: coordinates an external distributed developer community; interfaces with and supports a community of users; provides training and on-boarding to new developers and users; enables efficient continuous development, integration, and deployment of the open-source product; maintains an efficient supply chain; ensures security, privacy, and reliability of all aspects of the OSE operations; maintains appropriate organizational governance practices; and attracts resources for the long-term sustenance of the ecosystem.

POSE aims to support this transition, assisting the evolution of an early stage open-source project to a fully operational OSE that can realize the potential societal impact nascent in the originating open-source artifact. Figure 1.

Transition from Open-source Product to Open-source Ecosystem This solicitation seeks two types of proposals: first to scope and plan for an OSE (Phase I), and second to establish and expand (Phase II) a sustainable OSE based on an existing and robust open-source product that shows promise both in the ability to meet an emergent societal or national need and to build a community to help develop it.

For both phases, the open-source product should already (i) be publicly accessible, preferably via an open-source license (proposers are encouraged to consider licenses approved by the Open Source Initiative ) and (ii) have some external third-party users and/or external intellectual content developers. In this context the term "external" means external to the founding team.

Phase II proposers are strongly urged to have an open-source license in place for their core product by the time of proposal submission.

An OSE supported by POSE, as shown in Figure 2, will comprise three components: a distributed community of intellectual content developers from academia, industry, and/or the non-profit sector; a community of third-party end users in research, industry, government, and/or other sectors – some of whom may also be intellectual content developers; and a managing organization.

POSE funding will support the establishment of the managing organization whose role includes all the functions described above and whose overarching objective is to ensure sustainability of the OSE.

The primary distinction between Phase I and Phase II is that Phase I scoping and planning projects are intended for organizations that need more experience and knowledge for building the distributed intellectual content developer and end user communities around an open-source product.

Phase I project teams will also benefit from learning more about the non-technical roles of a POSE managing organization – e.g., corporate governance, legal and administrative functions, licensing, fundraising, etc. Figure 2.

Role of the POSE Managing Organization Anticipated Type of Award: Standard Grant or Continuing Grant Estimated Number of Awards: 30-50 Approximately 20 Phase I awards of up to $300,000 per award with durations up to 1 year and 10 Phase II awards of up to $1,500,000 per award with durations up to 2 years are anticipated, subject to the availability of funds and quality of proposals received.

If a proposal involves multiple organizations, it must be submitted as a single proposal with sub-awards; separately submitted collaborative proposals are not permitted. Anticipated Funding Amount: $27,800,000 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: Proposals may only be submitted by the following: Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) - Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members.

Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of sub-awards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.

Non-profit, non-academic organizations: Independent museums, observatories, research laboratories, professional societies and similar organizations located in the U.S. that are directly associated with educational or research activities. For-profit organizations: U.S.-based commercial organizations, including small businesses, with strong capabilities in scientific or engineering research or education and a passion for innovation.

State and Local Governments Tribal Nations: An American Indian or Alaska Native tribe, band, nation, pueblo, village, or community that the Secretary of the Interior acknowledges as a federally recognized tribe pursuant to the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act of 1994, 25 U.S.C. §§ 5130-5131.

For Institutions of Higher Education: By the submission deadline, any PI, co-PI, or other Senior/Key Personnel must hold either: a tenured or tenure-track position, or a primary, full-time, paid appointment in a research or teaching position, or a staff leadership role in an Open-Source Program Office or equivalent position at a U.S.-based campus of an Institution of Higher Education (see above), with exceptions granted for family or medical leave, as determined by the submitting organization.

Individuals with primary appointments at overseas branch campuses of U.S. institutions of higher education are not eligible. Researchers from foreign academic institutions who contribute essential expertise to the project may participate as Senior/Key Personnel or collaborators but may not receive NSF support. Individuals with primary appointments at non-U.S. based non-profit or non-U.S. based for-profit organizations are not eligible.

For all other eligible proposing organizations: The PI must be an employee of the proposing organization who is normally resident in the U.S. and must be acting as an employee of the proposing organization while performing PI responsibilities. The PI may perform the PI responsibilities while temporarily out of the U.S. 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. Additional Eligibility Info: Collaborative Proposals: Although POSE proposals are expected to be multi-organizational, a single organization must serve as the lead and all other organizations as sub-awardees. Collaborative proposals arranged as separate submissions from multiple organizations will not be accepted in response to this solicitation.

Organizations ineligible to submit to this program solicitation may not receive sub-awards; if they are part of the team, their participation is expected to be supported by non-NSF sources. Ownership and Control Requirements: Non-profit and for-profit proposing organizations must be U.S.-based, and U.S.-owned and controlled, as described in the following.

A majority (more than 50%) of a proposing organization's equity (e.g., stock) must be directly owned and controlled by one of the following: One or more individuals who are citizens or permanent residents of the U.S.; Other U.S. firms, each of which is directly owned and controlled by individuals who are citizens or permanent residents of the U.S.; A combination of (1) and (2) above.

If an Employee Stock Ownership Plan owns all or part of a proposing organization, each stock trustee and plan member is considered an owner. If a trust owns all or part of the organization, each trustee and trust beneficiary is considered an owner. The above ownership requirement states that at least a majority of a proposing organization's equity must be held by certain types of eligible entities (individuals and/or other firms).

Therefore, when determining your organization's eligibility, you must be able to identify an ownership majority (of individuals and/or entities) that is made up of eligible individuals and/or other firms.

Each individual included as part of the eligible ownership majority of a proposing organization must be either a citizen or permanent resident of the U.S. The term "individual" refers only to actual people — it does not refer to companies or other legal entities of any sort. "Permanent resident" refers to an individual admitted to the United States as a lawful permanent resident by the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

If you include other firms as part of the eligible ownership majority of a proposing organization, you should verify that each such firm is more than 50% owned and controlled by individuals who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Ownership refers to direct ownership of stock or equity of a proposing organization. Equity ownership is determined on a fully diluted basis.

This means that the determination considers the total number of shares or equity that would be outstanding if all possible sources of conversion were exercised, including, but not limited to: outstanding common stock or equity, outstanding preferred stock (on a converted-to-common basis) or equity, outstanding warrants (on an as-exercised-and-converted-to-common basis), outstanding options and options reserved for future grants, and any other convertible securities on an as-converted-to-common basis.

The purpose of the ownership requirement is to ensure that an awardee organization is controlled directly by individuals who are U.S. citizens or permanent residents or by firms that are majority-owned by U.S. citizens or permanent residents. Therefore, actual control of the organization must reside within the eligible ownership majority and may not reside outside of that ownership block.

One of the following must describe the control of the proposing organization – the company must be more than 50% controlled by: One U.S. citizen or permanent resident; More than one U.S. citizen or permanent resident; One other U.S. firm that is directly owned and controlled by U.S. citizens or permanent residents; More than one other U.S. firm, each of which is directly owned and controlled by U.S. citizens or permanent residents Any combination of the above.

Cost Principles for For-Profit Organizations: For-profit entities are subject to the cost principles contained in the Federal Acquisition Regulation, Part 31 . The PI and all employees of the proposing organization who will receive POSE funding support must have a legal right to work in the U.S. for the proposing organization. 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 Research. gov or Grants.

gov. 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) 292-8134 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) 292-8134 or by e-mail from nsfpubs@nsf. gov .

See PAPPG Chapter II. D. 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. See PAPPG Chapter II. D.

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. The POSE program seeks broad representation of PIs and organizations in its award portfolio.

Carefully review the list of solicitation-specific Return Without Review (RWR) conditions at the conclusion of Section V. A. below and ensure that the proposal includes the required elements.

Ethical use of data, including the privacy and protection of human subjects, is of paramount importance. If the