Presidential AI Challenge

NSF's Expanding K-12 Resources for AI Education Dear Colleague Letter invites current NSF awardees to request supplemental funding up to $300,000 (or 20% of their original budget) to scale and expand established AI education activities into new K-12 settings. Eligible work includes producing open-access AI curricula, teacher professional development, AI literacy modules, student-facing AI tools, evaluation studies of AI education programs, and partnerships with school districts. The DCL aligns with the Presidential AI Challenge and broader federal priorities to accelerate AI literacy in U.S. schools. Awards are issued as supplements to existing grants administered by the Directorate for STEM Education and adjacent NSF directorates.

The Department of Energy Genesis Mission is a presidential executive order establishing a national effort to accelerate AI-driven scientific discovery. Led by the Secretary of Energy, the Mission creates the American Science and Security Platform, integrating DOE national laboratory supercomputers, secure cloud-based AI environments, and federally curated scientific datasets to train foundation models and develop AI agents for automated research. The initiative targets at least 20 national science and technology challenges spanning advanced manufacturing, critical materials, nuclear energy, quantum information science, and semiconductors. The Mission facilitates interagency coordination, public-private partnerships through cooperative research agreements, and competitive fellowship programs for researchers at national laboratories. Annual reporting to the President tracks platform capabilities, research outcomes, and technology commercialization progress across participating federal agencies and external partners.

NSF is committed to securing the nation's research enterprise as part of its core mission. The Research on Research Security (RoRS) program will advance the understanding of the full scope, potential, challenges, and nature of the research on research security field through scholarly evidence. Background The following activities provide background and context for developing proposals to submit to the RoRS program. The foundational legislative and policy documents include National Security Presidential Memorandum-33 (NSPM-33) and its associated supporting documents, as well as research security provisions in CHIPS and Science Act 2022. In 2022 NSF asked JASON to consider what a research program on research security might entail and how it would be defined. The findings are summarized in the report (JSR-22-08), Research Program on Research Security. The 2024 NSF-funded workshop, Responsible Collaboration Through Appropriate Research Security: A Workshop To Discuss and Study the Emergent Discipline of Research on Research Security, identified current themes, major issues, and challenges in research security. Program Description Collectively, the research that RoRS funds will foster a broad community that builds collaborations between the STEM research community, research security researchers, and research security practitioners. Interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged, and proposers should address how they will leverage the range of expertise, theories, and methods of the team to engage in evidence-based research on research security. Proposers are encouraged to identify collaborators across a wide range of sectors, and to consider projects in collaboration with international partners that share U.S. concerns with research security, when appropriate. RoRS encourages the following types of proposals to help build the emerging field of research on research security. (See the PAPPG for guidance on preparing specific proposal types.) Conferences and Workshops Planning Grants Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) Proposal topics may include, but are not limited to, the following: The nature and pervasiveness of research security threats. Methods for identifying research security risks, and strategies for preventing and mitigating them. Methods for strengthening research security protocol and approaches. The complex relationships between human behavior and research security policies. Research security policies and their implications. Research on organizational change around systemic and cultural factors as they pertain to research security. Research on research security in the context of a particular field or discipline, especially in high-risk areas. The international dimensions of research security. Collectively, RoRS seeks to fund research projects with the following characteristics: Produce data, analysis, theory, and tools that inform current and future decision-making on U.S. research security. Use rigorous empirical methods to advance understanding of the factors that influence research security. Build upon established methodologies from diverse fields of study to ensure that RoRS develops quickly and efficiently into a robust, mature discipline with its own novel approaches. Develop innovative strategies to leverage previously unidentified, unconnected, and/or inaccessible sources of data. Prospective PIs are strongly encouraged review NSF Research Security resources and to contact the cognizant RoRS program director(s) prior to submission. Proposals should be prepared and submitted following the guidance in the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG). Funding Opportunity Number: PD-25-275Y. Assistance Listing: 47.075. Funding Instrument: G. Category: ST. Award Amount: $2M total program funding.