Future Manufacturing (NSF)

• Date: 04 March 2021
• Published date: 04 March 2021
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/fgc.31590

Federal Grants & Contracts ■ March 4, 2021 Page 3

© 2021 Wiley Periodicals LLC • All rights reserved • DOI: 10.1002/fgc

Grants alert (cont.)

Areas: NSF said research and technology development

should focus on being customizable to both the

human and robot, preventing single-system or “one-

off” solutions. Robotic systems will be of varying

archetypes and modalities—it is expected that many of

these systems will be mobile and include manipulation

capabilities. Some systems may operate with rich data

(from sensors, models, etc.), while others may operate

with minimal data derived from limited on-board sensors.

Example research and technology areas include, but

are not limited to, the following: strategies to decrease

data needed between humans and robots while not

impacting team performance; remote operator interfaces

that increase situation awareness and robotic intent

understanding, and that optimize operator workload;

autonomous performance monitoring; and autonomous

command planning and sequencing.

➜ www.grants.gov; FON# 21-559

Leveraging expertise—Mathematical and

scientic foundations of deep learning (NSF)

Scope: The National Science Foundation seeks

applications for the Stimulating Collaborative Advances

Leveraging Expertise in the Mathematical and Scientic

Foundations of Deep Learning announcement for new

research collaborations consisting of mathematicians,

statisticians, electrical engineers, and computer scientists.

Deadline: May 12, 2021.

Funds: $15 million total for up to 20 awards of up to $1.2

million.

Eligibility: Principal Investigators whose teams

collectively possess appropriate expertise in three

disciplines: computer science, electrical engineering,

and mathematics/statistics.

Areas: NSF said research activities should be focused

on explicit topics involving some of the most challenging

theoretical questions in the general area of Mathematical

and Scientic Foundations of Deep Learning. Likely

topics include but are not limited to geometric,

topological, Bayesian, or game-theoretic formulations, to

analysis approaches exploiting optimal transport theory,

optimization theory, approximation theory, information

theory, dynamical systems, partial differential equations,

or mean eld theory, to application-inspired viewpoints

exploring efficient training with small data sets,

adversarial learning, and closing the decision-action

loop, not to mention foundational work on understanding

success metrics, privacy safeguards, causal inference,

and algorithmic fairness.

➜ www.grants.gov; FON# 21-561

Future Manufacturing (NSF)

Scope: The National Science Foundation seeks

applications for the Future Manufacturing announcement

to support fundamental research and education of a

future workforce to overcome scientic, technological,

educational, economic, and social barriers in order to

enable new manufacturing capabilities that do not exist

today.

Deadline: May 14, 2021.

Funds: $32 million total for two award tracks: Future

Manufacturing Research Grants (FMRG), up to $3

million for up to four years; and Future Manufacturing

Seed Grants (FMSG), up to $500,000 for up to two

years.

Eligibility: Unrestricted.

Areas: NSF said three thrust areas have been identied

for support in FY21: Future Cyber Manufacturing

Research, Future Eco Manufacturing Research, and

Future Biomanufacturing Research.

➜ www.grants.gov; FON# 21-564

Understanding the Rules of Life–Emergent

Networks (NSF)

Scope: The National Science Foundation seeks

applications for the Understanding the Rules of Life–

Emergent Networks (URoL:EN) announcement to

understand “rules of emergence” for networks of living

systems and their environments.

Deadline: May 10, 2021.

Funds: $15 million total for up to 10 awards.

Eligibility: Colleges and universities; and nonprot

organizations.

Areas: NSF said successful projects of the URoL:EN

program are expected to use convergent approaches

that explore emergent network properties of living

systems across various levels of organizational scale

and, ultimately, contribute to understanding the rules

of life through new theories and reliable predictions

about the impact of specic environmental changes on

behaviors of complex living systems, or engineerable

interventions and technologies based on a rule of life to

address associated outcomes for societal benet.

➜ www.grants.gov; FON# 21-560

Lung Cancer Concept Award (DOD)

Scope: The Defense Department’s U.S. Army Medical

Research Acquisition Activity seeks applications for the

Lung Cancer Concept Award announcement to support

the exploration of a highly innovative new concept or

untested theory that addresses an important problem

relevant to lung cancer.

Deadline: Pre-applications are due April 6, 2021;

proposals, April 20, 2021.

Funds: $1.92 million total for up to 12 awards.

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