[NVO News] NSF Program Solicitation: Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation

[Sarah Emery Bunn]

VO community members may benefit from knowing about a new NSF program 
called Software Infrastructure for Sustained Innovation (SI2) 
(http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2010/nsf10551/nsf10551.htm).

The program is part of a bigger NSF cyberinfrastructure effort called 
CF21 to "foster a pervasive cyberinfrastructure that enables research at 
unprecedented scales, complexity, resolution, and accuracy by 
integrating computation, data, and experiments in novel ways." Unlike 
most NSF funding programs that require new research discoveries, SI2 
funds groups that "will create and deploy robust software elements for 
which there is a demonstrated need, encapsulating innovation in science 
and engineering" and efforts to develop a "common software 
infrastructure, and will result in a sustainable community software 
framework".

This could be an opportunity to develop applications and tools based on 
and complementary to the Virtual Observatory infrastructure. Letters of 
Intent are due May 10 (1 month from now) and full proposals are due by 
June 14.