Funding Opportunities and Tips
NSF | DARPA | Other Grants | Fellowships | Postdoc Funding | Proposal and Highlight Tips
Please post here info about funding opportunities that are known or likely to support TCS research. Please also correct any listings that are outdated. Click here for instructions on how to make edits, including the password.
NSF Grants
- Computer and Communications Foundations (CCF). The NSF division that includes the "Algorithmic Foundations," which is the main NSF program that supports "core" TCS research (including Algorithms; Complexity and Cryptography; Computational Geometry; Computational Biology; Quantum Computing; Numeric, Symbolic, and Algebraic Computing; and Parallel and Distributed Algorithms). Upcoming proposal deadlines for 2010: September 15 (medium size); November 28 (large size); December 17 (small size). Note that deadline dates may change so be sure to check the NSF call and website.
- CAREER Award. For junior faculty.
- Interface between Computer Science and Economics & Social Sciences (NEW). A program involving algorithmic game theory, mechanism design, social networks, multi-agent systems. Deadline Oct 5, 2010.
- Trustworthy Computing. (Previously entitled "Cybertrust".) Supports a number of TCS researchers working in cryptography and other aspects of security and privacy.
- Network Science and Engineering See website "Towards a Theory of Networked Computation" about two workshops and a report on possible research directions by TCS and networking people.
- Expeditions in Computing. Meant for large teams or institutes, funded at a level of $1M-$2M/year. The Center for Computational Intractability is the result of an expeditions grant.
- Social-Computational Systems. Theorists might seek ways of modeling human and machine abilities for computation, communication, and memory/storage, and study algorithms and complexity for human-computer systems.
- Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI). The creation of this program was inspired in part by the workshops on "CS as a Lens on the Sciences" organized by TCS people. (See workshop 1, workshop 2, and the organizers' final report.)
- Mathematical Sciences: Innovations at the Interface with Computer Sciences (MSPA-MCS).
- There will be a new crosscutting program called Smart Health and Well Being which is in principle willing to support theory (e.g. privacy in the health context, or things like tomography that might be able to use computational geometry or other theory input).
Grants from DARPA
- TCTO: A new office at DARPA with interests that intersect the TCS community.
- New: BAA/RA/FAQ on Programming Computation on Encrypted Data (PROCEED) which includes mathematical foundations of homomorphic encryption and secure multiparty computation. Other current solicitations
- Planned upcoming solicitations in analysis/models/data-mining of social networks and other complex networks, privacy/autonomy, and others.
- "Office-wide" BAA for research that doesn't fit the specific solicitations. TCTO head Peter Lee also welcomes 2-page whitepapers emailed directly to him (peter.lee AT darpa.mil) on exciting new directions they should be interested in. Looking for radically new ideas.
- Good to contact program managers directly.
- Computer Science Study Group (CSSG): a program for junior faculty
- Supports 12 junior computer scientists per year and includes numerous visits/meetings to introduce researcher to DoD challenges
- "Technologies of interest" include complexity theory/TCS.
- Current program manager (June 2010): James Donlan (james.donlan AT darpa.mil)
- Deadline: October 15, 2010
- For other programs of possible interest see the websites of the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) and the Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO). If specific solicitations don't fit well, researchers can contact specific program officers (e.g. Todd Hylton and Tony Falcone in DSO) and apply for the office-wide BAA's.
Grants from Other Agencies/Sources
- Google Faculty Research Awards. Across a range of areas with 3 submission dates per year. Should have a contact at Google who knows your work.
- Office of Naval Research (ONR) Young Investigator Program. For junior faculty. FY 10 solicitation (deadline passed). Watch the ONR Broad Agency Announcements for future calls.
- John Templeton Foundation. TCS work might fit into some of the funding areas (such as Foundational Questions in the Mathematical Sciences, Quantum Physics and the Nature of Reality). Applicants should be aware that there has been some controversy concerning the foundation, described on its wikipedia page.
Fellowships
Please only post portable sources of funding here. Institution-specific ads should be posted on the Center for Computational Intractability TCS jobs website.
Postdoc Funding
Please only post portable sources of funding here. Institution-specific ads should be posted on the Center for Computational Intractability TCS jobs website.
Tips for Writing Proposals, Grant Reports, and Highlights