Bold, interdisciplinary research grants span science, engineering and education

The National Science Foundation today (July 18) announced the first set of new awards that will be given out under INSPIRE, which, when all are distributed under this fiscal year, will total about $30.4 million. Eleven awards were released today, and the total number of awards is expected to reach 40 over the next few weeks. The maximum size for an INSPIRE award this year is $1 million.

INSPIRE, which stands for Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education, was established to address some of the most complicated and pressing scientific problems that lie at the intersections of traditional disciplines.

NSF's INSPIRE awards were announced today. Thinkstock

"INSPIRE is a great example of the vital role NSF plays in supporting highly innovative research and education projects at the intersections of traditional disciplines in science and engineering," said NSF Director Subra Suresh. "Through INSPIRE and other NSF programs, I encourage our nation's scientists and engineers to submit to NSF their most innovative ideas for interdisciplinary research."

In FY12, NSF established INSPIRE to fund interdisciplinary, potentially transformative research. Once fully implemented, INSPIRE will complement other NSF efforts with a suite of new, highly innovative NSF-wide activities and funding opportunities. INSPIRE awards are co-funded between the Office of Integrative Activities and other NSF offices and directorates. INSPIRE aims to widen the pool of prospective discoveries by supporting proposals that may be viewed as falling outside of other NSF programs and funding mechanisms.

The awards made under INSPIRE include research on resorbable electronics, modeling and optimization of DNA manufacturing processes, statistical mechanics of natural climate variability, wireless sensor networks in experimental biology research, and scalable toolkit for transformative astrophysics research.

A complete list of awards made July 18 is listed here.

In FY13, INSPIRE will expand to include larger "mid-scale" research awards up to $3.0 million. This new mid-scale opportunity will provide researchers with a novel funding mechanism to consider research questions that might be beyond the scope of standard NSF programs due to funding limitations.