NSF in the Field of Computer Science

I. Introduction

    - Definition of NSF (National Science Foundation)

To encourage advanced research and education networking in the United States, the National Science Foundation (NSF) supported the National Science Foundation Network (NSFNET), a program of coordinated, developing initiatives from 1985 to 1995. The program established several backbone computer networks nationwide to support these endeavors.

- Importance of NSF in supporting research and Innovation

The U.S. National Science Foundation advances basic research across all branches of science and engineering, benefiting the country. NSF helps keep the United States a global leader in research and Innovation by offering facilities, equipment, and financing to support research and people. The NSF has a budget of $9.5 billion for fiscal year 2023, and through grants to close to 2,000 schools, universities, and institutes, money is distributed to all 50 states. The NSF issues around 11,000 new awards each year out of the more than 40,000 competitive submissions it receives. These grants fund joint research with industry, activities in the Arctic and Antarctic, and American involvement in global scientific projects.   

- Overview of the Role of NSF in computer-related research and Development

Originally built to connect academics to NSF-funded supercomputing facilities, it evolved into a significant component of the Internet backbone with further public financing and private corporate collaborations.

Until 1989, when the first commercial Internet service provider appeared, the National Science Foundation only allowed government organizations and academic institutions to utilize the network. By removing access limitations in 1991, the NSF helped the commercial ISP industry expand quickly.

    - Importance of NSF's support in advancing computer science

As a premier national provider of cyberinfrastructure, NSF coordinates the creation, acquisition, and delivery of cutting-edge advanced computing resources, tools, and services necessary for the advancement and transformation of science and engineering. In addition, NSF supports forward-thinking research and education to increase the potential of cyberinfrastructure.

II. Funding Research and Innovation

A. Grants and Funding Programs

    1. Types of grants offered by NSF for computer science research

I.The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) was established with the following four objectives: to support and provide advanced cyberinfrastructure; to promote understanding of advanced computing, communications, and information systems; and to enable the United States to maintain global leadership in computing, communications, and information science and engineering.

II. Selected  CISE and    relevant       NSF-wide    programs

ADVANCE: Increasing Women's Participation and Advancement in Academic Science and Engineering Careers. The ADVANCE program seeks to achieve three things:

1.  Systemic approaches to increasing the representation and advancement of women in academic STEM careers;
2. Creative and sustainable approaches to promoting gender equity that engage both men and women in the STEM academic workforce and
3. contributions to the body of knowledge on gender equity and the intersection of gender and other identities in STEM academic careers. Due to its emphasis on equality for STEM academic professors who instruct, teach, and mentor undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers, the ADVANCE program helps create a more diverse science and engineering workforce.

III. Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Program - CAREER:

The Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Programme is a Foundation-wide initiative that offers the National Science Foundation's most prestigious awards to early-career faculty members who have the potential to serve as academic role models in research and education and to lead advancements in their department's or organization's mission. Early-career professors should engage in pursuits that lay a strong basis for a lifetime of leadership in fusing research and instruction. All CAREER-eligible organizations are encouraged by NSF to submit CAREER proposals from early-career academics, and they are especially encouraged to do so by women, people of color, and people with disabilities.

IV. Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Research          Initiation Initiative (CRII):

It is anticipated that funds will be used to support untenured faculty or research scientists (or equivalent) in their first three years in a primary academic position following the completion of their Ph.D., but not for a total of five years after completion of their Ph.D. This is due to the importance of establishing that independence early in one's career. Regardless of the size of the grant or contract, one may not yet have received any other grants or contracts in the Principal Investigator (PI) role from any department, agency, or institution of the federal government, including from the CAREER program or any other program, post-PhD, with some exceptions noted below.

V. Facilitating Research at Primarily Undergraduate Institutions:

Research by faculty members at primarily undergraduate institutions (PUIs) is supported through the Research in Undergraduate Institutions (RUI) and Research Opportunity Awards (ROA) funding opportunities. RUI projects aid PUI academic members with their research, which promotes the convergence of research and undergraduate education, engages them in their respective professional field(s), and strengthens the capability for research at their home university. Like ROAs, PUI faculty research is sponsored. Still, ROAs frequently enable professors to serve as visiting scientists at institutions focusing on research, where they can engage with other NSF-funded researchers.

      2. Examples of notable computer science projects funded by NSF

There are various projects funded by NSF that are remarkable in the history of the evolution of technology. Some of the notable projects are listed below.

1. The Internet: NSF funding allowed for the establishment NSFNET, a high-speed network for the academic research community, in 1985. Through public-private partnerships, the network has become more accessible and user-friendly thanks to projects like Mosaic and domain names. The NSF had shut down NSFNET by 1995, making the Internet accessible to everyone.
2. Google: The Digital Library Initiative (DLI) developed a page ranking mechanism based on economic and sociological research funded by the NSF. Google, founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin in 1998, is the world's fourth most valuable publicly listed business.
3. Smartphones: NSF funded research that was crucial to the Development of numerous technologies used in cellphones, including the liquid crystal display, multi-touch screen zoom, lithium battery, and the widely used mapping software and GPS.
4. Spectrum Auctions: Businesses can broadcast over the radio thanks to spectrum licenses. The federal government raised over $100 billion for the U.S. Treasury in 1994 by selling off chunks of the telecommunications spectrum. Several nations have followed the auction method of allocating spectrum.
5. Nanotechnology: Since 1991, NSF has spent nearly $10 billion on research to identify the underlying processes underlying activity at the atomic and molecular levels. Nearly every area of daily life, from medical imaging to protective gear for first responders, may be improved with this technology.

B. History of NSF

The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) sought to establish an academic research network to make it easier for researchers to access the supercomputing centers it funded in the country after deploying the Computer Science Network (CSNET). This network offered Internet services to academic computer science departments in 1981.

NSF began providing financing for the establishment of five new supercomputing centers in 1985:

National Centre for Supercomputing Applications (NCSA) at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign John von Neumann Centre at Princeton University Cornell Theory Centre at Cornell University Pittsburgh Supercomputing Centre (PSC), a collaboration between Carnegie Mellon University, the University of Pittsburgh, and Westinghouse San Diego Supercomputer Centre (SDSC) on the campus of the University of California, San Diego (UCSD)

III. Promoting Computer Science Education

        A. NSF-funded programs to enhance computer science education

Thanks to a three-year, almost $1 million grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF), the University of Northern Iowa is doing its part to help instructors gain computer science knowledge they may pass on to their students.

The award allows Iowa instructors to complete an 18-month program with five computer science courses. An endorsement in secondary computer science is recommended to the State Board of Educational Examiners for the participating teachers after 18 months, allowing them to instruct students in grades five through twelve in computer science.

Ben Schafer, a professor at the Department of Computer Science and the program coordinator for the Computer Science Education program, stated, "We firmly believe we have a strong program."

        B. Promoting diversity and inclusion in computer science education

NSF encourages diversity and inclusion in computer science education through various programs.

From a peak of 35–40% in the middle of the 1980s to about 16%, the proportion of women earning bachelor's degrees in computer science has decreased. To aid in reversing this negative trend and restoring gender balance, Joanne McGrath Cohoon, an associate professor of Science, Technology, & Society at the University of Virginia, started working with others to reach high school computer science instructors in 2008. Cohoon and her husband, James Cohoon, developed summer seminars for high school teachers, known as Tapestry workshops, thanks to the National Science Foundation (NSF) funding. The Cohoons facilitate the workshops, presenting instructors with pedagogically sound strategies for diversifying their computer science classes and boosting the proportion of women and underrepresented groups enrolling in computer science courses. Cohoon contends that including themes that appeal to girls and boys is necessary to increase interest in computer science.

The Tapestry seminars strongly emphasize pedagogy for hiring and keeping a gender balance, which results in better teaching. A few years ago, Seth Reichelson, a Lake Brantley High School teacher in Orlando, Florida, attended his first Tapestry session. He learned how to assess student progress and improved as a teacher. He started focusing on each student's improvement as the primary objective and has had success instructing coding to middle school children, girl scouts, kindergarten pupils, and students on the autistic spectrum. He currently teaches approximately 180 students in computer science, with women making up about a third of the class.

When Melody Hagaman from Centennial High School in Las Cruces, New Mexico, first went to a Tapestry workshop, her computer science courses had 32 pupils and a "decent" gender balance. Using a method she had not even considered before the session, Joanne Cohoon started aggressively seeking out minority and female pupils. She went up to groups of students and explained the collaborative aspect of the class and the possibility of group projects to develop software and apps tailored to their interests. Over 150 pupils attended her program, with 33% of them being female. She included logic puzzles in her lessons to make them more attractive.

As a result, students now have a greater sense of ownership over their education, which has spread to other subject areas. Since the initial Tapestry workshop, over 17 workshops have been hosted at the University of Virginia and other universities. Joanne Cohoon said the NSF was crucial in creating and continuing the workshops. They contributed to the growth of an active community in this field.

C.Promoting Ethical STEM Researchers: NSF's ER2 Program

The NSF-funded program Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) supports studies to determine the conditions most conducive to the Development of moral STEM researchers and strategies for fostering such conditions across all STEM areas. Successful proposals often include a comparison component and strategies for creating interventions that increase the efficiency of the mentioned characteristics. Awards proposals from organizations that primarily support people with disabilities, women's colleges, and institutions that serve underrepresented groups are encouraged. International partnerships are also welcomed if they raise the quality of the job that is being presented. 

      D. NSF's role in fostering a skilled computer science workforce

Several top-tier research institutions in many different branches of science and engineering are supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). These centers develop relationships with businesses to provide chances for research and training in required fields, including manufacturing, natural disaster mitigation, communications, and biotechnology. Additionally, NSF provides research and Development funding for challenging and exciting computer science curricula in American schools. Additionally, NSF's National Centre for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES) oversees several initiatives to gauge workforce characteristics like STEM diversity, American competitiveness in science, engineering, technology, and R&D, as well as the state and advancement of STEM education in the country.

        E. Partnerships with educational institutions and industry to bridge the skills gap

The Division of Translational Impacts' Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) Programme gives NSF-funded researchers in all fields of science and engineering the chance to conduct technology development and translational research, spark collaborations, and hasten the commercialization of discoveries for the benefit of society.

PFI aims to carry out the directive provided by Congress in Section 102(c)(a) of the Act (Broader Impacts Review Criterion Update) by strengthening collaborations between academia and business in the United States and raising the participation of women and people from underrepresented groups in Innovation, technology translation, and entrepreneurship.

The Technology Translation (PFI-TT) track allows researchers to transform earlier NSF-funded work in any scientific or technical subject into technology inventions with bright futures in business and society.

For any NSF-funded scientific and engineering field, PFI-TT encourages commercial potential demonstration initiatives for academic research outputs.

The goals of the PFI-TT and PFI-RP tracks are to: a) commercialize new intellectual property resulting from NSF-funded research outputs; b) establish new or expanded partnerships with industry (including more corporate-sponsored research); c) license NSF-funded research outputs to other corporations or start-up businesses supported by a PFI team; and d) develop future innovators and entrepreneurs.

IV. Cybersecurity and Data Privacy

        A. Funding initiatives for cybersecurity-related project Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC)

Through the NSF Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program, the National Science Foundation (NSF) has provided research grants totaling $74.5 million to advance cybersecurity practices and technologies, support cybersecurity education and training, develop a science of cybersecurity, and translate promising cybersecurity research into practice. The invention of new technologies to comprehensively scan vast swathes of the Internet, research to better comprehend and provide dependability to emerging forms of the digital currency known as cryptocurrencies, and establishing the "science of censorship resistance" are among the most significant efforts. The SaTC prizes this year emphasize multidisciplinary research that attempts to address security and privacy and acknowledge the complicated relationships between people and technology as a critical component of cybersecurity. In addition to the prizes, 11 grants specifically target the country's workforce and educational growth requirements in cybersecurity. In addition to competitions and challenges to improve and extend cybersecurity education, these programs include cybersecurity training for hospital staff members, virtual environments where students may experiment with and learn about cybersecurity practices, and cybersecurity training for hospital personnel.

        B. Advancements in cybersecurity through NSF support

NSF plays an essential role in shaping the technological advancements in cybersecurity. Here is a list of recent advancements in the field of cybersecurity through the support of NSF.

1. Cybersecurity Policy and Governance
2. Cybersecurity Education and Workforce Development
3. Cyber-Physical Systems Security
4. Secure Software Development
5. Privacy and Data Protection
6. Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence in Cybersecurity
7. Secure Network Protocols and Infrastructure

NSF provides support to various bodies for the technological enhancement of various domains. In this era of continuous cyber threats, funding and support advancements in cybersecurity have become mandatory.

C.Role of CISE in Empowering Computing and Information  Science

The Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) is a National Science Foundation(NSF) division responsible for developing computer science and information science disciplines. It is primarily committed to fostering the field of research, education, and workforce development in computer science and information science.

The mission of the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) (DCISE) is to support advanced cyberinfrastructure that fosters and accelerates discovery and innovation across all science and engineering disciplines, promotes understanding of the principles and uses of advanced computing, communications, and information systems in service to society, and allows the United States to keep its leadership in these fields.

CISE seeks to enhance computer and information science and engineering research and education, as well as the creation and use of cyberinfrastructure (CI), and to promote broad, open, and affordable participation in a knowledge-based society. CISE supports extensive research and infrastructure projects, makes contributions to the education and training of computing and information professionals, and provides insight into the preparation of such a workforce with the goal of preparing a U.S. workforce with the computing, computational, and information skills required for success in an increasingly competitive global and digital market. Almost all of today's IT applications are based on concepts and ideas that came up as a consequence of primary computer and information research expenditures, many of which were funded by CISE.   

V. Advancing Networking and Infrastructure

        A. NSF's contributions to the Development of advanced computer networks

NSF developed the initial stage of networking. What we today call the Internet was the NSFNet days before. Credit for the NSFNet goes to NSF.

The National Science Foundation created the vast area network NSFNet to take ARPANET's role as the primary network connecting government and academic institutions. It made a significant contribution to the networking system that enabled the Internet.

        B. Impact of high-speed networking on research collaboration and data sharing

High-speed networking contributes a lot to research and our day-to-day lives. It has made remote collaboration and data sharing possible. Nowadays, it is fast as well as safe to share data through high-speed networking facilities. This flourishes the field of research.

VII. Conclusion

    - Recap of NSF's role in the field of computer science

In conclusion, NSF(National Science Foundation) has played a vital role in shaping the U.S.'s and the world's technological condition. Its contributions to computer science have made incredible advancements in shaping the digital world.

    - Acknowledgment of NSF's significant contributions to research, education, and infrastructure

NSF has always fostered Innovation and discoveries and laid the base for future developments through its commitment to research, education, and infrastructure.

Throughout the article, we have discussed some of the remarkable contributions of NSF in computer science, like the Development of the Internet, cybersecurity, supercomputers, and many more.

    - Call to recognize further and support the vital work of NSF in advancing computer science

In conclusion, this article has recognized the contributions of NSF in the field of computer science.