Convergence Accelerator Call for ideas for FY21
Now is the time to reach out to your communities to have them go to this link https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/2021RFI to submit a short concept for the 2021 NSF Convergence Accelerator tracks. Although not required, those submitting an idea are strongly encouraged to immediately submit a workshop proposal (up to $100k) to further develop their concept and start to build their team and engage stakeholders. Topics must be big, bold, involve a spectrum of distinctly different disciplines (hence convergent) and stakeholders (e.g., citizen groups, the private sector, non-traditional NSF proponents), and be able to deliver important and major results/techniques/products that have significant impact to the nation and/or society within two years.
If a team's topic is selected, in 2021 there will be a call for Phase I proposals for up to $1M and 9 months to further build the team and engage stakeholders to co-design the topic and outcomes and deliverables, and present a plan for how this group would interact with other teams funded on the same topic to further converge on solutions and far reaching results. If successful in obtaining a Phase II award, PIs will get up to $5M for 2 years to deliver on their promise.
Time is short. The deadline for submissions of ideas and companion workshop proposals has been extended to May 29. Not all ideas or workshops will be chosen. Although not required, the most competitive ideas will link to one or more of the White House R&D funding priorities for 2021 (https://www.cossa.org/2019/09/03/white-house-outlines-fy-2021-rd-budget-priorities/), NSF's Big Ideas (https://www.nsf.gov/news/special_reports/big_ideas/) or themes in the White House's Industries of the Future document.
If you have any questions, please contact Barbara Ransom at bransom@nsf.gov or call 703-292-7792 and leave a message and she will call back and/or arrange a ZOOM meeting.
