May 23, 2023
Dear Colleague:
The U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Department of Science and Technology (DST) of the Government of India have signed an Implementation Arrangement on research cooperation. The Implementation Arrangement provides a framework to encourage collaboration between U.S. and Indian research communities and sets out the principles by which joint activities might be supported. Through this research agency partnership, U.S. researchers may receive funding from NSF and India researchers may receive funding from DST respectively.
This NSF-DST collaborative research opportunity focuses specifically upon discoveries and innovations in areas of mutual interest that develop new knowledge in all aspects of computing, communications, and information science and engineering, advanced cyberinfrastructure, secure and trustworthy computing, and cyber-physical systems. Through a research agency partnership, NSF and DST will allow investigators from both countries to collaborate to write a single proposal that will undergo a single review process at NSF, the Coordinating Agency.
The collaborative opportunity described in this Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) remains in effect until archived.
Proposals will be accepted for collaborative research in areas within research divisions and participating NSF programs. The following programs are participating in this opportunity:
Proposals are expected to adhere to the research areas, funding limits, and grant durations for the participating NSF programs and for the DST programs from which funding is sought. As details vary by NSF program, U.S. Principal Investigators (PI) are encouraged to contact program directors of pertinent NSF programs for specific guidance.
Proposals must represent the collaborative effort describing the integrated US and India PI efforts including roles and responsibilities and means of collaboration. Eligible U.S. investigators must submit their proposal to the Small Project class of the CISE Core, CPS, and SaTC programs. The budget submitted by the U.S. investigators must be within the Small limit and will reflect U.S. research activities only. For U.S. Investigators, involvement in a joint international proposal will count towards the limit on the number of submissions, as specified in the NSF program webpage or program solicitation to which the proposal is submitted.
U.S. investigators are encouraged to submit to NSF by the target date of August 15. Subsequent target dates will be listed on the website https://www.nsf.gov/od/oise/IntlCollaborations/India.jsp. Proposals submitted late in a given U.S. fiscal year (FY) may be held over for consideration in the following FY.
