Leading Engineering for America's Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure

Program Description The LEAP HI program supports ambitious fundamental research projects that align with one or more CMMI core research areas and demonstrate significant potential for long-term impact on America's prosperity, health, and/or infrastructure. LEAP HI supports projects that are unsuitable for smaller teams or shorter project durations and do not have opportunities to apply for grants of similar size and duration in other, more topically-focused NSF solicitations. Integral to every LEAP HI project is an element that communicates to the public the leadership role of engineering in addressing critical societal needs and the excitement of being involved in that pursuit. Research The LEAP HI program is intended to produce results leading to disruptive technologies and methods that lay the foundation for new and strengthened industries, enable notable improvements in quality of life, or re-imagine and revitalize the built environment. A compelling research problem that critically involves one or more CMMI core topics must lie at the heart of a LEAP HI proposal and the integration of novel methods, questions, and knowledge from outside CMMI core disciplines is strongly encouraged. CMMI core topics may be determined from current CMMI core program descriptions, or by consulting with a CMMI Program Director. The LEAP HI program is not intended to support technology translation, although proposers are encouraged to strongly involve potential users in the definition, conduct and evaluation of the research program to ensure that the project outcomes are well-suited to eventual translation to implementation. Prosperity, Health, and Infrastructure LEAP HI proposals must motivate and explain the expected long-term societal impact of the proposed project, particularly in the areas of economic competitiveness, quality of life, public health, or essential infrastructure. LEAP HI proposals should demonstrate strong familiarity with current knowledge and practice, define the knowledge gaps that currently impede progress, and justify a set of interrelated research goals and associated strategies that can plausibly produce breakthrough results that can advance the state of understanding to the threshold of interest of a potential user community. This requires a justification that no fundamental obstacles to eventual implementation are considered to be out of scope of the proposed project. Teams and Timelines The LEAP HI program is meant for projects requiring a sustained, coordinated effort by teams of researchers with diverse and complementary expertise, including integration of expertise beyond that described in CMMI core program descriptions. LEAP HI proposals must therefore clearly demonstrate that a successful outcome requires the coordinated efforts of all the participants and, furthermore, must establish that the outcomes will be greater than and cannot be achieved by a collection of smaller, independently-funded research projects. In order to encourage coordinated and complementary efforts, LEAP HI proposals must be submitted by a single institution, with other participating faculty and institutions included as sub-awardees (refer to PAPPG Chapter II.D.3.a). LEAP HI proposals should demonstrate the need for persistent effort, and the long-term value of building an extensive knowledge base and developing researchers with deep subject matter expertise. In recognition of the importance of sustained, coordinated effort, LEAP HI proposals must include a Supplementary Document detailing the investigator's Research Integration Plan and its timeline, as outlined in section V.A. of this solicitation. In recognition of the importance of comprehensive project management in support of this activity, a dedicated and experienced Project Manager may be proposed as Senior Personnel, at the discretion of the PI. If no Project Manager is proposed the PI will assume the usual project management responsibility. The roles of the Project Manager include coordination of the execution of the tasks detailed in the Project Description and Research Integration Plan, including tracking progress of project thrusts, facilitating coordination of interdependent thrusts, formulation of alternative strategies when needed, allocation of project resources and oversight of data maintenance and sharing. If a Project Manager is proposed, the Project Manager's activities in the project must be described in the Research Integration Plan and the experience, credentials and time commitment of the Project Manager will be evaluated during the proposal review process. If the PI assumes the project management role, the Research Integration Plan should describe the methods that will be used to ensure effective project execution. Engineering Leadership The engineering research community has a unique and central role in solving many of the critical challenges facing society that is under-appreciated by our broader society. The LEAP HI program calls upon engineering researchers to assume a leadership role in communicating the excitement of engineering research to the broader community, and particularly young people who are unaware of the rewards of pursuing an engineering career. To this end, each LEAP HI proposal must include a plan for close collaboration with the proposing institution's communications office in communicating the triumphs and setbacks of the project in addressing critical quality-of-life issues throughout the duration of the project. The goal is to give a series of snapshots of the challenging and interesting puzzles that engineering research solves, in addition to the usual press releases that trumpet successes at the project conclusion. That plan must be included in a section titled "Engineering Leadership Plan" in the body of the project description.