International Research Network Connections  (IRNC)

PROGRAM GUIDELINES

Solicitation  09-564

Please be advised that the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) includes revised guidelines to implement the mentoring provisions of the America COMPETES Act (ACA) (Pub. L. No. 110-69, Aug. 9, 2007.) As specified in the ACA, each proposal that requests funding to support postdoctoral researchers must include a description of the mentoring activities that will be provided for such individuals. Proposals that do not comply with this requirement will be returned without review (see the PAPP Guide Part I: Grant Proposal Guide Chapter II for further information about the implementation of this new requirement).

SYNOPSIS

The United States research and education community communicates, cooperates, and collaborates with colleagues in the global community.  Members of this community access remote instruments, data, and computational resources located throughout the world, often as part of international collaborations. Similarly, major NSF investments in large-scale science and engineering facilities located both inside and outside the United States are utilized by multi-national research and education collaborations. To support such activities, NSF solicits proposals for International Research Network Connections (IRNC).

NSF expects to make a set of awards to: provide network connections linking U.S. research networks with peer networks in other parts of the world; leverage existing international network connectivity; improve the quality of end-to-end networking on international paths; explore experimental networking; stimulate the deployment and operational understanding of emerging technologies such as IPv6 in an international context. Links funded by this program are intended to support science and engineering research and education applications, and preference will be given to solutions which provide the best economy of scale and demonstrate the ability to support the largest communities of interest with the broadest services. Funded projects will assist the U.S. research and education community by enabling state-of-the-art international network services and access to increased collaboration and data services. Through extended international network connections, additional research and production network services will be enabled, complementing those currently offered or planned by domestic research networks.

This program supports international research network connections across three areas: Production network environments (IRNC:ProNet); Experimental networking activities in support of cyber-science applications (IRNC:Exp); and special projects including advanced network development, deployment, security, monitoring, and other approaches (IRNC:SP).

THIS PROGRAM IS PART OF

Opportunities that Highlight International Collaboration

Abstracts of Recent Awards Made Through This Program