Appendix A to NSB-03-25
NSB-03-23
February 6, 2003
Approved on February 6, 2003
Modern and effective research and education infrastructure is critical to maintaining US leadership in science and engineering. Among federal agencies, NSF is a leader providing the academic community with access to a diverse set of forefront instrumentation, platforms, and facilities across the spectrum of science and engineering. Advances in information technology are making possible ever-new kinds of tools and distributed systems. Rapidly changing technologies, expanding research opportunities, and an increasing number of users call for continuous investment in infrastructure and for implementation using best practices suitable for the scale of each project.
Infrastructure procurement and construction costs range from the thousands, to hundreds and thousands, to tens and hundreds of millions of dollars. To span this broad scope and carry out its infrastructure tasks responsibly, the Foundation will normally fund through the MREFC account infrastructure projects submitted by directorates that exceed 10% of the sponsoring directorate’s budget in the year that the project is proposed by the Foundation, and will fund through the R&RA account infrastructure projects whose estimated costs are below that level.