This document has been archived. For current NSF funding opportunities, see http://www.nsf.gov/funding/browse_all_funding.jsp

The Directorate for Engineering (ENG) supports engineering research and education in a competitive environment that emphasizes innovation, creativity, and excellence. This support benefits the Nation by creating the human resources and knowledge that spur technological innovation and economic growth in an increasingly swift, complex, and interconnected world. A significant portion of ENG’s funds is invested in investigator-initiated research. Although the research supported by ENG is fundamental in nature, much of it is focused on societal needs. Over the long term, ENG investments contribute to innovation that enables the creation of valuable new products and services and new and more productive enterprises that enhance the Nation’s future economic strength, security, and quality of life.

ENG’s investment and partnerships with academe, federal agencies, and private industry as well as collaboration with other National Science Foundation (NSF) directorates in the emerging technologies of microsystems and nanotechnology, information technology, and biotechnology enable significant advances in health care, manufacturing, education, and the service industry. For example, awards made by the Grant Opportunities for Academic Liaison with Industry (GOALI) Program, which receives strong ENG support, bring university and industry collaborators together at the conceptual phase of a research and education endeavor. Strengthening these intellectual connections increases the value of engineering education and fundamental research to the private sector and opens exciting new areas of research.

Overall, NSF provides about 36 percent of the total Federal support for fundamental engineering research at universities and colleges in the United States.

The Directorate for Engineering supports programs and activities through the following:

• Crosscutting Programs and Activities
• Division of Bioengineering and Environmental Systems (BES)
• Division of Chemical and Transport Systems (CTS)
• Division of Civil and Mechanical Systems (CMS)
• Division of Design, Manufacture, and Industrial Innovation (DMII)
• Division of Electrical and Communications Systems (ECS)
• Division of Engineering Education and Centers (EEC)