Strengthening the Cyberinfrastructure Professionals Ecosystem (SCIPE) | 23 521

Opportunity Information: Apply for 23 521

Strengthening the Cyberinfrastructure Professionals Ecosystem (SCIPE) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant opportunity designed to expand and improve the national workforce of Cyberinfrastructure Professionals (CIPs), the people who make advanced research computing and data ecosystems work in practice. The program focuses on democratizing access to NSF-supported advanced cyberinfrastructure (CI) so that more researchers and educators, across more institutions and communities, can fairly and effectively use high-end computing, data, software, platforms, tools, and networks. In practical terms, SCIPE is trying to reduce the gap between communities that already have strong CI support and communities that lack the expertise or staffing needed to fully benefit from modern CI resources.

The solicitation has two central aims. First, it seeks to deepen the integration of CIPs into the broader research enterprise, meaning CIPs are not treated as peripheral technical staff but as core contributors whose expertise is essential to enabling and accelerating science and engineering research and education. Second, it supports innovative and scalable approaches to education, training, professional development, and instructional materials that address current bottlenecks and emerging needs in CIP workforce development. This includes building pathways for recruiting, training, retaining, and recognizing people in CIP roles, especially as CI technologies and research practices evolve quickly.

SCIPE treats the CI landscape as an ecosystem where platforms, tools, methods, software, data, networks, researchers, educators, and skilled CI professionals are interdependent. The program emphasizes that progress in fundamental science and engineering research increasingly depends on reliable, well-supported CI and on professionals who can invent, develop, deploy, and support it. The solicitation explicitly recognizes a broad set of CIP roles, such as CI system administrators, research support staff, research software engineers, data curators, and CI facilitators. It also notes that computational research scientists and engineers who do not follow traditional academic career paths can be part of this workforce. The larger motivation is not only scientific impact, but also strengthening US economic competitiveness and security through a more capable and widely distributed CI talent base.

A major expectation across projects is impact at the community level: proposals should clearly show they address real, essential needs and will produce resources, services, or materials that are widely available and usable by research communities. SCIPE also places strong emphasis on broadening participation, including meaningful strategies to expand opportunities for underrepresented groups and to reach institutions and communities that have historically had less access to advanced CI and expert support. The desired outcome is a scalable, agile, diverse, and sustainable national network of CIPs that increases adoption and effective use of advanced CI resources and services, catalyzes research advances, and strengthens the ability of researchers themselves to help lead the development of new CI.

The program is led by NSF's Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure (OAC) within the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), with participation from other NSF directorates and divisions. However, participation varies, and some directorates or divisions have specific priorities. Because of that, the solicitation encourages potential applicants to consult with the relevant Cognizant Program Officers (both in CISE/OAC and in any participating directorate/division aligned with the proposal). These conversations are expected to happen at least one month before submission, and the proposal should list which program officers were consulted in the required single-copy documentation. This emphasis on early coordination is meant to ensure proposals fit the program scope, align with participating units' interests, and have budgets and activities that match what SCIPE is intended to fund.

Collaboration is built into the program design. SCIPE is intended to encourage partnerships between CI expertise and science and engineering domain disciplines. If a proposal targets one or more domain divisions, it must include at least one PI or co-PI with expertise in the relevant research discipline to ensure the work is grounded in real domain needs and more likely to be adopted. At the same time, every proposal must include at least one PI or co-PI with expertise relevant to OAC, ensuring that the proposed work is appropriately connected to advanced cyberinfrastructure priorities and practices. For groups whose primary target communities fall within NSF directorates/divisions not participating in SCIPE, the solicitation advises exploring other education and workforce development programs offered by those directorates/divisions instead.

From a funding and administrative standpoint, the opportunity is an NSF discretionary grant program (Funding Opportunity Number 23-521) within NSF's broader science and technology research and development portfolio. It lists an award ceiling of up to $5,000,000. The opportunity is associated with multiple CFDA numbers (47.041, 47.049, 47.050, 47.070, 47.075, 47.076, 47.084), reflecting its crosscutting nature across NSF areas. The original closing date provided in the notice is January 16, 2025. Overall, SCIPE is best understood as a workforce-and-ecosystem investment: it is not only about building tools or running training programs in isolation, but about strengthening the people, practices, and scalable models that allow advanced CI to be used broadly and effectively to advance US research and education.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Strengthening the Cyberinfrastructure Professionals Ecosystem (SCIPE)" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.041, 47.049, 47.050, 47.070, 47.075, 47.076, 47.084.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2022-11-22.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-01-16. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $5,000,000.00 in funding.
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

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