Strengthening American Infrastructure (SAI)

Overview

People rely on critical infrastructure to support and enable almost everything they do. Transportation, water, power, information technology, ecosystems, education, healthcare and emergency response systems all depend on infrastructure. Businesses rely on critical infrastructure to ensure their security, protect their assets and communicate with suppliers and customers. Cities, towns and rural and tribal areas rely on extensive networks of built and civic infrastructure. And scientific progress depends on a substantial research ecosystem infrastructure, including advanced technologies and instrumentation. Strong, effective infrastructure stimulates innovation and job growth and enables discovery and generation of new knowledge. It also provides safety and security, improves quality of life and facilitates community welfare for all people for many years into the future. Utilizing a socio-ecological framework in the development of sustainable, resilient and equitable infrastructure can help address many urban and climatic challenges.

Many infrastructure projects entail extensive planning and large initial costs. Those substantial investments are worthwhile to the extent they provide long-term benefit and meet the needs of all people for a range of functions. Building such effective infrastructure requires deep understanding of economic and social dynamics and the perceptions and choices of many diverse individuals and communities. Whether involving transportation, energy, broadband, water, security, health, education, communication or other essential services, infrastructure design that puts people and social welfare first is more likely to gain public support, function more effectively and serve more people.

The large costs and potentially large benefits of infrastructure investments mean that it is essential for those who build or maintain infrastructure to understand and incorporate relevant human and social factors in the earliest stages of design. For example, transportation infrastructure to support automated vehicles will require advanced knowledge of economic and social structural influences on people's transportation needs and choices, as well as human perceptual and cognitive responses in a wide range of critical decision-making and task-switching scenarios. Infrastructure developed to expand economic opportunity is likely to be more effective if it builds on recent evidence concerning human social biases, as well as discoveries regarding how social structures affect opportunity across groups. Infrastructure designed to increase the speed and effectiveness of disaster response will work more effectively if its design is informed by the often complex cultural and human trust contingencies and differences in group access to response resources. Healthcare and other public infrastructure that relies on the provision of fast and accurate information will be more effective when built from a knowledge base that includes the dynamics of how people process information and how cognitive processing changes under stress. How people interact with built and natural environments is critical to understanding consequences of and design choices for large-scale infrastructure projects such as highways, dams, levees, or managed ecosystems such as watersheds, forests, and fisheries.

NSF seeks to build research capacity that can address these and many other challenging infrastructure contexts that require a human- and social-centered research approach. This solicitation offers support for research. projects that will bring together experts from one or more of the social, behavioral and economic (SBE) science disciplines with experts across other scientific and engineering disciplines to support substantial and potentially pathbreaking fundamental research that will help to strengthen American infrastructure.

Submitted projects must be grounded in user-centered concepts and offer the potential to substantially improve, strengthen and transform the design, development, use, deployment, cost-effectiveness, sustainability and maintenance of American infrastructure. The social, behavioral and economic sciences bring substantial expertise and insight to the design and implementation of infrastructure, including basic understanding of barriers to equitable participation, uneven societal impacts, open access to information and data, health disparities, and other human and societal dimensions that interact with the needs for and benefits provided by infrastructure. Proposals must bring deep expertise in at least one SBE disciplinary program area, and provide details on how such SBE disciplinary expertise and leadership will contribute to strengthening American infrastructure.

Proposals must also bring relevant expertise in the focal infrastructure, which is likely to be in one or more research areas represented in the programs supported by the NSF Office of Integrated Activities (OIA) or the other participating NSF directorates: Biological Sciences (BIO) Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) STEM Education (EDU) Engineering (ENG) Geosciences (GEO) Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP) Proposals must describe how this diverse expertise will be integrated and applied to the specific infrastructure that is the focus of the proposed research. Successful proposals will demonstrate an interdisciplinary and convergent approach beyond that of any single NSF program, division or directorate and will seek to advance both the SBE fields as well as the partnering fields in which they are based.

For the purpose of this solicitation, the focal infrastructure of the proposed research may be of any kind, including physical, cyber, biological, technological, social, economic or educational. However, the proposal must identify a specific, focal and well-defined infrastructure. Proposals must exhibit and build on a deep understanding of at least one SBE science relevant to the design, development or sustainability of the focal infrastructure. These sciences may include those of human cognition, perception, information processing, decision-making processes, social and cultural behavior, legal frameworks, governmental structures and other areas of SBE science supported in the disciplinary programs of the SBE directorate.

An individual may appear as PI, co-PI, senior personnel or consultant on only one proposal submitted in response to this solicitation. This eligibility constraint will be strictly enforced. In the event an individual exceeds this limit, the first proposal received prior to the deadline will be accepted and the remainder will be returned without review.

SAI research awards will provide support for a period of up to three years and with a total overall (three-year) budget not exceeding $750,000.