Eligibility

Principal Investigators are eligible to apply to this CRII solicitation only if all the following criteria are met as of the submission deadline. The PI should:

• Hold a primary appointment (or if applying to the CISE Office of Advanced Cyberinfrastructure, hold a full- or part-time appointment) in computer and/or information science and/or engineering, or in a related field of computational or data science (where the PI would normally submit proposals to CISE programs);
• Be untenured; and
• Be in the first three years of a tenure-track or research science or education position (or equivalent). The number of years includes any academic position held post-PhD, exclusive of postdoctoral appointments. Only official leaves of absence (for illness, family, etc.) may be subtracted from the total time in the position, as certified by the PI's department chair/head in the required letter, to be included in the Supplementary Documents section of the proposal.

In addition, as of the submission deadline, the PI may not have received any funding in the PI role from any department, agency, or institution of the federal government.

Funding Priorities

• The CRII program is part of CISE's strategy to increase its investments in the development and growth of the research capabilities of future generations of computer and information scientists and engineers, including computational and data scientists and engineers.
• It provides the opportunity for early-career researchers who do not have adequate organizational or other means of support to pursue their early-career research, including to recruit and mentor their first graduate students (or undergraduate students, in the case of faculty at undergraduate and two-year institutions).
• CRII awards will be given to researchers to undertake exploratory investigations, to acquire and test preliminary data, develop collaborations within or across research disciplines, and/or develop new algorithms, approaches, and system designs/prototypes, which together or separately may lead to improved capacity to write successful proposals submitted to other programs in the future.

Additional Information

• Only one principal investigator per proposal is allowed; co-principal investigators and senior personnel are not permitted.
• A PI may submit one proposal per annual competition.
• In addition, a Principal Investigator may not participate in more than two CRII competitions. Proposals that are not reviewed (i.e., are withdrawn before review or are returned without review) do not count toward the two-competition limit.
• The PI may not submit a CRII proposal in the same calendar year in which he/she submits a CAREER proposal. A CRII proposal submitted in the same calendar year as a CAREER proposal by the same PI will be returned without review.