Despite decades of research, scientists do not fully understand the dynamic nature of pathogen and disease emergence. Emerging (and re-emerging) pathogens represent a continuing risk to national security because they threaten health (animal, human, and ecosystem) and economic stability. Often, society falls short on the coordination and breadth of expertise needed to respond to such threats. Effective responses to emerging pathogens will require sustained, global-scale efforts of researchers and organizations. This can only be accomplished by synergistic integration of innovative scientific and technological advances across disciplines and scales, and effective knowledge transfer into practice. As part of these efforts, NSF is organizing a set of activities around the broad theme of Predictive Intelligence for Pandemic Prevention (PIPP).
The PIPP initiative focuses on foundational research and development activities needed to tackle grand challenges in infectious disease pandemics through prediction and prevention. The PIPP Phase II Centers Program expands upon the Phase I Development Grant Program and is the NSF's flagship program to establish a network of Centers or large-scale awards/investments that will support interdisciplinary team-based approaches to accelerate research and development activities in emerging infectious diseases and pandemics. The overall goal of the PIPP Phase II Centers program is to support research and development activities needed to transform society's ability to forecast the likelihood of pandemic-scale events, detect outbreaks early, and respond efficiently.
Continued advancement, enabled by sustained federal investment channeled toward issues of national importance holds the potential for further economic impact and public health improvements.
Informed by visioning activities in the scientific community as well as a previous round of development grant activities (PIPP Phase I), the program invites proposals for Centers that have a principal focus in one of the following multidisciplinary themes:
Theme 1: Pre-emergence - Predicting and detecting rare events in complex, dynamical systems
Theme 2: Data, AI/ML and Design - Computing, manufacturing and technology innovation for pandemics
Theme 3: The Host as the Universe - Identifying host-pathogen tipping points that dictate control or spread of an infection
Theme 4: Human Systems - The role of human behavior, activities and environments in disease emergence, transmission, and response or mitigation
These components directly support the NSF's strategic goals by funding cutting edge science aimed at societal challenges and opportunities that face the Nation, while concurrently working to develop a globally competitive and diverse science, engineering and technology-adept workforce.
The Directorates for Biological Sciences (BIO), Computer Information Science and Engineering (CISE), Engineering (ENG), Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE), and Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MPS) are jointly collaborating to support the PIPP Phase II activities. Involvement of and collaboration with other research communities with significant effort in related spaces, including use-inspired research is highly encouraged.
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