We are writing to draw your attention to a newly-released, NSF solicitation, entitled Sustainable Digital Data Preservation and Access Network Partners (DataNet).  You can access the solicitation at the NSF web site:

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2007/nsf07601/nsf07601.pdf

The specific goals of this program are to support the development of a small set of full-scale exemplars of new types of digital data preservation and access organizations that: (1) combine expertise in library and archival sciences, computer, computational, and information sciences, cyberinfrastructure, and domain sciences and engineering; (2) develop models for economic and technological sustainability over multiple decades; (3) engage at the frontiers of science and engineering research and education as an information resource, an object of research, and a research entity; and (4) work cooperatively and in coordination to create a functional data network with revolutionary new capabilities for information access, use, and integration without regard to conventional barriers such as data type and format, discipline or subject area, and time and place.

Please note that an informational meeting for prospective Principal Investigators will be held 10 am to noon, Tuesday, November 6, 2007, Room 595 NSF Stafford II building, Arlington, Virginia. The informational meeting will be webcast for remote viewing and archived for delayed viewing. Details will be posted on the OCI web page (www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=OCI) or may be obtained by contacting any of the program contacts listed on this solicitation or calling the Office of Cyberinfrastructure at 703-292-8970.

Cyber-Enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI) is NSF's bold five-year initiative to create revolutionary science and engineering research outcomes made possible by innovations and advances in computational thinking.  Computational thinking is defined comprehensively to encompass computational concepts, methods, models, algorithms, and tools.   Applied in challenging science and engineering research and education contexts, computational thinking promises a profound impact on the Nation's ability to generate and apply new knowledge.  Collectively, CDI research outcomes are expected to produce paradigm shifts in our understanding of a wide range of science and engineering phenomena and socio-technical innovations that create new wealth and enhance the national quality of life. 
CDI seeks ambitious, transformative, multidisciplinary research proposals within or across the following three thematic areas:  
        *       From Data to Knowledge: enhancing human cognition and generating new knowledge from a wealth of heterogeneous digital data;
     *       Understanding Complexity in Natural, Built, and Social Systems: deriving fundamental insights on systems comprising multiple interacting elements;  and
*       Building Virtual Organizations: enhancing discovery and innovation by bringing people and resources together across institutional, geographical and cultural boundaries. 
With an emphasis on bold multidisciplinary activities that, through computational thinking, promise radical, paradigm-changing research findings, CDI is unique within NSF.  Accordingly, investigators are encouraged to come together in the development of far-reaching, high-risk science and engineering research and education agendas that capitalize on innovations in, and/or innovative use of, computational thinking.  CDI projects are expected to build upon productive intellectual partnerships involving investigators from academe, industry and/or other types of organizations, including international entities. 

Congruent with the three thematic areas, CDI projects will enable transformative discovery to identify patterns and structures in massive datasets; exploit computation as a means of achieving deeper understanding in the natural and social sciences and engineering; simulate and predict complex stochastic or chaotic systems; explore and model nature's interactions, connections, complex relations, and interdependencies, scaling from sub-particles to galactic, from subcellular to biosphere, and from the individual to the societal; train future generations of scientists and engineers to enhance and use cyber resources; and facilitate creative, cyber-enabled boundary-crossing collaborations, including those with industry and international dimensions, to advance the frontiers of science and engineering and broaden participation in STEM fields.