The following is a letter to the community from James Kurose, Assistant Director, and Erwin Gianchandani, Deputy Assistant Director, of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Directorate of Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE). 

Dear Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) Community,

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is once again open for business, operating under a three-week continuing resolution (CR) through February 15, 2019, following the 35-day lapse in appropriations (lapse) that began December 22, 2018, and concluded this past Friday.  Many people have been impacted by the lapse, both personally and professionally, including our own NSF staff as well as all of you – our broader community.  Unfortunately, the lapse resulted in numerous missed panels, a backlog of proposal actions, and delays on several other fronts as well.  Consequently, as we resume operations today, across the Foundation, we face a significant backlog of personnel, programmatic, review, facility, budgetary, and oversight actions, with additional impending deadlines.

We call your attention to the NSF home page (www.nsf.gov), where you’ll find a message from NSF Director France Córdova regarding the lapse, as well as a document outlining guidance for the NSF proposer and awardee community.  In this guidance document, you’ll find information about proposal preparation and submission; changes to existing proposal due dates (note that several solicitations led by the CISE directorate are impacted); updates regarding proposal review processes, including panels that were missed or are scheduled in the coming weeks; and post-award information.

It will certainly take some time until we are able to work through the backlog of items and activities needing attention, and much longer before we are able to return to a sense of “business as usual.”  We are establishing priorities that will enable us to focus on the most critical activities first, particularly in light of the time-limited, three-week CR.  We ask that you please review the guidance document and other material posted on the NSF website, and hope that these will answer many of the questions that you might have.  If you still have questions, we and our colleagues in CISE are here to address items that are not in the posted guidance – but also ask for your patience and understanding as we re-boot with more than a month of backlogged activities.

Throughout the lapse, many have noted the critical role that NSF, and the science and engineering community that we serve, play in “promot[ing] the progress of science; …advanc[ing] the national health, prosperity, and welfare; and secur[ing] the national defense…” – our mission as stated in the 1950 NSF Act that established the agency.  We return to work today inspired, as always, by this mission and the importance of our collective activities to the Nation, and look forward to working with you all again in the times ahead.

Best,

Jim and Erwin

Jim Kurose, Assistant Director (AD) of NSF for CISE
Erwin Gianchandani, Deputy AD of NSF for CISE