Dear Colleague Letter: SaTC EAGERs Enabling New Collaborations Between Computer and Social Scientists

Colleagues,

I am working with the Office of Research, Innovation and Economic Development (ORIED) to put together a meeting to discuss this very interesting opportunity for collaborations between social scientists and computer scientists. The NSF's EAGER mechanism is designed to fund "high risk, high payoff" projects that, among other things, "engage novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives." Collaborations between social scientists and computer scientists are bearing significant fruit throughout academe, and NCSU is well positioned to contribute to this emerging research.

ORIED, working with me, will convene a "getting to know you" and "match-making" meeting in mid-January to facilitate forming teams that will write two-page statements of interest to the NSF, as described in the Dear Colleague letter that follows. But if you are already collaborating with computer scientists on projects of interest to NSF, please feel free to start forming teams and let me know if you have done so, so that CHASS and ORIED can help with the process. (For what it's worth, I know the Division Director for SES in the SBE directorate, so can put you in touch if that helps.)

The direct link to the Dear Colleague letter is here; the full letter follows after the jump.

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14016/nsf14016.jsp

NSF 14-016 Dear Colleague Letter: SaTC EAGERs Enabling New Collaborations Between Computer and Social Scientists November 22, 2013 The National Science Foundation is announcing its intentions to build upon the success of previous Early Concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGERs) in the area supported by the Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) program (see solicitation 13-578: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2013/nsf13578/nsf13578.htm) and to accept additional EAGER proposals that encourage novel interdisciplinary research resulting from new collaborations between one or more Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) researchers and one or more Social, Behavioral and Economic Science (SBE) researchers. (Research teams with a history of collaborating together should instead submit directly to the SaTC solicitation.) The proposed research should fit both the Trustworthy Computing (TWC) and the Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) Sciences perspectives within the SaTC solicitation. Below are some examples of the types of topics that computer and social and behavioral scientists could conceivably study together under such an EAGER project. This list is by no means intended to be complete, nor is it meant to suggest what topics are of interest to the NSF. Instead, it is meant to give some notion of the broad spectrum of possibilities for such research. The respective role of social and computer scientists under different topics may vary from fully interdisciplinary involvement of both, which would be ideal, to varying degrees of mutual consultation and resource provision. Incentive, communication, and profitability mechanisms of attackers. Modeling and experimentation to identify the strengths and weaknesses of incentive mechanisms for enhancing security, particularly in realistic cyber-contexts. Methods, including automated methods, for detecting deception or adverse intentions relevant to attacks on cyberinfrastructure. Social network analysis and other methods of detecting malware propagation, for instance via social media Socio-technical solutions to reduce end-user risk exposure, such as crowdsourcing. Research to ascertain the tradeoffs between security and privacy and how better mixtures of these could be found or negotiated. Methods, including automated methods, to train, incentivize, or nudge end-users to improve their cybersecurity position. The impact of norms and other factors on promoting good citizenship with respect to cyberspace. End-user motivating factors that allow successful security invasion tactics and countermeasures. Cyber-security insurance: obstacles and solutions. The privacy needs of end-users and organizations and how these constrain or do not constrain cybersecurity efforts. Motivators and indicators of insider threat and countermeasures to such threat among end-users, user communities, national and international communities, and so forth. Factors behind susceptibility of subpopulations to cybercrime e.g., youth, the elderly and countermeasures. The impact of trust and institutional design on cybersecurity decisions. Incentives and motivators for cybersecurity in firms and other organizations. International norms, rules of engagement, and escalation dynamics of cyber-attacks and cyber-warfare. Systemic and structural factors that promote or undermine a secure cyberspace. The above topics could involve an array of social science fields, including, but not limited to: economics, sociology, psychology, political science, science of organization (organizational research/management science), communication research, education research, linguistics, and anthropology. The subfields that may be relevant are many, and can include such areas as behavioral economics, behavioral decision theory, behavioral game theory, game theory, political psychology, social network analysis and theory, social psychology, cognitive psychology, online communication research, and criminology. Two rounds of submissions are anticipated, with approximately 4 to 5 EAGERs to be awarded during each round, subject to the availability of funds. The process for submission is as follows: Investigators should e-mail a two-page summary of their research idea(s) (plus references and CVs on additional pages, if desired) to jepstein@nsf.gov. The deadline for consideration in the first round is March 1, 2014; the deadline for consideration in the second round is May 1, 2014. There is no specified format for these summaries, but a brief statement of any prior collaboration between the proposing PIs should be included. NSF Program Directors will review the two-page summaries, and will invite those of most interest to submit EAGER proposals. Notifications for first-round submissions are expected by April 1, 2014, and for second-round submissions by June 1, 2014. The anticipated deadlines for submission of invited EAGER proposals are May 1, 2014, and July 1, 2014 for the first and second rounds, respectively. Submission of EAGER proposals will be via Fastlane or Grants.gov. EAGER submissions should follow the NSF's Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) II.D.2 (seehttp://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=gpg). Additionally, they must indicate that the collaboration is new and should clarify how the proposed collaboration will take place. (As noted in the GPG, EAGER is a funding mechanism for supporting exploratory work in its early stages on untested, but potentially transformative, research ideas or approaches. This work may be considered especially “high risk high payoff,” for example, in the sense that it involves radically different approaches, applies new expertise, or engages novel disciplinary or interdisciplinary perspectives.) Investigators are encouraged to review the abstracts of projects funded under the previous Dear Colleague Letter (http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2013/nsf13037/nsf13037.jsp) to understand representative topics and approaches that may be of interest to NSF1. An investigator may be included in only one submission in response to this DCL; if more than one is submitted, only the first one submitted will be considered. Submission in response to the previous Dear Colleague Letter does not preclude submission in response to this DCL. For further information, please contact the cognizant SaTC program directors at satc@nsf.gov. Sincerely, Keith Marzullo Division Director, CISE/CNS Jeryl Mumpower Division Director, SBE/SES 1See award nos. 1343141, 1343528, 1343430, 1343433, 1343453, 1343766, 1347075, 1347113, 1347151, and 1347186 in the NSF award database (http://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch).