Geoinformatics | 23 594

Opportunity Information: Apply for 23 594

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Geoinformatics program supports the cyberinfrastructure needed to strengthen Earth Sciences research and education, with an emphasis on resources that the broader community can rely on for managing, sharing, analyzing, and reproducing scientific work. In this context, "Earth Sciences" refers specifically to the academic research communities served by NSF's Division of Earth Sciences (EAR). The program is designed to fund practical, community-serving infrastructure efforts, meaning proposals should focus on tools, platforms, services, workflows, and operational capabilities that materially improve how Earth scientists work with data, samples, software, and computing.

A central priority of the opportunity is improving the management and accessibility of Earth science research products. That includes digital data as well as physical samples and other outputs that researchers need to discover, cite, reuse, and connect across projects. Another major goal is enabling open-source software and modeling capabilities, ideally built in ways that encourage shared use of computing resources and collaborative development (for example, community codebases, shared repositories, open governance, and reusable modules rather than one-off scripts). The solicitation also highlights transparent and reproducible research and education, so projects that bake in provenance tracking, open methods, documented workflows, versioning, and reproducibility practices align well with the program's intent. Finally, NSF is looking for efforts that raise the community's capacity to use cyberinfrastructure effectively, which can include training, documentation, user support, outreach, and lowering barriers to adoption for researchers and educators.

Funding is organized into two separate tracks that reflect the maturity of the proposed cyberinfrastructure resource. The Innovative Resources track is aimed at earlier-stage efforts: developing and deploying a new CI resource, piloting capabilities, and building the initial user community around it. Projects in this track typically emphasize proving utility, establishing a clear user base, setting up sustainable technical foundations, and creating momentum through engagement and onboarding. In contrast, the Sustained Resources track is meant for established, mature CI resources that already serve the community and now need support for continued operations, maintenance, reliability, and user support. This track is less about inventing something new from scratch and more about keeping critical infrastructure healthy, responsive, and available, while continuing to meet evolving community needs.

The solicitation strongly encourages Principal Investigators to communicate with the appropriate NSF program officer before submitting a full proposal. The practical reason is to confirm that the proposed scope, goals, and budget match both the Geoinformatics program and the correct track (Innovative vs. Sustained). This is especially important because the program is specific about what kinds of cyberinfrastructure efforts it intends to support, and the most competitive proposals tend to demonstrate clear community value, appropriate scaling, and a realistic plan for delivery and long-term viability. For the Sustained Resources track there is an additional planning requirement: applicants must submit a Concept Outline at least three months before the full proposal target date, signaling that NSF expects sustained-operations proposals to be well-scoped, community-validated, and operationally grounded before a complete submission is prepared.

Administrative details from the opportunity listing include that it is an NSF discretionary grant opportunity in the science and technology research and development category, with CFDA number 47.050. The funding opportunity number is 23-594, it was created on May 24, 2023, and it listed a closing date of December 1, 2023, with an expected eight awards. The award ceiling is shown as 0 in the listing, which typically indicates that a fixed cap is not specified in that field and applicants should rely on the solicitation guidance and program officer input to determine appropriate budget ranges. Eligibility is listed broadly as "Others" with clarification expected in the solicitation text, so applicants generally need to consult the full program documentation to confirm organizational eligibility and any constraints.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Geoinformatics" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.050.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 24, 2023.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Dec 01, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for 23 594

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