NASA Heomd Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation – Engineering Living Systems Solicitation
The National Science Foundation (NSF) recently released a new solicitation topic as part of its FY22 Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Program, entitled, Engineering Living Systems (ELiS). The EFRI-ELiS topic will support transdisciplinary research to advance the design, modeling, fabrication, and manufacturing of engineered living systems to address societal needs as well as the associated ethical, legal, and social implications of using living systems as building blocks and components for next-generation sustainable engineering. More specifically, ELiS will seed and catalyze transformative and convergence research with the goal of creating living systems for sustainable engineering with a focus on three national/societal needs: Thread 1) a sustainable built environment, Thread 2) monitoring and surveillance for a safe built environment, and Thread 3) biomining for sustainable metal extraction and resource recovery. ELiS will also contribute to the development of the basic science and engineering knowledge needed to advance the respective missions of our Federal Partner Agencies including 1) NASA’s goals for sustainable space exploration and 2) the Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA)’s goals for the development and deployment of enabling capabilities to understand the built environment, threats, and vulnerabilities.
Each proposal submitted in response to this topic of the EFRI solicitation is required to address one of the three research threads and each of the foundational research components listed below:
· Foundational Research:1) design and/or modeling, 2) fabrication and/or manufacturing, and 3) ethical, legal, and social implications.
· Research Thread 1: Sustainable Built Environment
· Research Thread 2: Monitoring and Surveillance for a Safe Built Environment
· Research Thread 3: Biomining for Sustainable Metal Extraction and Resource Recovery
The Emerging Frontiers and Multidisciplinary Activities (EFMA) Office will host an informational webinar on October 15, 2021, at 2 PM EDT, to discuss the EFRI program and answer questions about the FY 2022/23 solicitation. To register for this webinar, go to this link: https://nsf.zoomgov.com/
The full solicitation (21-615) can be found at https://beta.nsf.gov/funding/
