Networking Technology and Systems | Apply Online

Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS) NSF/NICT Collaboration - FAQs

What is the Networking Technology and Systems (NeTS) grant opportunity?

NeTS is a National Science Foundation (NSF) program within the Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS) that supports research intended to push networking and Internet technology beyond incremental improvements. The emphasis is on transformative, fundamental advances, including stronger abstractions, new design methods, improved analysis techniques, and better measurement tools for next-generation high-performance networks and future Internet architectures.

What is the main goal of this NeTS solicitation?

The solicitation targets foundational research that improves how researchers understand and engineer computer and network systems at scale, especially as networks become extremely large and complex. It focuses on advances that help predict, analyze, and validate system behavior under real-world scale and heterogeneity, rather than making small, step-by-step optimizations.

Which NSF organization runs this opportunity?

The program is operated by NSF within the Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) directorate, specifically in the Division of Computer and Network Systems (CNS).

What is distinctive about this specific solicitation compared with a typical NSF call?

A central feature is coordinated U.S.-Japan collaboration. NSF runs the call in parallel with a matching solicitation from Japan's National Institute of Information and Communications Technology (NICT). Proposals submitted to NSF must be built around a genuine joint research plan with Japanese collaborators.

How does the NSF/NICT collaboration work in terms of funding?

Funding is not pooled into a single shared budget. The U.S. team requests support from NSF, and the Japanese team requests support separately from NICT. Both sides describe aligned technical goals and coordinated work plans, but each agency funds its own country's participants through its own process.

Do proposals to NSF need Japanese collaborators?

Yes. Based on the solicitation description, proposals submitted to NSF under this coordinated call must be built around a joint research plan with Japanese counterparts, aligned with the parallel NICT solicitation.

What kinds of research does NeTS prioritize?

The opportunity prioritizes transformative, fundamental research aimed at future Internet architectures and high-performance networks, especially research that helps address scale-driven challenges and yields new methods to design, analyze, and measure networks and networked systems.

Why does the solicitation emphasize extremely large scale (for example, "trillions" of connected objects)?

The solicitation frames a future where networks must support environments containing "trillions" of connected devices and data objects. At that scale, conventional architectures and management approaches may not hold up, creating new technical pressures and motivating new foundational ideas.

What are the main research challenge areas highlighted in this opportunity?

The solicitation highlights three broad areas where new ideas are expected to be most needed: (1) Network Design and Modeling for extremely dynamic and heterogeneous networks, (2) Mobility as a norm in device-dense environments, and (3) Optical Networking for higher speed and capacity with energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

What is included under the Network Design and Modeling area?

This area targets challenges in understanding and engineering networks as they become more diverse and more dynamic. It emphasizes design and modeling questions at scale, including how components interact, how to reason about emergent behavior, and how to build tools and frameworks to design, analyze, and validate networks more reliably under real-world complexity (e.g., different link types, protocols, applications, administrative domains, and rapid changes in traffic or topology).

What kinds of problems is the Mobility area trying to address?

The Mobility area focuses on environments where movement is the norm across people, sensors, vehicles, and embedded systems, including IoT and cyber-physical systems. The solicitation calls out issues such as security, control, provisioning, naming, discovery, and fast mobility, especially when identities and locations change frequently and when massive numbers of devices must be found, authenticated, and served with minimal latency and disruption.

What does the solicitation mean by "fast mobility" and why does it matter?

Within the solicitation's framing, "fast mobility" refers to the need for networks and services to handle frequent and rapid changes in attachment and location without causing long delays or disruptions. This becomes more difficult as device counts grow and as naming, discovery, and security must keep pace with constant movement.

What is the focus of the Optical Networking area?

Optical Networking emphasizes novel approaches to sustain high-speed, high-capacity networking while improving energy efficiency. Optical technologies underpin backbone and data center connectivity, and the solicitation seeks advances that increase throughput while also addressing power consumption and broader environmental constraints.

Why is sustainability explicitly mentioned for optical networking research?

The solicitation indicates that scaling capacity without addressing energy cost is not viable long term. As demand grows dramatically, solutions are expected to improve capacity and speed while also considering energy efficiency and environmental sustainability.

Does a project have to fit all three technical areas?

The opportunity description emphasizes alignment to one or more of the three areas (Network Design and Modeling, Mobility, Optical Networking). Successful projects would clearly map their contributions to at least one emphasized area and demonstrate strong technical novelty.

What is the Funding Opportunity Number for this solicitation?

The Funding Opportunity Number is 13-574.

What is the CFDA number associated with this NSF opportunity?

The opportunity is under the NSF Computer and Information Science and Engineering CFDA 47.070.

What type of grant opportunity is this?

It is described as a discretionary grant opportunity.

Who is eligible to apply to NSF under this solicitation?

Eligibility is limited to U.S. academic institutions: accredited U.S. universities and colleges, including two-year and four-year institutions and community colleges, submitting on behalf of their faculty members.

Is cost sharing or matching required?

No. The solicitation states there is no cost sharing or matching requirement.

How many awards were anticipated and what was the estimated total funding level?

NSF anticipated making around 8 awards, with an estimated total funding level of $2,000,000.

What was the full proposal deadline listed for the solicitation?

The original full proposal deadline listed was October 9, 2013. The opportunity was archived in November 2013.

Is this an active opportunity or an archived one?

Based on the provided information, it was a time-bound call from that period and was archived in November 2013.

What makes a proposal competitive under this solicitation, based on the description?

The description indicates that strong proposals would combine deep technical novelty with credible joint execution between U.S. and Japanese teams, and they would clearly align their research contributions to one or more of the three emphasized technical areas focused on networking at extreme scale.