NSF Releases $120M to Fund Research in Various Scientific Fields

The National Science Foundation has announced a five-year, $120 million investment to support four new science and technology centers.

The funding will allow the STCs to support advancements in cell biology, environmental science, advanced manufacturing and other fields. The STCs will partner with national laboratories, academic institutions, industrial organizations and private and public entities. Each awardee will receive around $6 million per year and may be awarded continual funding for up to five additional years.

Funding will go to the Science and Technology Center for Quantitative Cell Biology, the New Frontiers of Sound Science and Technology Center, the Center for Complex Particle Systems and the Center for Braiding Indigenous Knowledges and Sciences, NSF said.

The NSF funding round is one of several efforts across the U.S. government to advance scientific research.

The Department of Energy recently awarded seven teams $29 million in total for fusion and plasma energy research. The teams will use the funding to research artificial intelligence, machine learning diagnostic data analysis, model extraction and reduction, plasma control and other capabilities that can be used for fusion and plasma sciences.

In February, NASA released grants worth $11.7 million in total to allow historically black colleges and universities to support data science research. HBCUs will have up to three years to set up infrastructure and partnerships to boost research and development capabilities that would also benefit NASA’s areas of interest.