Phase I projects are scoping projects and are intended for teams that have a mature open-source product that is publicly accessible, with some external third-party users and/or content contributors, but that have little or no experience in building an OSE and are unsure of the needs and composition of their end-user communities. ~20 awards of up to $300K.
Phase II projects are aimed at developing an OSE. Teams applying for Phase II funding should have a mature open-source product that is publicly accessible, external third-party users, external third-party content contributors, basic mechanisms in place to enable continuous development, integration, and deployment processes that enable the product to evolve with the state-of-the art, and at least a rudimentary understanding of the needs and composition of their end-user communities. ~10 awards of up to $1.5M.
I’ve applied for 4 NSF grants to date with 1 success, so I could help with the proposal if there’s desire to pursue this.
Interesting.
How would Fortran-lang fit into these eligibility criteria?
"[…] Eligibility Information Who May Submit Proposals: Proposals may only be submitted by the following:
** Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) - Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members. Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If* the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of subawards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.
** Non-profit, non-academic organizations: Independent museums, observatories, research labs, professional societies and similar* organizations in the U.S. associated with educational or research activities.
** For-profit organizations: U.S. commercial organizations, especially small businesses with strong capabilities in scientific or engineering research or education.*
** State and Local Governments: State educational offices or organizations and local school districts.*
"[…]
Note that the call is for funding organizations that mange the open-source ecosystem:
" In some cases, an open-source product is widely adopted and forms the basis for a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem (OSE) comprises a distributed community of developers and a broad base of users across academia, industry and government. The goal of the POSE program is to fund new OSE managing organizations, each responsible for the creation and maintenance of infrastructure needed for efficient and secure operation of an OSE based around a specific open-source product or class of products."
"Importantly, the POSE program is not intended to fund the development of open-source research products, including tools and artifacts. The POSE program is also not intended to fund existing well-resourced open-source communities and ecosystems. Instead, the program aims to fund new managing organizations that catalyze community-driven development and growth of the subject OSEs. "
I think that makes us sound like perfect candidates. Fortran-lang is a (relatively) new organisation that has created a self-sustaining open-source ecosystem in the Fortran Package Manger and the projects that support and/or use it.
Regarding the 2nd paragraph that @RobertPincus quoted, Fortran-lang is very much spot-on as it does manage and provide the infrastructure for an OSE, rather than develop a research product (even though the Fortran-lang ecosystem does aid in developing research products).
But I do wonder about the 1st paragraph. A sentence that precedes it on the website is:
Many NSF-funded research projects result in publicly accessible, modifiable, and distributable open-sourced software, hardware or data platforms that catalyze further innovation.
which makes me think that POSE may be intended for creating a managed ecosystem around a specific research open-source project that doesn’t have an ecosystem or infrastructure yet. Fortran-lang is not that because it’s not centered around any specific product.
While it’s overall unclear language, we can easily get clarification from the program managers in due time. The program is brand new so I’m sure they’re still figuring out what works.