Partnerships for Innovation: National prosperity today is more dependent on research and technology advances and since the product development cycle in all industrial sectors is more rapid than before, NSF's role of supporting discovery research across all fields of science and engineering is closer and more relevant to economic development at this time than at any time in our past. By establishing and expanding partnerships, research from institutions of higher education can be translated into innovation. Thus, the impact of research can be increased by moving it to realistic deployment, linking new knowledge to economic growth and other societal benefits. Partnerships with participation from science, engineering, education, the private sector and government can accelerate the process of innovation--the transformation of scientific and technological advances into new products, processes, systems, and services. In turn, new jobs are produced, wealth created, and the standard of living and quality of life worldwide are improved. The NSF Partnerships for Innovation (PFI) program is an umbrella for two complementary subprograms: one of which involves an earlier stage that focuses on building innovation capacity and the other involves a later stage that focuses on the acceleration of innovative research. The former emphasizes the transformation of knowledge to market-accepted innovations created by the research and education enterprise, while the latter emphasizes the translation of research to commercialization by NSF-funded research alliances. A research alliance is defined as a research partnership formed for mutual benefit, and funded by NSF, between/amongst universities and other entities. In the final analysis, both programs, while focusing on different stages are concerned with the movement of academic research into the marketplace. http://www.nsf.gov/publications/pub_summ.jsp?ods_key=nsf12511
Deadline: Letters of Intent (required), January 4, 2012