Connectionists: NSF Opportunity - Brain-inspired Dynamics for Engineering Energy-Efficient Circuits and Artificial Intelligence (BRAID)

[Hwang, Grace M.]

Dear Colleagues,



Please find below the latest information about the National Science Foundation's FY22/23 Emerging Frontiers in Research and Innovation (EFRI) Program topic: Brain-inspired Dynamics for Engineering Energy-Efficient Circuits and Artificial Intelligence (BRAID). This letter advertises the second and final call for applications. Due to BRAID's core requirement of theoretical expertise in brain function, we strongly encourage participation from interested members of the theoretical and computational neuroscience research communities on the Connectionists list.



BRAID supports interdisciplinary research with the aim of fostering new engineering-driven scientific approaches to the design and development of brain-inspired engineered learning systems. The recent period of growth and excitement in neuroscience has provided many new insights and ways to understand the complexity of biological learning processes. This surge of neural data, methods, and theories has emphasized the critical interplay between spatial and temporal dynamics across time scales from milliseconds to lifetimes and spatial scales from subcellular structures to macroscale brain systems. However, the sources of the unparalleled learning efficiency supported by brain mechanisms across many species have remained unclear, particularly in terms of energetic and data-sampling requirements¬. BRAID seeks to exploit these emerging advances for the design of engineered learning systems that exhibit the flexibility, robustness, and efficiency of biological intelligent systems. These biological traits may be exemplified by continual and causal learning for adaptive autonomy; abstraction and generalization for learning from few examples and identifying context-dependent strategies based on prior experience; and the energy- and data-efficiency to extend engineered learning and autonomy across the built environment.



The core hypothesis of BRAID is that the characteristic capabilities of biological learning surpass current machine learning systems in ways that can inspire innovations to meet the urgent needs of mission-critical engineering applications. Successful BRAID projects will transform innovative findings and theories from neuroscience into new frameworks that distill and apply biological learning principles to the design of engineered learning systems. These systems will include new classes of algorithms, circuits, networks, and neuromorphic devices. In formulating a response to BRAID, please consider your potential projects in the context of neuroscience, at any level of computational function of brain-body systems or implementations in neural mechanisms. The inclusion of theoretical neuroscience expertise is mandatory in each proposal.



Any BRAID proposal submitted in response to the EFRI solicitation must address at least two of the following three threads:

*  Thread 1: Theoretical Neuroscience

*  Thread 2: Brain-informed Hardware Design

*  Thread 3: Algorithmic Learning for Resilient Adaptive Technologies

While responses to all three threads are encouraged, note that response to Thread 1 is mandatory. Project summaries must explicitly state which threads the proposed project addresses.



Please read the full solicitation (21-615) at https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2021/nsf21615/nsf21615.htm.



Webinar recordings are available at https://www.nsf.gov/eng/efma/webinars/efri.jsp.



Webinar slides are available at https://www.nsf.gov/attachments/303513/public/EFRI-FY22-webinar-slides.pdf.



A Letter of Intent is due by September 12, 2022. Preliminary Proposal is due by October 13, 2022. If invited, a Full Proposal will be due by February 7, 2023.



To receive feedback on your ideas, please send a one-page whitepaper (or any questions) to ghwang at nsf.gov<mailto:ghwang at nsf.gov> or braid at nsf.gov<mailto:braid at nsf.gov>.



Grace M. Hwang, Ph.D.

Program Director

Disability and Rehabilitation Engineering (DARE) Program

Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental, and Transport Systems Division (CBET)

Rehab at NSF: https://nsf.gov/eng/rehab.jsp

Brain-inspired Dynamics for Engineering Energy-Efficient Circuits and Artificial Intelligence (BRAID)

Neural and Cognitive Systems (NCS)



Directorate for Engineering (ENG)

National Science Foundation (NSF)

2415 Eisenhower Ave, Alexandria, VA 22314

ghwang at nsf.gov<mailto:ghwang at nsf.gov>


P.S.  Foreign Organizations - NSF rarely provides direct funding support to foreign organizations. NSF may consider proposals for cooperative projects involving U.S. and foreign organizations, provided NSF support is requested only for the U.S. portion of the collaborative effort. Preliminary inquiry must be made by the US PI by sending an email to the appropriate Program Director (PD) that explains the unique capability of the foreign organization. If permission is granted, a written statement from the cognizant NSF PD must be submitted as part of the preliminary proposal submission.


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