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NSF’s Support of Engineering-Related Research and Education

The National Science Foundation (NSF) is the country’s only agency dedicated to the support of fundamental scientific research and is primarily known for this mission. However, since its founding, the NSF has also supported fundamental and applied engineering research and engineering education. This chapter provides an overview of the continual expansion and development of NSF’s engineering support, a history that is intertwined with the evolution of the NSF itself. The text begins with a high-level overview of the growth of NSF’s support for engineering research and education. It then describes the divisions and mechanisms within the foundation through which this engineering support has been provided.

The text also offers examples of the many societal benefits realized through engineering research and education, with Chapter 4 examining these benefits in greater detail. That chapter’s section on “NSF Centers/Engineering Research Centers” details the trajectory of support for engineering at NSF, demonstrating how the changes that NSF has implemented over time to better support engineering have also contributed towards the agency’s dual goals of generating knowledge and realizing broader impacts on society.³

ORIGINS OF NSF ENGINEERING RESEARCH SUPPORT

Of the $1.1 million that went to research grants in Fiscal Year (FY) 1952, which was the first year that NSF offered research funding,⁴ $311,300 was distributed through the Division of Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences, with engineering projects receiving about $42,000 (NSF, 1952; p. 44). The projects supported that year were a study of three-dimensional photoelastic techniques at Brown University, research into fundamental processes in high-voltage breakdown in vacuum at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and an examination of the mechanical behavior and structure of linear high polymers at Pennsylvania State College. That same year, 75 of the 624 graduate fellowships awarded by NSF were in engineering (NSF, 1952; p. 22).

Seventy years later, the Engineering Directorate annually distributes more than three-quarters of a billion dollars for engineering research, education, and infrastructure, with other parts of NSF also providing substantial funding for engineering-related endeavors.⁵ The result of this seven decades of support for engineering has been an outpouring of new ideas, innovative

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³ Enabling American Innovation. Engineering and the National Science Foundation (Belanger, 1998) chronicles the early history of this topic in great detail. The ERC Association (https://erc-assoc.org/) maintains an extensive online repository of materials on the Engineering Research Centers program, including an e-book on its history that was completed in 2020 (https://erc-assoc.org/content/erc-program-history-book).

⁴ The NSF was established in 1950 but did not start disseminating research support until 1952.

⁵ FY 2022 appropriations for NSF are available at https://www.nsf.gov/about/congress/119/highlights/cu22.jsp.

technologies, creative professionals, and dynamic research and educational organizations that have transformed the American economy and society. NSF’s evolution to better support funding of engineering research and education has expanded the U.S. economy, benefited human health and the environment, strengthened the nation’s security, and supported the education and professional careers of hundreds of thousands of engineers who have been able to pursue their passions while also making the world a better place.

NSF UNITS THAT HAVE SUPPORTED ENGINEERING ACTIVITIES

Support for engineering grew slowly in the 1950s under the Division of Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences established in NSF’s founding legislation. By FY 1956, the research grants budget for the division had risen to about $1.4 million, with engineering representing about $726,000 of this amount (NSF, 1956; p. 45). In the next fiscal year, in part due to heightened advocacy from the engineering community, 103 grantees received almost $4.5 million for engineering research (NSF, 1958; p. 54). Among the areas of research singled out in that year’s annual report were dynamic and impact studies on concrete beams, the mechanics of information transmission in human speech, and research on the effects of meteor-burst phenomena on the transmission of very high-frequency radio waves.

From the beginning, grants to engineering made by NSF tended not to be made in traditional categories such as civil, mechanical, electrical, chemical, or aeronautical engineering. As the 1952 annual report from the foundation stated, “the emphasis is rather on research fields common to these disciplines, such as fluid mechanics, strength of materials, corrosion, heat transfer, or thermodynamics, because the basic engineering sciences are concerned primarily with the utilization of scientific principles for the general welfare rather than the design aspects of professional engineering. Moreover, the Foundation’s program in the engineering sciences and its research support budget is being used to encourage research to fill gaps in the basic information now available to the engineer” (NSF, 1952; pp. 20–21).

NSF also supported cooperative efforts in engineering very early in its history, which would become a prominent theme of the foundation in future years. For example, a cooperative project between mechanical engineers and architects at Princeton University on the effects of a buildings’ features on heat control was recommended for funding in 1954, while a Swarthmore College project on neurophysiology combined the fields of biology and electrical engineering (Belanger, 1998). Furthermore, NSF funding of engineering research benefited engineering education as well, both indirectly through the support of engineering faculty and their research efforts and directly through the employment of engineering graduate students to conduct research.

The launch of the Sputnik satellite by the Soviet Union on October 4, 1957, changed the trajectory of engineering research and education within NSF and in the United States in general. The perception that the Soviets had surpassed the United States in critical areas of science and technology drove major increases in investments for engineering research and education. Funding for engineering research within the Division of Mathematical, Physical and Engineering Sciences went from $1.5 million to $4.2 million in one year, and the National Defense Education Act of 1958 authorized federal aid specifically to engineering education (Belanger, 1998). In addition, NSF’s involvement with the International Geophysical Year (1957–1958) and other projects involving oceanographic, atmospheric, and astronomical research included substantial engineering components. For example, the foundation made an award of $1.13 million to the

Associated Universities, Inc., for the construction of the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank, West Virginia, in 1958 which followed a previous award of $4 million to the observatory (NSF, 1959; p. 41).

The Division of Engineering

The rise of environmental awareness in the 1960s and the increased visibility of pressing national issues in such areas of urban planning, energy production, and transportation further heightened the visibility of engineering as a way of solving national problems. Reflecting the new prominence of the field, in 1964 NSF created a new Division of Engineering separate from the Division of Mathematical and Physical Sciences with a specific mandate to support engineering research and education. As the director of NSF, Leland Haworth, stated, “Today’s developments in science and technology, the demands of sociological and cultural change, and the needs of national defense require that basic research in engineering be expanded” (Belanger, 1998; pp. 64–65).

The Engineering Divisional Committee created to advise the new division, which first met the same month that the National Academy of Engineering was established, began to explore areas of engineering not previously supported by NSF, such as oceanographic engineering. NSF funding for engineering the next year went to such areas as plasma dynamics, metals processing, water behavior and management, X-ray microscopy, and holography (NSF, 1966). NSF’s growing role in various big science projects, such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Colorado and Project Mohole to study the Earth’s mantle, had important engineering components.

Interdisciplinary research continued to be a feature of NSF’s support of engineering. Grants supporting cooperative work on medical devices involved both engineers and life scientists, while projects in communication science brought together engineers, neurophysiologists, linguists, and others. A grant to a then-new department at the University of Arizona combined geology, agriculture, civil engineering, and atmospheric physics to conduct research in hydrology (NSF, 1966). The growing field of systems design and analysis, buttressed by the growing power of electronic computers, was inherently multidisciplinary and involved engineering in new areas of science and technology.

Graduate enrollments in engineering were increasing at a faster pace than in the physical, life, or social sciences, and the NSF Graduate Traineeships program established in 1964 supported more than 1,200 engineering graduate students that year, with the program later expanding to mathematics, the physical sciences, the biological sciences, and the social sciences (NSF, 1965; p. 68). Research Initiation Grants encouraged early-career faculty at smaller engineering schools to excel in research and education, a form of funding that likewise soon spread to other divisions within NSF. Specialized engineering equipment, conferences, and travel expenses also received funding.

The Research on National Needs Programs

Intensified concern in the tumultuous decade of the 1960s about national problems with links to science and technology led to further examination of how NSF could support research with greater relevance to national needs. Congressional passage of an amended charter for the National Science Foundation, which was signed into law by President Lyndon B. Johnson on July 18, 1968, provided an opportunity to further broaden NSF’s mandate. The new charter

explicitly cited the social sciences and computer development as disciplines that the Foundation could fund, gave the National Science Board an expanded role in promoting and reporting on scientific research and education, and increased funding for international research cooperation and data gathering. It also specifically sanctioned “applied scientific research relevant to national problems involving the public interest,” including engineering studies carried into “early phases of application” (Belinger, 1998; pp. 78–79).

Despite the first budget decline in its history in FY 1969, NSF instituted a new program the following year called Interdisciplinary Research Relevant to the Problems of our Society (IRRPOS). While focused only in part on engineering problems, the IRRPOS program required that proposals explicitly discuss potential societal impacts, even as the Engineering Division continued to support more fundamental engineering research. According to that year’s annual report, the IRRPOS program sought “to support interdisciplinary research needed to provide a fuller understanding of major societal problems and to develop new and improved ways to deal with them” (NSF, 1971; p. 55). IRRPOS generated some opposition both inside and outside the foundation from those who worried that it would detract from NSF’s primary mission of supporting fundamental research. But calls from policymakers, including members of Congress, the engineering community, and others for more research directed toward national problems demanded a response, and IRRPOS attracted large numbers of research proposals, particularly in the areas of the environment, urban problems, and energy.

In the early 1970s, the Research Applied to National Needs (RANN) program, which soon absorbed IRRPOS, provided another way to fund research directed toward national needs. Although the program only lasted for a few years, it achieved notable accomplishments in such areas as alternative energy sources to supplement fossil fuels, the degradation of shorelines and wetlands, the detection and effects of trace contaminants in the environment, and excavation technologies to accommodate transportation, power, water, and communications systems. As a specific example, work supported by RANN led to the development of wind deflectors for long-haul trucks, which provided fuel savings of 3 to 10 percent (Belanger, 1998; p 106). Like the IRRPOS program, the RANN program encountered resistance regarding its mission and scope, which led to its eventual dissolution. However, it was largely supported by the engineering community; for example, an ad hoc committee of the Committee on Public Engineering Policy at the National Academy of Engineering published a report in 1973, Priorities for Research Applicable to National Needs, that addressed the program’s research agenda (NAE, 1973).

The Directorate for Engineering

Following the end of the RANN program in the mid-1970s, engineering had several institutional locations at NSF for the next few years, including a reconstituted Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences and Engineering, the Applied Science and Research Applications program (which replaced RANN in 1978), and a new Directorate for Engineering and Applied Science in 1979. Then in 1981, as part of a larger reorganization of the foundation, the “applied sciences” were dropped from the name of that latter directorate, and NSF established the Directorate for Engineering. The directorate was divided into four divisions—Electrical, Computer and Systems Engineering; Chemical and Process Engineering; Civil and Environmental Engineering; and Mechanical Engineering and Applied Mechanics—along with a Problem Analysis Group. Engineering took its place as one of four directorates at the foundation at the time, with the other three covering the biological, behavioral, and social sciences; the

astronomical, atmospheric, earth, and ocean sciences; and the mathematical and physical sciences.

In FY 1981, the engineering directorate funded about 1,500 awards with a total expenditure of about $86 million (NSF, 1981). Among the engineering research topics discussed in that year’s annual report were robotics, quantum electronics, fusion energy, large-scale networks, renewable energy resources, soil erosion, a new form of welding, hazard mitigation from tsunamis, and the effects of earthquakes on structures.

The elevation of engineering’s role within NSF was in part a response to congressional hearings and proposed legislation⁶ that would have established a National Technology Foundation, independent from NSF, that would have been similarly organized and managed (Belanger, 1998; Weinschel, 1980). At the time, a major concern in science and technology policy was the international competitiveness of U.S. industry, particularly given the rapid development of the Japanese economy. The mission of the Engineering Directorate was to strengthen the technology programs of NSF while maintaining close connections between engineering research and education and related activities in the sciences. The creation of the new directorate largely satisfied congressional demands to boost the role of engineering and applied research at NSF, and the broad institutional structure for engineering established at that point remains largely intact today. As of early 2024, the Directorate for Engineering—now one of eight directorates within the Foundation—has five major divisions:⁷

1. Division of Chemical, Bioengineering, Environmental and Transport Systems (CBET)
2. Division of Civil, Mechanical and Manufacturing Innovation (CMMI)
3. Division of Electrical, Communications and Cyber Systems (ECCS)
4. Division of Engineering Education and Centers (EEC)
5. Office of Emerging Frontiers and Multidisciplinary Activities (EFMA)

Support for Engineering Research in Other Parts of NSF

The 7 other NSF directorates also support engineering research and education, either directly or indirectly. Support for and deployment of ambitious new specialized research equipment and facilities, including major facilities, often accompanies advances in engineering research and education. These include astronomical observatories such as the Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory, national centers such as the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and cooperative international programs in such areas as ocean drilling and polar research.

Three of these directorates have large engineering-related portfolios.

In 1986, NSF’s work on computer and information sciences and engineering, which had previously occurred elsewhere in the foundation, was consolidated in its own directorate as an independent administration unit. The mission of the Directorate for Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE), as stated on the foundation’s website, is “to enable the U.S. to uphold its leadership in computing, communications, and information science and engineering; promote understanding of the principles and uses of advanced computing, communications, and information systems in service to society; support advanced cyberinfrastructure that enables and

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⁶ H.R.6910 — National Technology Foundation Act of 1980; 96th Congress.

⁷ https://www.nsf.gov/dir/index.jsp?org=ENG.

accelerates discovery and innovation across all science and engineering disciplines; and contribute to universal, transparent, and affordable participation in an information-based society” (NSF, 2023b). Funding to support this mission goes both to engineering professionals engaged in research and to the training of engineering students.

The Directorate for Science and Engineering Education was established the same year as the Directorate for Engineering, though the Education Directorate was restructured the following year, and its activities were absorbed into the lower-level Office of Scientific and Engineering Personnel and Education. Support for engineering education at NSF, whether distributed through the Engineering Directorate or by another part of NSF, has historically gone to all educational levels and educational settings, including informal education settings such as science museums, educational television, and community events. A particular focus has been broadening the participation of groups that have been underrepresented in engineering by enhancing the quality of engineering education and by demonstrating the relevance of engineering to students’ concerns and passions. In 2022, the Directorate for Education and Human Resources, the eventual successor to the Directorate for Science and Engineering Education, was renamed the Directorate for STEM⁸ Education. A point of emphasis for the directorate, and particularly its Division of Equity for Excellence in STEM, is to provide support for the “missing millions” of Americans from every background and in every state who have the potential to participate in STEM education and careers.

The Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships (TIP), created in 2022, seeks to accelerate the translation of research results to the marketplace and society while cultivating new educational pathways that lead to a diverse and skilled future technical workforce. The directorate plans to work collaboratively with all of NSF’s other directorates—and with partners in government, industry, philanthropy, civil society, and communities of practice—to take advantage of expertise and resources and energize use-inspired research and innovation. Its priorities are to boost competitiveness, grow the U.S. economy, revitalize communities, and foster a diverse STEM workforce with high-wage jobs. Programs previously housed in other parts of the NSF have been moved to the new directorate, including the Innovation Corps, Partnerships for Innovation, America’s Seed Fund, and Pathways to Enable Open-Source Ecosystems (NSF, 2023a). The CHIPS and Science Act, which was signed into law in 2022 (Public Law No. 117-167), authorized⁹ $20 billion over 5 years for the TIP directorate. The bill also authorizes the NSF director to identify up to 10 key technology focus areas for the directorate, to be reviewed annually and updated as necessary.

The 4 other NSF directorates also fund some engineering-related activities. Among the Directorate for Biological Sciences’ larger current grants is one titled “Integrating engineering theory and biological measures to model stress resilience, damage, and fitness-related consequences”;¹⁰ the Directorate for Geosciences is supporting the design and construction of a research submersible;¹¹ the Directorate for Mathematical and Physical Sciences administers the Materials Research Science and Engineering Centers program,¹² a multi-university effort that facilitates fundamental and applied research and promotes education in that discipline; and the

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⁸ STEM = science, technology, engineering, and math.

⁹ An authorization establishes the ability for the government to take an action. It does not provide funding (an appropriation) for that action.

¹⁰ Award Number: 2015802.

¹¹ Award Number: 0433409.

¹² https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/materials-research-science-engineering-centers.

Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences is co-funding a study that is developing technologies that would help people with hearing impairments better manage complex sound environments like a crowded party.¹³

MECHANISMS FOR PROVIDING ENGINEERING-RELATED SUPPORT AT NSF

NSF has used a wide variety of mechanisms to support engineering research and education, which fall into several broad categories. In recent years, roughly three-quarters of the agency’s obligations for research and education programs have been distributed in the form of grants. These grants can be funded as standard awards, where funding for the full duration of the project is provided in a single fiscal year, or as continuing awards, where funding for multiyear projects is provided incrementally. Research grants generally go to the institution for use by the principal investigator for the project proposed, which may include salaries for researchers (including students), the purchase of equipment, and indirect costs retained by the institution.

The remaining one-quarter of NSF’s obligations for research and education is distributed in the form of cooperative agreements and contracts. This category of funding is typically used for projects that require substantial agency involvement, as in the case of research centers or multiuse facilities. Contracts are also used to acquire services, studies, or other products that are required for use by NSF or other parts of government.

NSF’s FY 2023 financial report estimates that the agency was directly supporting approximately 353,000 researchers, postdoctoral fellows, trainees, teachers, and students (NSF. 2023d). In addition, NSF programs indirectly affect millions of people annually through such activities as educational programs for K–12 students and their teachers, exhibits and programs at informal science institutions such as museums, and other forms of outreach such as television shows, videos, and magazines.

Engineering Research Centers and Other Centers of Excellence

A particular form of funding introduced by the Directorate for Engineering in 1984 and widely adopted elsewhere in government supports the Engineering Research Centers (ERCs), which were designed to conduct multidisciplinary, systems-oriented engineering research on problems critical to industry. ERCs engage in large-scale and long-term programs that span the gamut from transformative basic research to technology development. Their basic goals are to promote cross-disciplinary research, translate research discoveries to innovative products, strengthen the competitiveness of the United States, and firmly link research and education and prepare the next generation of leaders. They are designed to operate simultaneously on three different planes: a systems plane, an enabling technologies plane, and a fundamental knowledge plane. A successful ERC generally receives 10 years of NSF support, after which NSF expects the centers to continue to be operational and impactful. NSF funding for the ERCs has been a maximum of $4 million per year per center, with this limit recently being raised to $6 million per year (NASEM, 2023; p. 44).

Over the program’s history to date, there have been four generations of ERCs. Generation 1 (1985–1990) aimed for interdisciplinary, transformational research at a single host university

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¹³ Award Number: 2319321.

with industry engagement. Generation 2 (1994–2006) required the lead university to engage with multiple partner universities, to develop strategic plans showing the pathway from fundamental research to enabling technologies and systems integration, to increase diversity at all levels and include a minority-serving institution, and to expand the educational mission and establish outreach programs to pre-college educational institutions. Generation 3 (2008–2017) sought to transform engineering systems, develop a globally competitive and diverse engineering workforce, and provide cross-cultural, global research, and educational experiences through partnerships with foreign universities and other means. Generation 4 (2020–present), drawing from guidance issued by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, emphasizes convergent research and innovation through inclusive partnerships and workforce development (NASEM, 2017a). ERCs are meant to engage a wide range of stakeholders involved in innovation, including students, faculty, staff, leadership, industry, and end users.

As of early 2024, NSF had supported 79 ERCs. A 2022 analysis reported that, “For an NSF investment of less than $2 billion in these centers over 35+ years, the return to the Nation has been estimated at well over $75 billion in new products and processes” (NSF, 2022; p. 3). Over the program’s history, ERCs have generated more than 25,000 peer-reviewed journal publications and books, 800 patents, 1,300 licenses, 2,500 invention disclosures, 240 spinoff companies, and more than 14,000 bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees earned by ERC students (NASEM, 2023; NSF, 2023c).

The four new centers established in FY 2020 as the first cohort of the fourth-generation ERCs illustrate the program’s breadth. They are:

1. Advanced Technologies for Preservation of Biological Systems—the University of Minnesota (lead); Massachusetts General Hospital; the University of California, Berkeley; and the University of California, Riverside
2. Advancing Sustainability through Powered Infrastructure for Roadway Electrification—Utah State University (lead), Purdue University, the University of Colorado, and the University of Texas at El Paso
3. The Internet of Things for Precision Agriculture—University of Pennsylvania (lead); Purdue University; the University of California, Merced; and the University of Florida
4. Quantum Networks—University of Arizona (lead), Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Yale University.

In 2022, four additional fourth generation centers were established:

1. Advancing Sustainable and Distributed Fertilizer—Texas Tech University (lead), Case Western Reserve University, Florida A&M University, Georgia Tech, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology
2. Hybrid Autonomous Manufacturing Moving from Evolution to Revolution—The Ohio State University (lead), Case Western Reserve University, North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, Northwestern University, and the University of Tennessee, Knoxville
3. Precision Microbiome Engineering—Duke University (lead), North Carolina Agricultural and Technical State University, North Carolina State University, the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, and the University of North Carolina at Charlotte
4. Smart Streetscapes—Columbia University (lead), Florida Atlantic University, Lehman College, Rutgers University, and the University of Central Florida.

The ERCs have acted as a model for other NSF center programs, including the Science and Technology Centers, the Industry-University Cooperative Research Centers, the Earthquake ERCs, and the Nanoscale Science and Engineering Centers. A list of some prominent NSF Centers programs is contained in Table 2-1, along with the year in which they were initiated.

TABLE 2-1 NSF Centers Programs and Their Year of Initiation

SOURCE: https://nsf-gov-resources.nsf.gov/2023-03/62_fy2024.pdf.

Other Funding Programs for Engineering-Related Research and Education

The variety of programs through which funding for research and education has been distributed at NSF is too large to inventory in detail in this report. To give just one example: the Research Experience for Undergraduates program is an NSF-wide initiative that provides substantive, real-world engineering and other research experiences. Students generally apply for the program through a competitive process, seeking to spend the summer conducting work in their chosen field, whether in a laboratory or at a field site, either domestically or internationally. The experience typically runs 8–10 weeks and participants are granted stipends and may be provided with housing and travel assistance to facilitate their involvement. (NASEM, 2017; NSF, 2024)

A sense of other past and present programs most closely related to engineering endeavors can be derived from those mentioned by presenters at the committee’s 2022 symposium.¹⁴ These are briefly described in Table 2-2; a more complete list may be found on the NSF website.¹⁵

TABLE 2-2 Examples of NSF Funding Programs Related to Engineering

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¹⁴ https://www.nationalacademies.org/event/08-18-2022/symposium-on-extraordinary-engineering-impacts-on-society.

¹⁵ https://new.nsf.gov/funding.

SOURCES: https://new.nsf.gov/funding; NASEM (2023).

As with the ERCs, many of these programs, as well as other programs pioneered by NSF, have acted as models for the establishment of similar programs in other federal agencies. In this way, NSF’s programs for research and education have had a widespread influence on academia, government, industry, and nonprofit organizations.

REFERENCES

NSF. 2024. Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU). https://new.nsf.gov/funding/opportunities/research-experiences-undergraduates-reu (accessed June 1, 2024).

Weinschel, B. O. 1980. Politics of technology: Proposal: A National Engineering Foundation: Would it not help to halt the slide in U.S. productivity and its loss in share of world markets? IEEE Spectrum 17(2):58–60.