The goal of the interagency Smart and Connected Health (SCH): Connecting Data, People and Systems program is to accelerate the development and integration of innovative computer and information science and engineering approaches to support the transformation of health and medicine. Approaches that partner technology-based solutions with biomedical and biobehavioral research are supported by multiple agencies of the federal government including the National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH). The purpose of this program is to develop next-generation multidisciplinary science that encourages existing and new research communities to focus on breakthrough ideas in a variety of areas of value to health, such as networking, pervasive computing, advanced analytics, sensor integration, privacy and security, modeling of socio-behavioral and cognitive processes and system and process modeling. Effective solutions must satisfy a multitude of constraints arising from clinical/medical needs, barriers to change, heterogeneity of data, semantic mismatch and limitations of current cyberphysical systems and an aging population. Such solutions demand multidisciplinary teams ready to address issues ranging from fundamental science and engineering to medical and public health practice.

The SCH program:

• takes a coordinated approach that balances theory with evidenced-based analysis and systematic advances with revolutionary breakthroughs;•seeks cross-disciplinary collaborative research that will lead to new fundamental insights; and
• seeks cross-disciplinary collaborative research that will lead to new fundamental insights; and
• encourages empirical validation of new concepts through research prototypes, ranging from specific components to entire systems.

The purpose of this interagency program solicitation is to support the development of technologies, analytics and models supporting next generation health and medical research through high-risk, high-reward advances in computer and information science, engineering and technology, behavior and cognition. Collaborations between academic, industry, and other organizations are strongly encouraged to establish better linkages between fundamental science, medicine and healthcare practice and technology development, deployment and use. This solicitation is aligned with national reports calling for new partnerships to facilitate major changes in health and medicine, as well as healthcare delivery and is aimed at the fundamental research to enable these changes. Realizing the promise of disruptive transformation in health, medicine and/or healthcare will require well-coordinated, multi-disciplinary approaches that draw from the computer and information sciences, engineering, social, behavioral, cognitive and economic sciences, biomedical and health research. Only Integrative proposals (INT) spanning up to 4 years with multi-disciplinary teams will be considered in response to this solicitation.

Full Proposal Deadline: December 11, 2019

Additional information can be found on the NSF SCH webpage or in the solicitation 18-541.