NSF Materials Science Programs Halted, Suspended

In a restructuring of its materials science portfolio, NSF is shutting down one materials program and suspending two others. The International Materials Institutes program, which has brought U.S. researchers together with their international colleagues since 2002, will be shuttered. The agency is also temporarily suspending the Materials World Network (MWN) and the Computational & Data-Driven Materials Research (CDMR) awards. In a letter to colleagues late last month, Mary Galvin, director of the Division of Materials Research, said the agency is changing the frequency of the MWN competition from every year to every other year, which means there will be no awards in 2014. The nine-year-old MWN promotes collaboration between NSF and funding agencies in the Americas, Europe, Asia, and Africa. CDMR, which is only one year old, will be merged into the larger Condensed Matter & Materials Theory program. These programs are only a small part of NSF’s materials science work and don’t directly affect the Materials Genome Initiative (see page 25).