$26 Million ASCR funding focuses on big data movement and analysis, tools for visually exploring data and communicating results

The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has announced $26 million for research to advance scientific data management and visualization. Foundational research in data management will address challenges stemming from the increasingly massive data sets produced by scientific experiments and supercomputers. Innovative and intuitive data visualization approaches will support scientific discovery, decision-making, and communication-based on that data.

The two funding opportunity announcements—with a total of $13 million in funding each—are titled “Management and Storage of Scientific Data” and “Data Visualization for Scientific Discovery, Decision-Making, and Communication.” Both FOAs are sponsored by DOE’s Advanced Scientific Computing Research (ASCR) within the Department’s Office of Science. Both FOAs require submission of a pre-application.

• Management and Storage of Scientific Data 
  • Announcement Number: DE-FOA-0002725
  • Submission Deadline for Pre-Applications: May 5, 2022 at 5:00 p.m. ET
  • This FOA will support research to optimize the management of massive amounts of data that must be moved and reproducibly analyzed using sophisticated mathematical techniques, including machine learning, in systems that provide both speed and flexibility. Supported research will also advance innovative techniques that exploit smart storage and networking hardware that may provide breakthroughs that address the data challenges scientists and engineers face.

• Data Visualization for Scientific Discovery, Decision-Making, and Communication 
  • Announcement Number: DE FOA 0002726
  • Submission Deadline for Pre-Applications: May 10, 2022 at 11:59 p.m. ET
  • This FOA will support research in new techniques and theory needed to aid in developing informative and interactive visualization of complex scientific data of interest to DOE’s mission space—from those describing astrophysical and Earth systems to those describing advanced manufacturing processes and quantum systems.

“Making the most of the deluge of data generated by modern scientific experiments and simulations to predict and analyze experimental observations requires new capabilities in data management and visualization,” said Barbara Helland, DOE Associate Director of Science for ASCR. “Not only must the data be processed and stored at high rates across the edge, cloud, and high-performance computing environments, but we also need to develop new visualization methods to explore that data, form hypotheses, and convey conclusions to a broad spectrum of audiences.”

Applications are open to universities, national laboratories, industry, and nonprofits, with awards of up to three years selected competitively based on peer review. The FOAs can be found here.