Collaborative Research: Conference: 2023 Workshop for Aspiring PIs in Secure and Trusted Cyberspace

This project funds a 1.5 day workshop to support researchers who aspire to be principal investigators (PIs) on NSF’s Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) grants. The goal of the workshop is to provide mentorship and guidance to aspiring PIs for writing proposals, which might be either their first attempt or a declined proposal who needs work prior resubmission. The workshop’s novelties are a focus on developing comprehensive research plans, through one-on-one meetings with mentors, participating in mock panels, and developing an executive summary that can be developed into a full proposal submitted to SaTC. The workshop’s broader significance and importance are that many researchers with quality research programs may lack support in developing critical proposal writing and presentation skills that end up excluding them from funding opportunities. In addition to supporting aspiring PIs, the workshop will broaden participation in the SaTC program by seeking participants with diverse backgrounds in multiple dimensions. These include but are not limited to those from small and large organizations; R1, R2 and liberal arts schools; researchers interested in the CORE, as well as the EDU and TTP programs of SaTC; researchers engaged with the breadth of cybersecurity, from hardware, software, privacy, human factors; and aspiring PIs from traditionally underrepresented groups in computing. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.