Planning: DCL EPSCOR: SaTC Frontier: Conceptualization and Planning Center for Resilient by Design Software and Systems

The planning grant supports the conceptualization of a large-scale, multi-institution Center for Resilient by Design Software and Systems (RDSS). In an era where cyber threats evolve faster than our defenses, resilience—defined as a system’s ability to withstand, recover, and continue to function amid cyberattacks—has become an urgent design priority. Traditional reactive security methods have proven inadequate, as evidenced by major incidents on national critical infrastructure. There is a critical need to advance proactive, resilience-focused software and system engineering approaches that assume breach as a given. However, the field lacks validated models, empirical research, and integration of hardware/software co-design strategies that are necessary to make resilience a default property of systems. A SaTC Frontier-scale effort is essential to shift the paradigm and catalyze innovation, policy reform, and workforce development in this emerging domain. This planning grant will enable a coordinated set of activities to lay the groundwork for RDSS, including two multi-stakeholder workshops, cross-sector collaboration, research agenda setting, and the establishment of governance structures. The activities are designed to catalyze new collaborations across EPSCoR jurisdictions, engage underrepresented communities, and define mission-critical research thrusts. Through stakeholder meetings, working groups, and public dissemination, the project will identify infrastructure needs, form an advisory board, and engage federal and industrial partners. The planning period will culminate in a strategic roadmap, a shared vision, and actionable research priorities that will support a future SaTC Frontier proposal. By uniting academia, government, and industry around the goal of resilient-by-design computing, this effort aims to redefine the way we engineer software assurance—making security scalable, economical, and integral from the ground up. 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.