The National Science Foundation both supports research across all scientific and engineering disciplines and stimulates partnerships among universities, industry and government to leverage the federal investment. Equally important, the Foundation assists in educating the engineers and scientists whose high-level skills are necessary for turning ideas into reality and keeping the nation globally competitive. Consequently, the Foundation is an important national resource whose activities must be sustained, especially in tight budget circumstances. In our view, the networking and systems improvements that will come from this effort will not only create new research opportunities in all areas of engineering and science, but have the capacity to improve significantly the way we work, learn and use computers. We also are pleased that the Foundation plans to expand its graduate traineeship program to encompass interdisciplinary work in education and research, including awards directed at the new KDI initiative.
Engineering is a field of study and practice most commonly associated with application activities.
However, there is another stage of engineering that is less visible, but serves as the basis upon which applications can take place. This stage, basic engineering research is the investigation of the systems and processes of the natural and constructed world. It is largely performed in the nation's universities. NSF provides one-third of the total federal support of basic engineering research at academic institutions. Learning and Intelligence Systems.