Cyber Security Information Assurance (CSIA)

CSIA focuses on research and development to prevent, resist, detect, respond to, and/or recover from actions that compromise or threaten to compromise the availability, integrity, or confidentiality of computer- and network-based systems. These systems provide both the basic infrastructure and advanced communications in every sector of the economy, including critical infrastructures such as power grids, emergency communications systems, financial systems, and air-traffic-control networks. These systems also support national defense, national and homeland security, and other vital Federal missions, and themselves constitute critical elements of the IT infrastructure. Broad areas of concern include Internet and network security; confidentiality, availability, and integrity of information and computer-based systems; new approaches to achieving hardware and software security; testing and assessment of computer-based systems security; and reconstitution and recovery of computer-based systems and data.

Human Computer Interaction and Information Management (HCI & IM)

HCI&IM focuses on information interaction, integration, and management research to develop and measure the performance of new technologies (e.g., robotic, multimodal), agents, cognitive systems, and information systems that support the hierarchy and refinement of data from discovery to decision and action by both humans and computers working together and separately. HCI&IM capabilities support U.S. national priorities such as leading-edge scientific research, national defense, homeland security, economic competitiveness, emergency planning and response, education and training, health care, space exploration, weather forecasting, and climate prediction.

High Confidence Software and Systems (HCSS)

HCSS R&D supports development of scientific foundations and technologies for innovative systems design, systems and embedded application software, and assurance and verification to enable the routine production of reliable, robust, safe, scalable, secure, stable, and certifiably dependable IT-centric physical and engineered systems comprising new classes of advanced services and applications. These systems, often embedded in larger physical and IT systems, are essential for the operation of the country's critical societal infrastructures, acceleration of U.S. capability in industrial competitiveness, and optimization of citizens' quality of life.

High End Computing (HEC)

Infrastructure and Applications (HEC I&A)
HEC I&A agencies coordinate Federal activities to provide advanced computing systems, applications software, data management, and HEC R&D infrastructure to meet agency mission needs and to keep the United States at the forefront of 21st century science, engineering, and technology. HEC capabilities enable researchers in academia, Federal laboratories, and industry to model and simulate complex processes in biology, chemistry, climate and weather, environmental sciences, materials science, nanoscale science and technology, physics, and other areas to address Federal agency mission needs.

High End Computing Research and Development (HEC R&D)
HEC R&D agencies conduct and coordinate hardware and software R&D to enable the effective use of high-end systems to meet Federal agency mission needs, to address many of society's most challenging problems, and to strengthen the Nation's leadership in science, engineering, and technology. Research areas of interest include hardware (e.g., microarchitecture, memory subsystems, interconnect, packaging, I/O, and storage), software (e.g., operating systems, languages and compilers, development environments, algorithms), and systems technology (e.g., system architecture, programming models).

Large Scale Networking (LSN)

LSN members coordinate Federal agency networking R&D in leading-edge networking technologies, services, and enhanced performance, including programs in new network architectures, optical network testbeds, network security, infrastructure, middleware, end-to-end performance measurement, and advanced network components; grid and collaboration networking tools and services; and engineering, management, and use of large-scale networks for scientific and applications R&D. The results of this coordinated R&D, once deployed, can help assure that the next generation of the Internet will be scalable, trustworthy, and flexible.

Software Design and Productivity (SDP)

SDP R&D will lead to fundamental advances in concepts, methods, techniques, and tools for software design, development, and maintenance that can address the widening gap between the needs of Federal agencies and society for usable, dependable software-based systems and the ability to produce them in a timely, predictable, and cost-effective manner. The SDP R&D agenda spans both the engineering components of software creation (e.g., development environments, component technologies, languages, tools, system software) and the business side of software management (e.g., project management, schedule estimation and prediction, testing, document management systems) across diverse domains that include sensor networks, embedded systems, autonomous software, and highly complex, interconnected systems of systems.