Creating Visions for Computing Research: An Open Call for Proposals
The Computing Community Consortium (CCC) invites proposals for visioning activities that will catalyze and enable innovative research at the frontiers of computing. Our visioning activities articulate new research visions, galvanize community interest in those visions, mobilize support for those visions from the computing research community, government leaders, and funding agencies, and encourage broader segments of society to participate in computing research and education. See our list of recent Workshops.
What is Visioning?
Visioning is the process of nucleation, crystallization, and broadening awareness of computing research goals that are 5, 10, 20, or more years into the future. Once we accept a proposal (nucleation), we then sponsor and plan a visioning activity (crystallization), to inform a visioning report that is circulated to the computing research community (broadening), as well as additional activities with agencies, policymakers, etc., as appropriate. Through visioning activities, CCC works with community members to bring together a diverse group of people to speak openly about the challenges the field is facing around a topic or area, and what concrete progress could look like in that domain.
Nucleation, the first step in the visioning process, is the formulation of a potential vision by a small number of people. That person or group identifies a problem that needs fixing (e.g., the prevalence of health disparities in society) or a technology trend that presents challenges we do not know how to meet (e.g., the gap between what quantum computers might be able to do and how we currently build and program them), as well as a community or technology poised to solve it. If you are ready to submit a visioning proposal, you are probably in this stage. Once you submit a proposal, CCC and its network will help you refine your ideas and plans, for example by broadening or narrowing the scope of a potential Workshop, suggesting potential Workshop participants, recommending visioning modalities, or identifying related work.
Crystallization sharpens a vision through community participation, clarification of ideas regarding the topic, and formulation of concrete research directions to overcome the associated challenges. While this will typically take the form of a Workshop, there are other ways in which CCC can help move your ideas forward, such as Roundtables or white papers; please contact us if you have thoughts or questions about this.
Broadening, the final visioning step focuses on the dissemination of your ideas and recommendations to the computing research community, policymakers, funding agencies, and the general public. To make this happen, the activity will need to produce timely, tangible content—in the form of a visioning report—as well as assist in spreading the Workshop’s key ideas in other forms (e.g., white papers for policymakers, presentations at conferences, participation in a Congressional briefing, creation of a guest blog post for the CCC, social media posts, etc.). CCC staff can help you understand and follow up on the appropriate options.
Types of Visioning Activities Supported
Workshops
Workshops are visioning activities that occur over 2 days and are typically in person. The Workshop has an agenda that can include inspiring presentations, brainstorming sessions, panel sessions, guided group discussions, and discussion report-out and writing sessions. Workshop participants can be invited and/or selected from an open call for participation. Typically a Workshop will have up to 50 participants. Participant diversity is essential for visioning, including factors such as identity, research culture, research discipline, geographic location, organization type, and stage of career. The expected outcome of a Workshop is a report on the discussions and findings.
Workshops take approximately 6 months to plan and carry out, followed by 1-5 months to write the report. Workshops are evaluated for impact on the participants with pre- and post-roundtable surveys.
Roundtable Discussions
Roundtable Discussions (“Roundtables”) are visioning activities that occur in one or a series of virtual meetings. Roundtables are typically 1 or 1.5 hours long, invite-only conversations with a small group (typically 2-6) of external experts and organizers/moderators. Often CCC will run a series (3-6) of Roundtables on a similar topic to obtain more input and diversify participation while keeping the number of people at each discussion small. The Roundtable Discussion is guided by a set of questions, similar to a focus group or semi-structured interview. Questions and topics are prepared in advance; however, as long as computing research visioning remains central to the discussion, the discussions evolve in response to the thoughts and expertise of the participants
As a visioning activity, Roundtables are typically a lower time commitment for organizers, as compared to Workshops. The expected output of a Roundtable includes a whitepaper, best practice document, or a proposal for a Workshop. Roundtable discussions are evaluated for impact on the participants with pre- and post-roundtable surveys.
Please review the Best Practices document for Workshops and Roundtable Discussions.
Call For Proposals
CCC has an open call for proposals for an activity (or activities) that define a research direction and/or to create and grow a community to address a research challenge. The purpose of CCC visioning activities is to bring the relevant disciplinary communities together to articulate new research visions that respond to research challenges. CCC will provide feedback during the proposal review process to guide you toward a successful visioning activity. See examples of successful proposals here.
CCC provides administrative and financial support for visioning activities. The organizers from the research community are expected to bring together a diverse group of scientists and practitioners who can inform the area of interest and formulate a program that encourages new ideas, innovative thinking, and broad discussion. CCC-supported visioning activities are expected to have tangible outputs to share with the community beginning with a standalone visioning report or whitepaper. CCC and CRA staff support the planning and logistics of the activities, travel, hotel, meeting room, and food costs for the duration of the activity if in person. CCC staff provide support for running and scheduling organizing meetings, communications, evaluation, and report writing. CCC does not provide salary support for the organizers or participants.
Preparing a Visioning Proposal
Getting started in planning a visioning activity proposal can take many forms. A small group of people might have an idea and want to engage a larger community to create a vision for a new research agenda that broadens the scope of the topic and creates community interest in it. A group of researchers may wish to re-energize a community by organizing a Workshop, or a series of Workshops, to create a roadmap for the field. An interdisciplinary group may want to bring multiple communities together to catalyze a wholly new research area. In all cases, the proposing group is expected to have the research expertise, visibility, and leadership skills necessary to make the proposed effort a success.
Letter of Intent (LOI)
The optional first step is the submission of a short LOI (no more than one page in length) that briefly addresses the key points listed below. Submit the LOI to cccrfp@cra.org. CCC will provide feedback for use in preparing a full proposal.
- Topic: Describe the visioning topic area and its current state of development within the field. Identify the different perspectives that can inform the visioning activity.
- Activities: Explain the rationale for the proposed activities (Workshop, Roundtable, a series of activities). If your proposal describes more than one activity, be sure to demonstrate the differences between the activities, the rationale for more than one activity, and the mechanisms to coordinate across activities.
- Outcomes: Describe the outcomes in terms of written reports, potential impact on participants, potential impact on the research community, and potential impact on funding opportunities. Describe how those outcomes can be used to advance the visioning topic area. When defining outcomes, note that we seek activities that create visions for broad research agendas, not proposals whose primary purpose is to secure future funding for the participants.
Full Proposal
The full proposal elaborates on the Topic, Activities, and Outcomes from the LOI based on the feedback from CCC, and includes additional content: Organizing Committee, Initial List of Participants, Potential Dates, and Location, as described below. The length of the full project proposal should be commensurate with the scope of the proposed activities, but not longer than six (6) pages. Submit the Full Proposal to cccrfp@cra.org.
- Organizing Committee: Include the name, institution, perspective, and biosketch for each member of the organizing committee. We prefer that organizers come from different institutions and bring different perspectives.
- Initial list of participants: Provide a list of potential invitees and plans to ensure diversity. When preparing the list of invitees consider representation from universities, national labs, industry, policy, and funding organizations.
- Potential Dates and Location: If the organizers want to hold the event(s) in a specific location or set of dates, provide that information and the rationale.
When developing a proposal, keep the following in mind:
- This is a proposal for an activity (or activities) to define a direction or to create and grow a community. This is not a research proposal, nor a proposal to assemble a group to write a research proposal.
- Be sure to have a plan to engage a diverse community: diverse with respect to discipline (both within and outside of computing as appropriate), age, gender, ethnicity, institution, and intellectual approaches within the field and in adjacent fields.
- A problem is not enough. There should be a clear case for why there is currently an opportunity for progress in the area and some idea (though, of course, not definitive) of how we might be able to achieve that progress.
- Regarding outcomes: Think about and share what it would take for a federal agency to develop a program around the direction you’re proposing or a place (e.g.CISE Directorate within NSF) where this new research area could be housed.
Planning for the Visioning Activity
Once your visioning proposal has been approved, a CCC Council member will be appointed to act as your liaison, to facilitate communication and ensure that activities are progressing as planned. It is best if this liaison is included in the Organizing Committee. A CCC Program Associate will also be assigned to your Workshop, and they will assist with scheduling meetings, taking notes during the Workshop, organizing calls, providing guidance as needed, etc. The CCC Evaluator will meet with you to refine your list of outcomes and create an evaluation plan. The CCC Communications Associate will meet with you to define and carry out a communications strategy. The CCC Director is another resource throughout the process.
Below is a list of the tasks required for each visioning activity. The timing of these tasks depends on the type, duration, and number of activities.
| What | Who |
| Decide on a set of candidate dates and locations. | Organizing Committee |
| Finalize dates, location, and secure hotel if running a Workshop. | CCC |
| Finalize the invitation list and get approval from the CCC Visioning Proposal Committee. Send invitations and/or post an open call for participation. | Organizing Committee & CCC |
| Meet with the CCC Evaluator to define priorities for outcomes. | Organizing Committee & CCC |
| Meet with the CCC Communications Associate to discuss communications strategy. | Organizing Committee & CCC |
| Create website | CCC |
| Create Workshop agenda or questions for Roundtable discussions. | Organizing Committee |
| Carry out the Workshop or Roundtable discussion(s). | Organizing Committee & CCC |
| Write the report. | Organizing Committee & CCC |
