Themed and Emerging Area Grants

 

CRPO is set to initiate the CRPO Grant Call – Grand Challenge to back the advancement of cyber technologies and innovation addressing tangible issues with transparency and accountability. The goal is to generate national benefits for Singapore.

The CRPO Grant Call is a competitive funding initiative aimed at fostering research projects that push the boundaries of cyber technologies within Singapore-based Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs)1, Research Institutes (RIs)2, and Industry Partners3. We enthusiastically invite proposals from diverse and collaborative teams, including academics, researchers, scientists, engineers, domain experts, and other professionals, to contribute to the advancement of cutting-edge cyber technology science.

Themed and Emerging Areas Grants: This pillar aims to foster innovative research addressing major industrial and societal challenges, aligning with national strategic goals. These initiatives support and enhance government programs like the Smart Nation initiative. Innovative methodologies and systems to address fundamental and emerging cyber security problems. We expect the research efforts from these projects to contribute to the establishment of a trustworthy smart nation for Singapore. The Themed and Emerging Area Grants are long gestation projects that still have industry relevance and are highly strategic to Singapore challenges. The themes revolve around in multiple ways, including urgent demand from industry or government agencies and new promising cyber security directions. We list a couple of sample grant calls that could be undertaken by this program, focusing on the security of AI systems, network systems, cryptographic systems, hardware systems, and autonomous systems.

1.1. Aligned with the aforementioned goals and directions, this grant call will concentrate on cybersecurity research.

1.2. Themed and Emerging Areas Grants: This pillar aims to foster innovative research addressing major industrial and societal challenges, aligning with national strategic goals. These initiatives support and enhance government programs like the Smart Nation initiative. Innovative methodologies and systems to address fundamental and emerging cyber security problems. We expect the research efforts from these projects to contribute to the establishment of a trustworthy smart nation for Singapore. The Themed and Emerging Area Grants are long gestation projects that still have industry relevance and are highly strategic to Singapore challenges. The themes revolve around in multiple ways, including urgent demand from industry or government agencies and new promising cyber security directions. We list a couple of sample grant calls that could be undertaken by this program, focusing on the security of AI systems, network systems, cryptographic systems, hardware systems, and autonomous systems.

1.3. The proposed opportunities and focus areas shall include and not limited to:

1.3.1. Building trustworthy and robust AI systems

1.3.1.1.       Building knowledge about the inherent vulnerabilities of AI systems

1.3.1.2.       Developing solutions to enhance the security, privacy and robustness of AI systems

1.3.2. Enhancing the security of network systems

1.3.2.1.       Designing defense solutions for various network systems and environments

1.3.2.2.       Cyber-crime defense and forensics

1.3.3. Designing privacy-preserving computing systems

1.3.3.1.       Privacy-preserving computing and machine learning in real-world computing applications

1.3.3.2.       Artificial intelligence for Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) in emerging computing paradigms

1.3.4. Secure autonomous unmanned systems

1.3.4.1.       Anomaly detection and mitigation in an autonomous unmanned system

1.3.4.2.       Security testing for autonomous unmanned systems

1.3.5. Improving hardware architecture for security and privacy

1.3.5.1.       Secure hardware processor architectures and implementations

1.3.5.2.       Hardware-enhanced computation for emerging applications and systems

1.4. The grant applicants are responsible for defining the proposed research, problem scope, technical approach, and potential impacts of the proposal. Additionally, proposals must explicitly address the following key points:

  • Alignment of the proposal with CRPO's objectives and direction.
  • Explanation of the novelty of the research and the significant research challenge it aims to address.
  • Clarification of potential industry applications or impact.
  • Presentation of the translation plan.
  • Explanation of the relevance of the research to Singapore.

2.1. CRPO intends to unveil four (4) Themed and Emerging Area Grants aimed at soliciting innovative approaches to enhance the cybersecurity landscape of both Singapore and the global community. The initiative seeks breakthrough research ideas that can propel advancements in cybersecurity technologies. Each challenge offers funding of up to Singapore Dollars one million five hundred thousand (SGD$1,500,000) for a selected grant applicant, supporting a duration of 1.5 to 2.5 years for each project.

2.2. The grant calls will be released as CRPO Summer Grant Call and CRPO Winter Grant Call. The first call is set to release sometime in July 2024. Please look at Section 6 for the planned timeline of Themed and Emerging Area Grants.

2.3. The proposal shall be based on a realistic budget with appropriate justifications that correspond to the scope of work to be accomplished.

2.4. The corresponding budget requested includes 30% Indirect Research Costs (IRC).

2.5. The total cost of each project includes all approved direct costs [4] and indirect research costs/overheads[5]. All expenditure budgeted should be inclusive of any applicable Goods and Services Taxes (GST) at the prevailing rates.

2.6. For all direct cost items proposed for the project, please refer to Annex C – Guidelines for the Management of CRPO Grants, including the list of “Non-Fundable Direct Costs” and note the following:

• Host Institutions must strictly comply with their own procurement practices.
• Host Institutions must ensure that all cost items are reasonable and are incurred under formally established, consistently applied policies and prevailing practices of the host institution.
• All items/services/manpower purchased/engaged must be necessary for the R&D work.

2.7. Research Scholarships are not eligible for support under the CRPO Grant Call.

2.8. Funds awarded cannot be used to support overseas R&D activities. All funding awarded must be used to carry out the research activities in Singapore only.

References

[4] Direct costs are defined as the incremental cost required to execute the project. This excludes in-kind contributions, existing equipment and the cost of existing manpower as well as building cost. Supportable direct costs can be classified into expenditure on manpower (EOM), expenditure on equipment (EQP), other operating expenses (OOE) and overseas travel (OT).

[5] Indirect costs are expenses incurred by the research activity in the form of space, support personnel, administrative and facilities expenses, depending on the host institution’s prevailing policy. Host institutions will be responsible for administering and managing the support provided by CRPO for the indirect costs of research, if any.

 


3.1.  The grant call is open to researchers from all Singapore-based Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs), Research Institutes (RIs) and Industry Partners[6].

3.2. At the point of application, the Principal Investigator (PI) must hold a full- time[7] appointment in one of the eligible institutions. The PI must be a subject matter expert in the proposed domain, with strong record of publications in the proposed domain’s conferences and journals.

3.3. Lead PI must be from the IHLs or the RIs and the Co-PI can be from the Industry Partners.

3.4. If applicable, Co-PIs must hold a full-time appointment in one of the eligible institutions at the point of application. At least one of the Co-PIs must be a subject matter expert in the proposed domain. For industry partner, the Co-PIs must hold full-time appointments at the company.

3.5. Researchers from Medical Institutions[8], Singapore based companies and Singapore based Start-ups, private sector, and other entities are eligible to apply as Collaborators.

3.6. Company collaboration(s) with in-kind contributions is encouraged, but not compulsory.

3.7. The team must have the right skills and experience to deliver the project and demonstrate sufficient engagement with stakeholders to scope the proposal.

3.8. The overseas collaborators and/or visiting experts may be invited to Singapore on short term engagements to assist with specific project tasks. In this arrangement, the costs of airfare, accommodation and per diem can be budgeted under the other operating expenses of the project.

3.9. Only research conducted in Singapore may be funded under CRPO Grant Call - Themed and Emerging area. Please refer to Annex B – Terms and Conditions of CRPO Grant.

3.10. Lead PI and Co-PIs should note that parallel submissions are not allowed – i.e., applicants must never send similar versions or part(s) of the current proposal application to other agencies or grants for funding (or vice versa). The
proposals should not be funded, or currently considered for funding, by other agencies. Details of all grants currently held or being applied for by the Lead PI and Co-PIs in related areas of research must be declared in Annex A - CRPO Grant Call Proposal Template.

 

References

[6] National University of Singapore (NUS), Nanyang Technological University (NTU), Singapore Management University (SMU), Singapore University of Technology and Design (SUTD), Singapore Institute of Technology (SIT), Singapore University of Social Sciences (SUSS), A*STAR Research Institutes, Singapore based companies and Singapore based Start-ups.

[7] Defined as at least 9 months of service a year based in Singapore or 75% appointment.

[8] Researchers from Medical Institutions in Singapore who hold at least 25% joint appointment in a Singapore-based IHL and/or A*STAR RI may apply as Lead PI or Co-PI. If awarded, the grant will be hosted in the IHL / A*STAR RI.

 


4.1. Full proposals are to be submitted using the Proposal Template for CRPO Research Call in Annex A and must also adequately address the pointers stated therein.

4.2. Full proposals will be reviewed by the Evaluation Committee, based on the quality of the proposals in the key aspects listed in Section 2 as well as the following:

  •   Past research accomplishments of the PI, Co-PI and any collaborators
  •   Project management plan

4.3. An illustration of the application, review and selection process is shown below:

Review and Selection Process

4.4. The review will be carried out by the CRPO Evaluation Committee but based on reviews of the proposals solicited from local and overseas experts.

4.5. The review process is expected to take approximately 8 weeks. All decisions are final with no right of appeals.

4.6. The example summer timeline[9] for Themed and Emerging area CRPO Grant Call is shown below:

Themed and Emerging area CRPO Grant Call

4.7. Please note that respective IHLs’ or RIs’ internal deadline for full proposal submission may differ. However, all proposals selected and endorsed by the Host Institutions must be submitted via email to [email protected] according to the above timeline.

4.8. CRPO reserves the right to reject late or incomplete submission, and submissions that do not comply with application instructions.

References

[9] Timeline is subject to change and based on CRPO decisions.


5.1. One Lead-PI from Singapore-based Institutes of Higher Learning (IHLs) and Research Institutes (RIs) to conduct fundamental research.

5.2. One industry Co-PI from Singapore-based companies or startup to identify and translate IPs with commercial potential.

5.3. Potential customer collaborators who are willing to adopt the developed security solutions and provide requirement feedback.

5.4. An illustration of the team structure and the collaboration between the teams is shown below:

the team structure and the collaboration