FY24 TIER 1 College Priorities and Preferences

Each college has declared their individual college priorities and preferences for FY24 TIER 1 funding. Please note that this list is not absolute, and is published to provide guidance in developing projects that align with colleges’ priorities.

Each TIER 1 team should carefully consider the college priorities for each of their PI’s college(s). 

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Individual College Priorities and Preferences:

BCHS:

1. Interdisciplinary collaborations that leverage research partnerships with NU’s global network. 
2. Identify a targeted center grant application as an explicit objective following their TIER 1 project.
3. Show potential for high impact involvement of colleagues who have not received any TIER 1 funding.
4. Along with the requirement of an internal interdisciplinary team, include external stakeholders (e.g. industry and/or community partnerships or engagement) 
5. Interdisciplinary teams comprised of researcher(s) and Bouvé clinical faculty members, catalyzing integration of basic and applied scientific discovery.
6. Interdisciplinary teams that combine health and technology, especially with regards to rural health, mental health, chronic disease, and movement/physical activity. 
7. Interdisciplinary teams in health data science, health informatics, and/or data visualization, especially forming synergies with Roux, Khoury, and OHDSI. 
8. Collaborations that leverage the EAI Institute for applying AI/ML approaches into existing research program.
9. Teams from COE that partner with Bouvé collaborators in Nursing, and/or teams from Bouvé that partner with COE collaborators in Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, or Mechanical/Industrial Engineering.

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CAMD:

CAMD will prioritize applications that accomplish at least several of the following:

• • Support junior faculty without previous Tier 1 funding
  • Offer RA positions to one or more CAMD PhD or research master’s students
  • Identify a targeted external research grant application as an objective of the Tier 1 project
  • Connect to initiatives at one of CAMD’s three research centers, and propose a framework for continued center collaboration
  • Position CAMD to connect with one or more university-wide initiatives (i.e. impact engines, institutes, etc.) in a defined and sustaining way
  • Build connections with one or more campus network partners
  • Engage with research priorities within CAMD, including but not limited to: Urban Design for Social Change; Creative Computing; Ethical AI and Creative Practice; XR and Serious Games; and/or Creative Approaches to Communicating Science, Technology and Health Data

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COE:

The college is open to all proposals that are highly responsive to the review criteria outlined in the application (an interdisciplinary team involving other colleges is required.)

Additional consideration is given to proposals with some or all of the following criteria (not listed in order of importance):

• Involves early-career faculty and/or faculty who have not received a TIER 1 in recent years. 
• Explores a new/emerging theme for the college, or is clearly responsive to national priorities.
• Teams from COE that partner with Bouvé collaborators in Nursing, and/or teams from Bouvé that partner with COE collaborators in Bioengineering, Chemical Engineering, or Mechanical/Industrial Engineering.
• Proposes a project that will occur at a campus in which research is still being established (i.e. any campus other than Boston, Burlington, Nahant or Portland).   

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COS:

COS Priorities include:

• Collaborative proposals that can seed larger, cross-college efforts
• Proposals that open fields, or where scientific leadership may be an outcome
• Proposals with broad relevance to the Environment, across departments and fields
• Topic categories include:
1. Health of Oceans, Coasts and Land
2. Sustainable Energy, Climate Change
3. Brain, Cognition, Mind and Mental Health
4. Development, Regeneration and Aging
5. Inherited or Infectious Disease, Antimicrobials
6. Omics
7. Natural and Designed Chemicals, including Green Chemistry
8. Novel Techniques and Methodologies that Open Fields
9. Data Science, Machine Learning and AI applied to Scientific Problems
10. Any Topic that can be justified by the PI

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CPS:

Innovative, use-inspired, data-driven research with measurable outcomes in the following high impact areas:

• Student learning and success
• Diversity, inclusion and equity
• Entrepreneurship
• Experiential learning

Outcomes examples:

• Positive student outcomes (increased persistence, higher graduation and job placement rates)
• Increased student and faculty representation at Northeastern and partners
• Increased access to diverse vendors within the college and university
• New models of entrepreneurship built to support historically under-represented populations
• New modes and models of experiential learning

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CSSH:

FY24 CSSH Tier 1 Priorities:

1. Include evidence of strong cross-college collaborations
2. Articulate how the work proposed relates to the university’s priorities in sustainability/health/security as well as Artificial Intelligence (AI) and/or one or more of the college’s areas of strategic focus:

       A) Resilience, Sustainability, Health, and Equity

       B) Cultural Transformations, Governance, Globalization

       C) Network Science, Digital Humanities, and Information Ethics

3. Include attention to analysis of hierarchies, intersectionality, and racism 
4. Articulate a sound plan and timeline for external funding
5. Show potential for impact on scholarly recognition and/or external communities
6. Include students in the budget, especially doctoral students in their five years of funding
7. Advance the university’s diversity, equity, inclusion, and belonging efforts
8. Include community partnerships or engagement
9. Involve newly tenured faculty and/or junior faculty proposing new or highly innovative research
10. Show potential for high impact involvement of colleagues who have not received TIER 1 funding before

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DMSB:

DMSB is interested in proposals related to our strategic priority of Digital Convergence, which we define as the integration of the physical, digital, and human resources resulting in consolidated digital and physical ecosystems (See the D’Amore-McKim 2025 plan). Humanics integrates human capabilities, technology, and data. We are interested in projects that open pathways to connecting our faculty to other colleges and expanding external funding. Junior faculty are particularly encouraged to apply.

Areas of interest include:

• Fintech and data analytics—machine learning, artificial intelligence, natural language processing, healthcare analytics, blockchains, workforce analytics, data visualization, digital marketing
• Global business—resilience, sustainable supply chains
• Entrepreneurship and innovation—technology strategy, IoT
• Future of work—diversity, inclusion, and belonging, changing nature of the workplace, building a sustainable economy, workplace mental health

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Khoury:

In addition to their scientific/intellectual merit and broader impacts, proposals will be evaluated for:

• Building on Khoury’s strong research reputation:
  • Demonstrably new area of research for CCIS faculty
  • Establishes a new interdisciplinary collaboration that crosses colleges
  • Proposes projects that are potentially transformative in nature and establish scientific leadership

• Reinforcing Khoury’s commitment to “CS for All” through:
  • Projects that expand research through the global campus network
  • Projects that demonstrate significant societal impact and establish new strategic partnerships
  • Projects that serve to increase diversity and/or decrease bias as a primary outcome
  • Projects whose funding provides significant research and leadership opportunities for women and minority students
  • Projects that conduct research in the area of CS Education

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Northeastern – London (NUL/NCH):

The priorities for NUL/NCH for AY22-23 will be:

• Digital humanities and computational social science
• The human perspective of AI: Ethics, education, misinformation, privacy, security and language
• Globalisation: Sustainability, energy, climate, SDGs, international relations, civil society and governance
• Cities: Past, present and future: Learning from London and urban hubs, global mobility and ethnicity
• Higher education: Re-inventing HE for the digital age
• Network Science: Solving problems in an interconnected world

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NUSL:

In alphabetical order:

• Artificial intelligence and cybersecurity
• Global and community sustainability
• Healthcare and policy
• Human rights
• Income inequality
• Race and criminal justice
• Systemic crisis