# National Science Foundation **Domain:** Research Institutions / Science and Engineering **Doc Type:** Institution node The **U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF)** provides an explicit institutional vocabulary for [[wiki/Convergence Research|convergence research]]: disciplines integrate around a problem substantial enough to require their combined methods and expertise. Its account includes cyber-physical systems, brain research, and synthetic biology. It also describes support through grants, workshops, and cooperative agreements. [NSF framework](https://www.nsf.gov/funding/learn/research-types/learn-about-convergence-research). ## Role in the corpus NSF gives the wiki a way to distinguish disciplinary adjacency from an integrated research undertaking. For any particular case, the useful questions are what problem brings the researchers together, what they jointly develop, and how their tools or knowledge become interdependent. This is the general framework behind the reading routes through [[wiki/Research Infrastructure|Research Infrastructure]] and [[wiki/Multi-Use Inference and Control|Multi-Use Inference and Control]]. The Austin case remains organized around [[wiki/Oden Institute|Oden Institute]] and [[research/The Austin Executable Loop|The Austin Executable Loop]]. Program-specific funding belongs in the relevant institution or project entry. ## Directory and related institutions [[wiki/Recommended Institutions and Signals|Recommended Institutions and Signals]] · [[wiki/Convergence Research|Convergence Research]] · [[wiki/Oden Institute|Oden Institute]] · [[wiki/DARPA|DARPA]] · [[wiki/Santa Fe Institute|Santa Fe Institute]]