NSF CyberCorps(R) Scholarship for Service (SFS)

Cyberspace has transformed the daily lives of people. Society’s overwhelming reliance on cyberspace, however, has exposed its fragility and vulnerabilities: corporations, agencies, national infrastructure and individuals continue to suffer cyber-attacks. Achieving a truly secure cyberspace requires addressing both challenging scientific and engineering problems involving many components of a system, and vulnerabilities that stem from human behaviors and choices. Examining the fundamentals of security and privacy as a multidisciplinary subject can lead to fundamentally new ways to design, build and operate cyber systems, protect existing infrastructure, and motivate and educate individuals about cybersecurity. The Cybersecurity Enhancement Act of 2014, as amended by the National Defense Authorization Act for FY 2018, authorizes the National Science Foundation, in coordination with the Office of Personnel Management and the Department of Homeland Security, to offer a scholarship program to recruit and train the next generation of information technology professionals, industry control system security professionals and security managers to meet the needs of the cybersecurity mission for federal, state, local, and tribal governments.
 
The goals of the CyberCorps(R): Scholarship for Service (SFS) program are aligned with the U.S. National Cyber Strategy to develop a superior cybersecurity workforce. The SFS program welcomes proposals to establish or to continue scholarship programs in cybersecurity. All scholarship recipients must work after graduation for a federal, state, local, or tribal Government organization in a position related to cybersecurity for a period equal to the length of the scholarship. A proposing institution must provide clearly documented evidence of a strong existing academic program in cybersecurity. Such evidence can include designation by the National Security Agency and the Department of Homeland Security as a Center of Academic Excellence in Cyber Defense (CAE-CD), in Cyber Operations (CAE-CO) or in Research (CAE-R); or equivalent evidence documenting a strong program in cybersecurity.