TLA+ Foundation Grant Program Call for Proposals
The 2024 TLA+ Foundation Grant Program is aimed at advancing the state of the art in the TLA+ specification and fostering the experience of using TLA+ in research and industry. Depending on the scope of proposed work, grants may range from USD$1000 to USD$100,000. Applicants who receive grants are expected to complete their work within one year, though exceptions may be made on a case-by-case basis.
Researchers as well as practitioners are welcome to apply!
Proposal types
Members of the TLA+ community are encouraged to submit proposals for the grant program. The range of subjects is deliberately left open, both projects focusing on research and on the improvement of existing tools or user interfaces are welcome. The following list gives some examples of subjects that might be relevant:
- Use of TLA+ specifications for generating test suites for distributed systems
- Check conformance of system implementations with respect to TLA+ specifications
- Automatic techniques for generating inductive invariants
- Improvements to documentation and user experience
- Incorporate TLAPS and the TLC Profiler into VS Code
- Implement partial order reduction techniques in TLC
- Enable first-time users to execute TLC within web browsers
All awardees will be expected to provide periodic updates to the TLA+ community through efforts such as participating in the regular community meetings, blog posts, conference talks, etc.
Awardee eligibility
To be eligible for the 2024 TLA+ Grant Program, applicants must:
- Not reside in a country or jurisdiction where participation in the grant program is prohibited under applicable U.S. federal, state or local laws or the laws of other countries
- Not be subject to any existing obligations to third parties (such as contractual obligations to an employer) that would restrict or prohibit your participation in the grants program
- Be able to accept an unrestricted grant on behalf of yourself or your organization
Proposal structure
When putting together your proposal, please be prepared to provide the following information:
- Description of proposed work (maximum 2 pages)
- List of project team members (solo applications are acceptable)
- Expected outcomes and benefits to TLA+ technology and/or community (maximum 1 page)
- Projected timeline of work with key milestones (describe the milestones in question)
- Award amount requested and justification (how you plan to apply the grant if awarded)
- Description of relevant work and how it applies to your proposal (if any)
- Up-to-date CV or résumé (maximum 3 pages per team member)
To ensure compatibility with existing TLA+ tooling, we strongly recommend that any modification of an existing TLA+ tool developed as a part of your proposal be licensed under the same license as that tool, and any new software developed be licensed under an Apache 2.0, 2-Clause BSD, or MIT license.
Preference will be given to proposals that follow this recommendation.
Application details
The TLA+ grant applications are now open. To apply, fill out the application template with your proposal details and submit it through the form below.
Applications for USD$50,000 or more will need to provide thorough justification for the amount requested. Please use the requested format for your application and give as much detail as possible in the measuring success, projected timeline, and funding justification sections.
Timeline
Applications are now open!
| Date | Milestone |
|---|---|
| 31 August 2024 | First submission deadline |
| 30 September 2024 | Grant committee review closes |
| 02 October 2024 | Estimated notification to applicants |
Proposals submitted after the first submission deadline will be evaluated on a rolling basis.
Questions
If you have any questions, please reach out to grants@tlapl.us.