announcements

New Web Pages Connect Funding Opportunities to Societal Challenges

NSF_BIO

Research funded by the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO)  and other directorates at NSF have a long history of helping to address societal challenges. From the basic science that identified the enzymes critical to PCR to increased understanding of fire regimes that has helped mitigate the impacts of wildland fire on home, life, and the economy.

NSF has now launched new webpages to help the research community connect our funding opportunities with the societal challenge the research they support can help address — something like a translational lens through which to view solicitations and Dear Colleague Letters.

We have focused on three such topics: Biotechnology to Advance the U.S. Bioeconomy, Emerging Infectious Diseases and Life on a Warming Planet. These pages also help identify the connections between programs in different directorates and cross-cutting efforts.

You can learn more about the topics and view funding opportunities from across NSF that support research on the pages, organized by directorate. 

As always, if you have a specific question about where your research might fit we encourage you to reach out to a program officer. If your research doesn’t fit under a program they manage, they can help you find the right program.

BIO Releases New Solicitations Aimed at Broadening Participation

NSF_BIO2 Comments

The last year-and-a-half has shown NSF’s Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) the need for ongoing and new efforts to broaden participation and enhance diversity in the biological sciences given the disproportionate impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on individuals in historically under-represented groups, those at historically under-served institutions, and on those institutions themselves. Of course, these issues did not arise during the pandemic. They are historic and COVID-19 has only heightened them.

To achieve greater diversity across the biological workforce, BIO has released two new solicitations, highlighted below.

Details of these funding opportunities will be featured in the upcoming VOH on November 18, at 1pm ET. Register for that session here.

Building Research Capacity of New Faculty in Biology (BRC-BIO)

  • Awards will provide the means for new faculty (i.e., those at the Assistant Professor rank (or equivalent) with service at that rank for no more than 3 years by the proposal submission date) — primarily at MSIs, PUIs, and other universities and colleges that are not among the nation’s most research-intensive institutions — to initiate and build independent research programs by enhancing their research capacity. These projects might also include biology-focused research collaborations among faculty within the same institution, across peer-, or research-intensive institutions, or partnerships with industry or other non-academic partners that advance the candidate’s research program.
  • Full proposal windows: January 3-31, 2022 and June 1-30, 2022

Research and Mentoring for Postbaccalaureates in Biological Sciences (RaMP)

  • Awards will establish networks to support full-time research, mentoring, and training for recent college graduates who have had few or no research or training opportunities during college in research fields typically supported by the Directorate of Biological Sciences.
  • Full proposal deadline: January 20, 2022

To help the community become acquainted with these new efforts focused on broadening participation, Program Directors from across the Directorate for Biological Sciences will hold a Virtual Office Hour on November 18 at 1pm ET.

Register at https://nsf.zoomgov.com/webinar/register/WN_QJdSn2DFQUOpIFOu_oW-Cg.