Synthesis Center for Understanding Organismal Resilience

Funding Agency:
National Science Foundation

Synthesis Centers are a mechanism used by NSF's Directorate for Biological Science (BIO) to bring together communities that leverage existing data to catalyze discoveries through synthesis, analysis, and integrative training.  Research supported by the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) in BIO focuses on organisms as integrated units of biological organization, i.e., why they are structured as they are and function as they do.

IOS seeks to establish a new Synthesis Center to advance our ability to explain and predict organismal resiliency and plasticity in response to complex and dynamic environmental circumstances encountered over a lifespan through the synthesis of varied data sets and types that bridge multiple scales and levels.

The Synthesis Center will enable innovative synthesis and analysis of available biological and related data by providing the vision, infrastructure, and expertise to advance new avenues of inquiry in organismal biology focused on organismal resilience and plasticity. To accomplish this vision, the Synthesis Center will adopt approaches that are based on open science, team science, and data-intensive methods that enable data synthesis, sharing and inclusive collaborations among researchers across multiple levels of biological inquiry that may include genomic, physiological, structural, developmental, behavioral, neural, immunological, and microbiological analyses across some or all the IOS subdisciplines. In addition to supporting data and knowledge synthesis, the Synthesis Center should train new generations of researchers in solving challenging research problems through data-intensive, open, cross-disciplinary, and collaborative science. The Synthesis Center is also expected to serve as an example in effectively engaging diverse scientists from different types of institutions and across multiple disciplines. These types of data syntheses are expected to provide the basis for fundamental scientific discoveries and/or potentially translational, use-inspired research. In doing so, the Synthesis Center will have a profound impact on the progress of science and society.

Deadlines:

  • Preliminary Proposal (required): Jan. 12, 2024
  • Full Proposal: July 15, 2024

Agency Website

Eligibility Requirements

Proposals may only be submitted by the following:

  • Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs) - Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members. Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of subawards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus.
  • Non-profit, non-academic organizations: Independent museums, observatories, research laboratories, professional societies and similar organizations located in the U.S. that are directly associated with educational or research activities.

An individual may be designated as PI or co-PI on at most one preliminary proposal and at most one full proposal to this solicitation. In the event that an individual exceeds this limit, proposals will be accepted based on earliest date and time of submission, i.e., the first compliant preliminary or full proposal will be accepted, and the remainder will be returned without review.

Amount Description

Estimated Number of Awards: 1

Only one Synthesis Center award will result from this activity.

Anticipated Funding Amount: $20,000,000

Estimated program budget, number of awards and average award size/duration are subject to the availability of funds and the quality or responsiveness of proposals received in response to this solicitation.

Funding Type

Grant

Eligibility

Faculty
Institutional

Category

Environmental & Life Sciences
Interdisciplinary

External Deadline

January 12, 2024