Understanding the Rules of Life: Emerging Networks (URoL:EN) Solicitation

Join the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF) Friday, January 7, 2022 from 2:30 p.m. – 3:30 p.m. ET for a webinar on the revised solicitation, Understanding the Rules of Life: Emerging Networks (URoL:EN, NSF 22-532). Program Officers will provide an introduction of the revised cross-Directorate solicitation and representatives from the program will be available for questions.

As part of the Understanding the Rules of Life: Predicting Phenotype, one of ten “Big Ideas” NSF-wide, this revised solicitation builds on previous URoL programs to help increase knowledge and the ability to predict an organism’s observable characteristics—its phenotype—from its genotype. Understanding the mechanisms at play in the interconnections between living organisms and their environments, across every biological scale, will provide vital insight into grand biological challenges, help advance biotechnology to spur the US bioeconomy, and aid in solving some of society’s issues, including the growing impacts of infectious disease and climate change. Investigators from across the biological sciences are encouraged to submit proposals in concert with researchers in other disciplines, including the mathematical and physical sciences, geosciences, computer and information sciences, engineering, and behavioral and social sciences.

This solicitation invites submission of convergent, cross-disciplinary research – including the biological sciences – to examine such rules, the outcomes of these interactions, and to aid in the prediction of emergent properties. The program also seeks to train STEM practitioners to contribute to this area of convergent research.

Proposals under the solicitation should be submitted by March 1, 2022. For full details and guidance on award types, amounts and other questions, see Understanding the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks (URoL:EN).