NSF Division of Integrative Organismal Systems Core Programs

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IOS continues to accept no deadline full proposal submission: proposals may be submitted any day, any time

Synopsis of Program:

The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) Core Programs Track supports research aimed at understanding why organisms are structured the way they are and function as they do. Proposals are welcomed in all of the core scientific program areas supported by the Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS). Areas of inquiry include, but are not limited to, developmental biology and the evolution of developmental processes, nervous system development, structure, modification, function, and evolution; biomechanics and functional morphology, physiological processes, symbioses and microbial interactions, interactions of organisms with biotic and abiotic environments, plant and animal genomics, and animal behavior. Proposals should focus on organisms as a fundamental unit of biological organization. Principal Investigators (PIs) are encouraged to apply systems approaches that will lead to conceptual and theoretical insights and predictions about emergent organismal properties. The four clusters in IOS which are participating in submissions to this solicitation are:

The Rules of Life Track supports integrative proposals that span the subcellular and cellular scales normally funded by MCB to the organ, tissue, organismal, and group scale typically funded by IOS, to population, species, community and ecosystem scales typically funded by DEB. Rules of Life proposals may also include enabling infrastructure through joint submission with DBI. Discovery of fundamental principles and enabling infrastructure will advance understanding and further predict how key properties of living systems emerge from the interaction of genomes, phenotypes, and developmental, social and environmental context across space and time. This track provides opportunities to advance understanding of the Rules of Life by new mechanisms for review and funding of proposals that span two or more divisions in the Biological Sciences Directorate. Proposals submitted to the Rules of Life (RoL) track must integrate research activities across multiple levels of biological organization and span programs beyond a single division in the Directorate for Biological Sciences.

To be responsive to the RoL Track proposed activities must:

  • Engage or enable innovative approaches to fundamental questions in biology;
  • Promise results or approaches that are generalizable beyond particular study systems;
  • Seek to discover, enable and/or test foundational principles (rules, theory) that explain or predict the emergence of complex phenomena in biology;
  • and Apply integrative approaches that span levels of biological organization beyond the funding programs within a single BIO division.

The NSF IOS program page has additional information including the program solicitation.