As members of the EHR community, I wanted to ensure you are all aware of an exciting, recently-issued solicitation entitled “Understanding the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks (URoL:EN). Predicting Transformation of Living Systems in Evolving Environments.” URoL:EN will support projects with a total budget of up to $3M and award durations of up to five years. The solicitation is part of one of NSF’s 10 “Big Ideas” for future investments and seeks projects that have a goal of understanding how the properties of networks of living systems are reciprocally coupled with evolving natural, built, and social environments. These interactions are complex and difficult to predict, with their oft-unanticipated outcomes, both wide-ranging and enormously impactful (witness the current COVID-19 pandemic).
Projects supported by URoL:EN must involve investigators representing disciplines pertinent to at least two NSF Directorates, one of which could be EHR. This convergent scope will offer unique STEM education and outreach opportunities to train the next generation of scientists in a diversity of approaches, to examine determinants of effective educational approaches, and to engage society more generally. The program is eager to receive proposals that integrate training and outreach activities in the research plan, provide convergent training opportunities for researchers and students, develop novel teaching modules, and broaden participation of under-represented groups in science. I strongly encourage you, therefore, to engage with colleagues who may be considering submitting to this opportunity to develop a robust team that can ensure educational activities and questions are centered in the research plan.
Indeed, EHR is already actively embedded in URoL activities. For example, through the NSF Research Traineeship Program (NRT), investigators at the University of Arizona led by Dr. Scott Saleska are seeking to train a cadre of scientists to catalyze innovation across biological scales and science disciplines, integrating the large-scale science of how ecosystems work with the small-scale science of how genes and genomes of organisms interact with their environment. Their project, titled “BRIDGES - Building Resources for InterDisciplinary training in Genomic and Ecosystem Sciences,” which intentionally integrates social science training, will bridge cultural differences between disciplines, and will foster a new generation of diverse transdisciplinary scientists in ecosystem genomics.
Full proposals for the URoL:EN program are due by May 10, 2021. Pre-submission inquiries are encouraged and can be sent to e-networks@nsf.gov. I hope you will consider collaborating with colleagues to propose work that will not only enhance STEM education, but also hold out the promise of new ways to tackle some of society’s most vexing problems.