‘Understanding the Rules of Life’ solicitation explores emergent networks, invites proposals.
Intertwined networks connect living things in profoundly complex and oftentimes unexpected ways. From individual cells and organisms to entire ecosystems and industries, the emergence of such networks is the focus of the Understanding the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks solicitation calling for research proposals from a broad range of scientific disciplines.
This is an exciting opportunity for researchers in the geosciences to partner with colleagues in biology, engineering, the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, and other fields to conduct crosscutting, convergent research addressing significant scientific questions. The geosciences can make key contributions to advancing Understanding Rules of Life research, by bringing Earth Systems approaches/perspectives to improve understanding of the complex interactions of life across scales of time and space.
NSF will support research to develop a predictive understanding of how key properties of living systems emerge from the interactions of genomes, phenotypes and the environment, and how emerging networks of natural, social and human-engineered systems in turn influence their environment. Proposals should be submitted by May 10, 2021. For full details and guidance on award types, amounts and other questions, see Understanding the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks (URoL:EN).
This effort is part of the Understanding the Rules of Life: Predicting Phenotype initiative, one of ten transformative Big Ideas supported by the National Science Foundation.
