The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. NSF was established in 1950 by Congress to promote the progress of science, advance the national health, prosperity and welfare, and secure the national defense.
The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) Core Programs Track aims to support research that deepens our understanding of why organisms are structured and function as they do. The grant welcomes proposals across a wide range of areas including developmental biology, evolution of developmental processes, structure and function of the nervous system, biomechanics, physiological processes, symbioses, microbial interactions, interactions with environments, genomics, and animal behavior. This initiative encourages a systems approach to generate conceptual, theoretical insights and predictions about emergent organismal properties. The IntBIO Track specifically calls for collaborative proposals to address ambitious questions in biology that demand an integrated approach, promising novel, holistic insights into how biological systems operate and interact across different scales of organization. Projects are expected to employ experimental strategies, modeling, integrative analysis, advanced computation or other research approaches to foster new discoveries and theories in biology.