FOA-Understanding
the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks (URoL:EN);
May
10, 2021
Agency
National
Science Foundation
Description
This
Understanding the Rules of Life: Emergent Networks (URoL:EN) solicitation adds to
those previous foundational activities to now understand "rules of emergence"
for networks of living systems and their environments. Emergent networks
describe the interactions among organismal, environmental, social, and
human-engineered systems that are complex and often unexpected given the
behaviors of these systems when observed in isolation. The behavior of emergent
networks of living systems depend on, but are not wholly predicted by, chemical
and physical principles and unit-level biological properties
(molecule/cell/organism/population), as well as communication and information
flows among nodes in the network. Networks of living systems are reciprocally
coupled with natural, built, and social environments in ways that are complex
and difficult to predict. The often-unanticipated outcomes of these
interactions can be both wide-ranging and enormously impactful. Prediction is
further hampered by accelerating perturbations within evolving environments and
the associated increase in the frequency of previously rare or extreme events.
Determining the emergent properties of these networks, which arise from complex
and nonlinear interactions among the different systems that in isolation do not
exhibit such properties, is a critical and unsolved problem. One of many
examples of this could include the emerging network of interactions across
scales that arose from the arrival of the nonnative pathogen, Cryphonectria
parasitica, or Chestnut blight, introduced with
nursery stock. This pathogen effectively eliminated a dominant overstory
tree species, American chestnut (Castanea dentata), across North America and had concomitant impacts
on and feedbacks between biotic, abiotic, and social networks. For example, the
economic impacts of this pathogen ranged from local agricultural and social
impacts to global scale impacts on the timber industry.
Successful
projects of the URoL:EN program are expected to use
convergent approaches that explore emergent network properties of living
systems across various levels of organizational scale and, ultimately,
contribute to understanding the rules of life through new theories and reliable
predictions about the impact of specific environmental changes on behaviors of
complex living systems, or engineerable
interventions and technologies based on a rule of life to address associated
outcomes for societal benefit.
The
convergent scope of URoL:EN projects also provides
unique STEM education and outreach possibilities to train the next generation
of scientists in a diversity of approaches and to engage society more
generally. Hence, the URoL:EN program encourages
research projects that integrate training and outreach activities in their
research plan, provide convergent training opportunities for researchers and
students, develop novel teaching modules, and broaden participation of
under-represented groups in science.
The
URoL:EN Program will
support projects with a total budget of up to $3,000,000 and an award duration
of up to 5 years.
Announcement
Number:
NSF
21-560
Closing
Date:
May
10, 2021
Link
to Full Announcement
https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2021/nsf21560/nsf21560.htm
Contact
Information
Betsy
von Holle
(703)
292-4974