New Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Science Research (IBSS) Competition

The Interdisciplinary Behavioral and Social Science Research (IBSS) has a two new support opportunities for Interdisciplinary research projects under solicitation number NSF 12-614.

Proposals for:

1. IBSS Large Interdisciplinary Research Projects. Large interdisciplinary research projects may be supported by awards as large as $1,000,000.

2. IBSS Interdisciplinary Team Exploratory Projects. Exploratory research by emerging multidisciplinary teams may be supported by awards as large as $250,000.

View complete information about the Program Solicitation NSF 12-614 online.

Additional Information:

In addition to the standing NSF merit review criteria of intellectual merit and broader impacts, proposals submitted for the IBSS competition will be evaluated using special review criteria with respect to three different dimensions of their interdisciplinarity: the interdisciplinarity of the research team, the interdisciplinarity of the research approaches to be used, and the interdisciplinarity of the expected intellectual significance of the research results.

All proposals submitted for the IBSS competition must include three or more senior personnel from at least two different SBE disciplinary fields.

An individual researcher may participate as a principal investigator (PI), co-principal investigator (co-PI), or other member of the senior personnel of a project for only one project submitted for the IBSS competition during a single year.

Each person serving as a PI, co-PI, or other member of the senior personnel on a project must include a signed or e-mailed statement as a supplementary document in the proposal confirming that person’s participation in the project and confirming that this is the only IBSS project for which the person is serving as one of the senior personnel.

Special sections must be included in the project descriptions of proposals submitted for the IBSS competition, with different sections required for different kinds of proposals.

Letters of collaboration and letters of commitment from other individuals and organizations participating in a project must use a template or be equally brief and direct.

If a project is being undertaken by researchers at multiple organizations, a single organization must be identified as the lead, and a single proposal describing the entire project must be submitted by that organization, with funds distributed among partner organizations via subawards from the lead organization. Direct submission of linked collaborative sets of proposals by multiple organizations is not permitted.

Full proposal submission deadlines are January 23, 2013; December 3, 2013; and December 2, 2014.


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