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The Infrastructure Capacity for Biology (ICB) supports the development, expansion, or improvement of infrastructure that will enable fundamental research within the biological sciences. Infrastructure supported under thissolicitation may include cyberinfrastructure, instrumentation, biological collections, living stocks, field stations, marine labs, or other resources that are shared and openly accessible. Proposals submitted to the ICB solicitation must make a compelling case that the proposed infrastructure will advance or transform research in areas of science that are supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO) at the National Science Foundation. While other programs in the Division of Biological Infrastructure (DBI) focus on innovative research leading to new infrastructure or sustained operation of mature infrastructure, thissolicitation focuses on supporting projects that seek to deliver, enable access to, or substantially improve infrastructure that will advance the capacity oftoday's scientific community to conduct leading edge research. The impacts of the activities funded by awards made through this solicitation will be reflected not just in the quality of their products, but by the novel and transformative science outcomes that will be achieved by the users of these resources. Infrastructure projects that will advance any field of research supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences are eligible for support under this program. Please refer to the individual program descriptions for detailed guidance on what is supported through this solicitation:

The Sustained Availability of Biological Infrastructure program (SABI) supports the continued operation of extant infrastructure that will advance basic biological research. Infrastructure supported under this program may include cyberinfrastructure, instrumentation, experimental or observational facilities, biological living stocks which have ongoing costs of operation and maintenance that exceed the reasonable capacity of the host institution. Proposals must make a compelling case that sustained availability of the proposed infrastructure will advance or transform research in biological sciences as supported by the National Science Foundation. While other programs in the Division of Biological Infrastructure focus on research leading to future infrastructure or on the development or implementation of shared infrastructure, this program focuses on awards that ensure the continued availability of mature infrastructure resources critical to sustain the ability of today’s scientific community to conduct leading edge research. Awards made through this program are expected to lead to novel, impactful, and transformative science outcomes through research activities enabled by their use. Infrastructure that demonstrates substantial impact on research supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences and its collaborating organizations is eligible for support under this program.

NSF-supported science and engineering research increasingly relies on cutting-edge infrastructure. With its Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program and Major Multi-user Facilities (Major Facilities) projects, NSF supports infrastructure projects at the lower and higher ends of infrastructure scales across science and engineering research disciplines. The Mid-scale Research Infrastructure Big Idea is intended to provide NSF with an agile, Foundation-wide process to fund experimental research capabilities in the mid-scale range between the MRI and Major Facilities thresholds. NSF defines Research Infrastructure (RI) as any combination of facilities, equipment, instrumentation, or computational hardware or software, and the necessary human capital in support of the same. Major facilities and mid-scale projects are subsets of research infrastructure. The NSF Mid-scale Research Infrastructure-1 Program (Mid-scale RI-1) supports the design or implementation of unique and compelling RI projects. Mid-scale RI-1 implementation projects may include any combination of equipment, instrumentation, cyberinfrastructure, broadly used large-scale datasets, and the commissioning and/or personnel needed to successfully complete the project, or the design efforts intended to lead to eventual implementation of a mid-scale class project. Mid-scale RI-1 design projects will include the design efforts intended to lead to eventual implementation of a mid-scale class RI project. Mid-scale RI-1 projects should fill a research community-defined scientific need or enable a national research priority to be met. Mid-scale RI-projects should also enable US researchers to remain competitive in a global research environment and involve the training of a diverse workforce engaged in the design and implementation of STEM infrastructure.

This NOFO seeks to provide infrastructure support and technical assistance to Mozambican Ministry of Health (MOH) health clinics and facilities in order to scale-up HIV and TB services through PEPFAR. This NOFO will provide technical assistance to help address MOH infrastructure needs as well as providing overall alternative solutions to improving the health infrastructure either through renovations, pre-fabricated (pre-fab) structures, or equipment necessary for the improvement of HIV/AIDS and TB services across the clinical cascade. Sites for infrastructure support will be selected based on MOH and PEPFAR priorities. Health centers may require different infrastructure solutions which may include pre-fab structures for warehouses, pharmacies, laboratories, and medium-sized health units. Supported health facilities may be geographically dispersed throughout Mozambique and involve rural and urban areas. The accomplishment of these objectives will support the Government of Mozambique’s goal of promoting epidemic control through an increased facility maximum HIV patient capacity and will in turn facilitate the country’s HIV strategic goals.

This fall, NSF intends to announce Mid-scale RI funding opportunities. These will be for research infrastructure that will advance the frontiers of discovery in any of the research domains supported by NSF.2 These forthcoming funding opportunities are intended to encompass research infrastructure broadly defined, from the creation of mid-scale disciplinary instrumentation to the implementation (including acquisition and construction) of mid-scale facilities, cyberinfrastructure and other infrastructure that are demonstrated to be necessary to support specific science, engineering or education research objectives associated with current or future NSF-supported research activities. This portfolio may also include mid-scale upgrades to existing research infrastructure. NSF anticipates that one solicitation will include an opportunity to propose Mid-scale RI projects with a total project cost of between approximately $6 million and approximately $20 million, pending the availability of funds. A second solicitation is expected to include an opportunity to propose Mid-scale RI projects with a total project cost of between approximately $20 million and approximately $70 million, pending the availability of funds.

The Infrastructure Innovation for Biological Research (IIBR) solicitation supports new and innovative research in biological informatics, instrumentation and associated methods, as well as multidisciplinary approaches to these broad themes that address needs in basic biological research. These awards support pioneering approaches that develop de novo infrastructure, significantly redesign existing infrastructure, or apply existing infrastructure in novel ways. Activities must demonstrate the potential to advance or transform research in biology as supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation (https://nsf.gov/bio).

The Infrastructure Innovation for Biological Research (IIBR) solicitation supports new and innovative research in biological informatics, instrumentation and associated methods, as well as multidisciplinary approaches to these broad themes that address needs in basic biological research. These awards support pioneering approaches that develop de novo infrastructure, significantly redesign existing infrastructure, or apply existing infrastructure in novel ways. Activities must demonstrate the potential to advance or transform research in biology as supported by the Directorate for Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation (http://nsf.gov/bio).

The Sustained Availability of Biological Infrastructure program (SABI) supports the continued operation of extant infrastructure that will advance basic biological research. Infrastructure supported under this program may include cyberinfrastructure, instrumentation, experimental or observational facilities, biological living stocks which have ongoing costs of operation and maintenance that exceed the reasonable capacity of the host institution. Proposals must make a compelling case that sustained availability of the proposed infrastructure will advance or transform research in biological sciences as supported by the National Science Foundation.

DARPA's Living Foundries: 1000 Molecules program seeks to build a scalable, integrated, rapid design and prototyping infrastructure for the facile engineering of biology. This infrastructure will enable transformative and currently inaccessible projects to develop advanced chemicals, materials, sensing capabilities, and therapeutics. Furthermore, the infrastructure will provide a flexible, efficient, and continuously improving capability to Department of Defense (DoD) and the engineering biology community. A final proof-of-principle demonstration of capabilities will require rapid design and prototyping centers to generate 1000 novel molecules and chemical building blocks, thus enabling access to radical new materials.

: The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) continues to support the Enabling Discovery through GEnomic Tools (EDGE) program, previously a component of the IOS Core Programs solicitation (NSF 16-505). EDGE is designed to provide support for research addressing current impediments to research progress in organismal biology. In particular, the ability to directly test gene function is essential to improve understanding of the genomes-to-phenomes relationship, an area relevant to Understanding the Rules of Life, one of 10 Big Ideas for future NSF investment (www.nsf.gov/about/congress/reports/nsf_big_ideas.pdf). EDGE projects should focus on development of functional genomic tools, approaches, and associated infrastructure to enable direct tests of hypotheses about gene function in diverse organisms for which such tools and infrastructure are presently unavailable. EDGE proposals must include training and rapid dissemination plans enabling larger communities of investigators to utilize the newly-developed tools, thereby catalyzing an increase in the capacity of research communities to test cause-and-effect hypotheses about genes and phenotypes in organisms for which such tools and infrastructure are presently lacking.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites qualified academic institutions to apply for support to modernize existing or construct new biomedical research facilities. Applications will be accepted from public and nonprofit private institutions of higher education. Applications from both research-intensive institutions and Institutions of Emerging Excellence in biomedical research from all geographic regions in the nation are strongly encouraged. NIH recognizes the importance of all institutions of higher learning in contributing to the nations research capacity. The goal of this FOA is to upgrade or create novel biomedical research infrastructure to strengthen biomedical research programs. The proposed project must serve the applicant-defined institution-wide biomedical research needs. Each project is expected to provide long-term improvements to the institutional research infrastructure. Targeted are the modernization of core facilities and the development of other infrastructure serving an institution-wide research community on a shared basis.

The Division of Integrative Organismal Systems (IOS) recognizes that a lack of methods for analysis of gene function represents an obstacle to progress in a range of diverse non-model organisms. These organisms are important for understanding numerous basic science questions in organismal biology as funded through the Division's core programs. Enabling Discovery through Genomic Tools (EDGE) is designed to provide support for development of tools, approaches and infrastructure necessary for direct tests of cause and effect hypotheses between gene function and phenotypes in diverse plants, animals, microbes, viruses and fungi for which these methods are presently unavailable. Such approaches are essential to advance understanding of the genomes-to-phenomes relationship, an area relevant to Understanding the Rules of Life: Predicting Phenotype, one of the 10 Big Ideas for future NSF investment. To meet the goal of catalyzing communities to enable direct tests of cause-and-effect hypotheses about genes and phenotypes in organisms for which such tools and infrastructure are presently lacking, EDGE proposals must include training and rapid dissemination plans enabling larger communities of investigators to utilize the newly-developed tools quickly, thereby catalyzing an increase in the capacity of research communities to test cause-and-effect hypotheses about genes and phenotypes in organisms for which such tools and infrastructure are presently lacking.

The main goal of this limited competition Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to continue the state-of the-art biobanking infrastructure and operations for early-stage and experimental clinical trials sponsored by the National Cancer Institute (NCI). The biobanking needs of the following NCI clinical trial programs will be supported: Experimental Therapeutics Clinical Trials Network (ETCTN), and Other NCI-supported early and experimental trials. Currently, this biobanking infrastructure supporting NCI early experimental clinical trials is part of a biobank serving primarily another NCI program, National Clinical Trials Network (NCTN). Through a separate U24 award under this FOA, the NCI aims to separate the existing ETCTN-serving biobanking infrastructure and operation from the current NCTN Biobank. This separated entity will be termed: Early-Phase and Experimental Clinical Trials Biospecimen Bank (also referred to as EET Biobank). Although the EET Biobank and the "parent" NCTN Biobank may be hosted in the same institution, they are expected to become independent operations with separate leaderships. EET Biobank will be responsible for collecting, processing, storing a variety of human specimens from patients with cancer who are participating in NCI-funded ETCTN and other NCI-supported early and experimental clinical trials. The responsibilities of EET Bank will also include maintenance of up-to-date specimen inventory and specimen distribution to qualified NCI-approved trial investigators and research laboratories.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) invites qualified academic institutions to apply for support to modernize existing or construct new biomedical research facilities. Applications will be accepted from public and nonprofit private institutions of higher education. Applications from both research-intensive institutions and Institutions of Emerging Excellence in biomedical research from all geographic regions in the nation are strongly encouraged. NIH recognizes the importance of all institutions of higher learning in contributing to the nations research capacity. The goal of this FOA is to upgrade or create novel biomedical research infrastructure to strengthen biomedical research programs. The proposed project must serve the applicant-defined institution-wide biomedical research needs. Each project is expected to provide long-term improvements to the institutional research infrastructure. Targeted are the modernization of core facilities and the development of other infrastructure serving an institution-wide research community on a shared basis.

The Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) is a program designed to fulfill the National Science Foundation's (NSF) mandate to promote scientific progress nationwide. The EPSCoR program is directed at jurisdictions that have historically received lesser amounts of NSF Research and Development (R&D) funding. Thirty-one jurisdictions including twenty-eight states, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the U. S. Virgin Islands, and Guam currently are eligible to participate. Through this program, NSF establishes partnerships with government, higher education, and industry that are designed to effect lasting improvements in a state's or region's research infrastructure, R&D capacity and hence, its national R&D competitiveness.Research Infrastructure Improvement Program: Track-2 (RII Track-2) awards provide funds in the range of $1.5 to 2.0 million per year for up to 3 years to consortia of EPSCoR jurisdictions. The awards promote opportunities for collaborations among EPSCoR jurisdictions in all areas of science, engineering, and education supported by the National Science Foundation (NSF). RII Track-2 proposals must describe a clear, comprehensive, and integrated vision to drive discovery, and train a skilled workforce capable of solving science and engineering challenges of regional, thematic, and national relevance. Proposals should also include a strong rationale for the establishment of the consortium and clearly demonstrate that the consortium is well-positioned to produce results that cannot be obtained by any single partner working independently. The Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) research and education activities should broaden participation by different types of institutions, individuals, and sectors in the project.

The purpose of this Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) is to support the development of infrastructure and other resources required for the conduct of Clinical and Translational Research (CTR) in IDeA-eligible states. IDeA-CTR Centers are expected to provide added value to the biomedical research efforts in the participating institutions through support of activities that cannot easily be provided through standard research grant awards. The proposed activities will provide the infrastructure and resources that will enhance the competitiveness of the investigators to obtain additional funding for clinical and translational research. Applicants must establish a statewide network of collaborating and partnering institutions/organizations. Other institutions/organizations outside the state may be included if forming a network of wider reach. Since only one award will be made per IDeA-eligible state, only one application should be submitted per state.

On Wednesday, November 4, 2020 and Thursday, November 5, 2020, NSF will host outreach webinars with information about the Mid-Scale Research Infrastructure (Mid-scale RI)-1 funding opportunity (NSF 21-505). The Mid-scale RI Big Idea is intended to provides an agile, Foundation-wide process to fund experimental research capabilities in the mid-scale range ($6 million to $100 million), between the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) and Major Facilities thresholds.  Recently, the solicitation (NSF 21-505) for the Mid-scale RI-1 program (for infrastructure with total project cost of $6 million up until, but not including, $20 million) was published with a deadline of January 7, 2021 for preliminary proposals. Each session will begin at 1:00 p.m. EST and have two parts: a general Mid-scale RI-1 information session (1:00 p.m. -1:40 p.m. EST) with Q&A followed by Directorate-specific breakouts (1:45 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. EST) where more technical questions will be addressed. The information presented on Day 1 will be the same as the information presented on Day 2.

This Funding Opportunity Announcement invites applications to establish Centers of Excellence for Self-Management Research: Building Research Teams for the Future (P20). The purpose of the program is to enhance interdisciplinary, biobehavioral research for scientists conducting self-management research by enabling development of a sustainable research infrastructure and centralized resources in support of research programs in various science areas. The purpose of the P20 Center is to: (1) develop new and a potential sustainable interdisciplinary, biobehavioral research capacity for scientists conducting nursing research by establishing centralized research resources and a research infrastructure; (2) build the Centers thematic science area through complementary, synergistic research activities; and (3) begin to grow feasibility research that will develop into new research teams of the future and independent investigator research applications.

Advanced computational infrastructure and the ability to perform large-scale simulations and accumulate massive amounts of data have revolutionized scientific and engineering disciplines.  The goal of the CDS&E program is to identify and capitalize on opportunities for major scientific and engineering breakthroughs through new computational and data analysis approaches.  The intellectual drivers may be in an individual discipline or they may cut across more than one discipline in various Directorates.  The key identifying factor is that the outcome relies on the development, adaptation, and utilization of one or more of the capabilities offered by advancement of both research and infrastructure in computation and data, either through cross-cutting or disciplinary programs. 

All of comparative biology depends on knowledge of the evolutionary relationships (phylogeny) of living and extinct organisms. In addition, understanding biodiversity and how it changes over time is only possible when Earth's diversity is organized into a phylogenetic framework. The goals of the Genealogy of Life (GoLife) program are to resolve the phylogenetic history of life and to integrate this genealogical architecture with underlying organismal data. The ultimate vision of this program is an open access, universal Genealogy of Life that will provide the comparative framework necessary for testing questions in systematics, evolutionary biology, ecology, and other fields. A further strategic integration of this genealogy of life with data layers from genomic, phenotypic, spatial, ecological and temporal data will produce a grand synthesis of biodiversity and evolutionary sciences. The resulting knowledge infrastructure will enable synthetic research on biological dynamics throughout the history of life on Earth, within current ecosystems, and for predictive modeling of the future evolution of life. Projects submitted to this program should emphasize increased efficiency in contributing to a complete Genealogy of Life and integration of various types of organismal data with phylogenies. This program also seeks to broadly train next generation, integrative phylogenetic biologists, creating the human resource infrastructure and workforce needed to tackle emerging research questions in comparative biology. Projects should train students for diverse careers by exposing them to the multidisciplinary areas of research within the proposal.