On Feb. 17, 2023, Georgia Kosmopoulou, Ph.D., associate dean for research in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences and intermittent expert at the Directorate for Social, Behavior and Economic Sciences at the National Science Foundation, gave a presentation on “Opportunities for Large-Scale Social and Behavioral Science Research and Infrastructure Funding at NSF.” During this event she shared advice and showcased examples of successful proposals with attendees.
“Many of the resources available through the National Science Foundation and other agencies are directed to projects that are transdisciplinary in nature,” Kosmopoulou said. “They support large, multi-million-dollar projects that require you to demonstrate large societal impacts and necessitate integration of research across disciplines.”
The budget for the Directorate for the Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences is smaller than that of other directorates. However, large-scale projects, those of more than $1 million that involve social, behavioral and economic scientists, can be funded through Foundation-wide programs and directorates. Large-scale infrastructure and research projects are increasingly important for realizing the potential of social, behavioral and economic sciences research, providing the resources needed to produce research of the highest quality and supporting top quality graduate programs.
In 2021, Jeff Kelly, Ph.D., professor in the Dodge Family College of Arts and Sciences, led a team whose research into the effects of artificial light on migratory birds was awarded nearly $2 million from the Directorate of Biological Sciences at the National Science Foundation. This is one example of a project that employs a transdisciplinary convergence approach to integrating advances in ecological forecasting with those in the social and political science of community engaged scholarship.
These large-scale projects require help from partners like the Data Institute of Societal Challenges, which strives to facilitate and empower collaboration between research teams and partners to find solutions to local and global challenges.
“Large awards require a lot of planning, and DISC, ICAST and other Institutes at the University of Oklahoma are helping researchers submit very complex proposals that facilitate collaboration in transdisciplinary teams,” Kosmopoulou said. “Because of those efforts, I believe that OU is positioned well to succeed in large-scale research efforts.”
