In partnership with nine other NIH institutes and centers (IC), we have issued a new R01 funding opportunity announcement (FOA) focused on modeling social behavior. It reflects a growing recognition in the scientific community of the need to apply innovative computational and systems approaches—which have already proven very beneficial in the biological sciences—to behavioral and social research.
The FOA encourages research that explores the relationships among the parts of a system and between a system and its environment in order to understand the system as a whole. Specifically, we’re soliciting applications for developing and testing innovative theories and computational, mathematical or engineering approaches to deepen our understanding of complex social behavior.
Proposals can be for exploratory or hypothesis-generating studies, or for a combination of both. Applications should demonstrate bridge-building between the behavioral and social sciences and the computational and systems sciences, and should focus on multiscale phenomena. Applicants may propose small research or infrastructure projects as well as larger, more integrative research projects on the modeling of complex social behavior. We encourage applications from transdisciplinary teams of scientists spanning a broad range of expertise. Standard R01 application due dates apply.
The FOA lists the specific research interests of each participating IC. Examples of NIGMS topic areas include:
- The emergence of new functionality from simple behaviors.
- Understanding aspects of collective behavior, including the roles of resilience and of online and other dynamic social networks.
- The use of geocoded data, “big data” and new technologies for modeling and influencing collective behavior at multiple scales.
If you have questions or would like more information, please contact me or one of the other IC contacts for this FOA.