Biology Integration Institutes | 23 511

Opportunity Information: Apply for 23 511

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Biology Integration Institutes (BII) opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number 23-511; CFDA 47.074) is a discretionary grant program in the science and technology research and development category designed to reverse, or at least counterbalance, the growing fragmentation of biology into increasingly narrow subdisciplines. The central idea is that many of the most important biological questions, and many of the most powerful discoveries, happen when researchers connect mechanisms and patterns across levels of organization rather than staying confined to a single scale or specialty. BII is built around the view that understanding life requires linking processes from molecules and cells to tissues and organisms, and from species interactions to ecosystems, biomes, and ultimately Earth-scale biology.

At its core, the program funds collaborative, team-based institutes that pursue a shared biological theme explicitly requiring integration across multiple areas of biology and, where useful, fields outside biology as well. The solicitation emphasizes research that can connect and explain how life-sustaining processes operate and interact across scales, especially in a world where biology is producing huge, diverse, and fast-growing data streams. In practical terms, a competitive institute concept would not just place multiple experts in the same room; it would create real intellectual and technical bridges among disciplines so that insights at one level (for example, molecular regulation or cellular physiology) are meaningfully tied to outcomes at other levels (such as organismal traits, population dynamics, community structure, or ecosystem function). The goal is integrative understanding that would be hard or impossible to achieve through isolated projects.

A major, equal-priority pillar of BII is training and workforce development. NSF is signaling that integration is not only a research challenge but also a human-capital challenge: the next generation needs to be able to work across domains without becoming shallow generalists. For that reason, the program calls for training models that are both groundbreaking and sustainable, helping students and early-career researchers develop genuine depth in core areas while also gaining the cross-disciplinary fluency needed to collaborate, interpret complex multi-scale datasets, and innovate in emerging areas. Institutes are therefore expected to function as engines for education and professional development, not just research production.

The opportunity also highlights the importance of modern cyberinfrastructure and enabling technologies as a practical pathway to integration. Biology increasingly depends on shared data, interoperable tools, scalable computation, and reproducible workflows, and BII encourages institutes to develop and adopt practices that make resources accessible, reusable, and adaptable for future, unanticipated uses. In other words, beyond generating findings, these institutes are expected to help build the connective tissue of the field: standards, platforms, and approaches that allow different biological subcommunities to work together and to make their outputs durable and broadly useful.

NSF frames the longer-term payoff in terms of discovery and impact. By focusing on biological themes that illuminate how life innovates and persists across contexts, BII aims to catalyze new knowledge that can inspire biotechnologies and applications, strengthen the bioeconomy, and contribute solutions to societal challenges tied to organisms and the environment. While the solicitation is explicitly about integrating biological subdisciplines, it is also open to incorporating non-biology fields when they are necessary to address the institute's overarching biological question, reinforcing the idea that the best integrative biology often draws from computation, engineering, math, geosciences, social sciences, or other relevant areas.

From the posted opportunity metadata, NSF anticipated making around five awards. The original closing date listed is February 21, 2023, and eligibility is described broadly as "Others" with further clarification referenced in the solicitation's additional eligibility information. The award ceiling is listed as 0 in the provided record, which typically signals that the cap is either not specified in that field or is defined elsewhere in the full solicitation rather than meaning no limit in practice.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Biology Integration Institutes" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.074.
• This funding opportunity was created on Oct 28, 2022.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 21, 2023. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 5 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

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