Biological Anthropology Program Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grants | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Biological Anthropology Program Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant (DDRI) opportunity (NSF Publication/Funding Opportunity No. 14-561) is a discretionary grant program designed to strengthen doctoral dissertation research in biological anthropology being carried out by Ph.D. students at U.S.-based, Ph.D.-granting universities and colleges. The central goal is to improve the quality and execution of dissertation projects that expand basic scientific knowledge about human biology and ecology, with a strong emphasis on evolutionary history and the processes that generate and maintain biological diversity in humans and nonhuman primates.

The program supports a wide range of research topics and study systems, including both living and fossil humans and nonhuman primates. Projects may operate across short-term to deep evolutionary time scales, and they can be framed at multiple levels of biological organization, from molecular and organismal work to population- and ecosystem-level analyses. NSF explicitly recognizes that high-quality biological anthropology research can be conducted in many environments, so the solicitation allows for field-based studies, laboratory research, and work in captive research settings. In other words, the opportunity is broad in scope as long as the work is firmly grounded in biological anthropology and is positioned to contribute to foundational scientific understanding.

Examples of eligible areas of inquiry include (but are not limited to) human genetic and epigenetic variation and how these relate to phenotype, human and nonhuman primate ecology and socioecology, functional anatomy, skeletal biology, human and nonhuman primate paleontology, and forensic anthropology approached as anthropological science. The solicitation also highlights that multidisciplinary projects are welcome when they genuinely integrate biological anthropology with other parts of anthropology, such as bioarchaeology or biocultural research, rather than simply adding a secondary component. Overall, the research portfolio NSF is aiming to support through this DDRI mechanism is multifaceted, theory-driven, and methodologically rigorous, with clear payoffs for understanding human and primate evolution, biology, and adaptability.

In terms of who can apply, proposals must be submitted by eligible U.S. academic institutions, specifically accredited Ph.D.-granting universities and colleges that have a campus located in the United States. The leadership structure is a defining feature of this DDRI: the proposal is submitted with a principal investigator (PI) who is the faculty member serving as the doctoral student’s dissertation advisor, and a co-principal investigator (Co-PI) who is the doctoral student. Both PI and Co-PI must be at the same U.S. university, and the submission goes through the institution’s standard internal routing and sponsored-research channels, with the faculty advisor submitting on behalf of the student. If it makes sense for the project, an additional faculty member may be added as another Co-PI. Importantly, the doctoral student must be enrolled at a U.S. institution but does not need to be a U.S. citizen.

The DDRI is intended for students who are far enough along in their training to submit a finalized dissertation plan. The solicitation notes that, by the submission deadline, doctoral students are expected to be at an appropriate stage for a completed dissertation proposal, most commonly near or already advanced to Ph.D. candidacy. That framing reflects the program’s purpose: these awards are meant to enhance and improve dissertation research (for example, by enabling additional analyses, specialized methods, travel, or other research components that materially strengthen the dissertation), rather than serving as early exploratory or pre-dissertation support.

From a funding and administrative standpoint, the opportunity is listed under the Science and Technology and other Research and Development activity category, with CFDA number 47.075 (Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences). The solicitation anticipated about 20 awards with an estimated total funding level of $400,000, and it stated that there is no cost sharing or matching requirement. The opportunity was posted April 28, 2014, and the solicitation included multiple full proposal deadlines over subsequent years; the record shows a range of dates through July 9, 2020, with an archive date of August 9, 2020. The agency associated with the opportunity is NSF, and the official additional information link is referenced as NSF Publication 14-561. For access issues related to the announcement, the contact listed is NSF grants.gov support at grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov.

Taken together, this DDRI opportunity is best understood as NSF’s mechanism for investing in high-impact dissertation research in biological anthropology by pairing doctoral students with their advisors in a structured submission model. It supports projects across the full breadth of biological anthropology, encourages integrative and multidisciplinary work when well-justified, and focuses on research that advances core scientific knowledge about humans and nonhuman primates across biological scales and time depths.

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