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Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs): NSF "Cracking the Olfactory Code" (15-547)

What is the "Cracking the Olfactory Code" funding opportunity?

"Cracking the Olfactory Code" (Funding Opportunity Number 15-547) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) multidisciplinary research program organized around an NSF Ideas Lab. It is designed to spark unconventional collaborations and generate bold research directions focused on olfaction (the sense of smell).

What is the scientific focus of this program?

The focus is olfaction, described as one of the most evolutionarily ancient senses and a major driver of survival-related behavior across species (for example, locating food, finding mates, and avoiding predators).

What problem is NSF trying to solve through this solicitation?

The solicitation targets a major remaining challenge in olfactory neuroscience: explaining how higher-order odor representations are formed and used by the brain during ongoing, real-world behavior, and how those representations support odor identification, discrimination, and decision-making.

How is this different from typical olfaction research that focuses on early-stage processing?

The opportunity notes that researchers have made solid progress in understanding early-stage olfactory processing, but it specifically pushes beyond that toward higher-order representations and their use in behavior and decision-making in real-world conditions.

What kind of research does NSF want to fund under this program?

NSF is looking for integrative, non-incremental work aimed at developing new "operating principles" of smell. The solicitation emphasizes combining innovative theoretical frameworks, improved mathematical and computational models, novel behavioral paradigms, and experimental and engineering methods.

Is NSF encouraging incremental advances or more radical approaches?

The solicitation explicitly encourages teams to go beyond incremental advances and pursue bold, integrative approaches that could reveal new operating principles of olfactory processing.

What does "phylogenetic spectrum" mean in this context?

It means investigators are encouraged to think broadly across different organisms rather than restricting the work to a single canonical model system. The program promotes cross-species perspectives on olfactory processing.

Is the program only about understanding smell, or does it have broader goals?

It is intended both to deepen understanding of olfactory processing and to use olfaction as a gateway for revealing general rules of sensory representation in the brain, potentially informing how other sensory systems encode and transform information into behavior.

Which NSF Directorates are leading this opportunity?

The program is co-led by NSF's Biological Sciences (BIO) and Mathematical and Physical Sciences (MPS) Directorates, reflecting expectations of cross-disciplinary work spanning biology/neuroscience and quantitative/physical/computational approaches.

What is an NSF Ideas Lab, and why is it central to this solicitation?

An NSF Ideas Lab is a highly structured, intensive workshop designed to catalyze unconventional collaborations and generate bold research directions. In this solicitation, the Ideas Lab format is central because project concepts and teams are refined and assembled during the workshop rather than being fully defined at the outset.

Do applicants submit a full proposal right away?

No. U.S. researchers first submit preliminary proposals through NSF FastLane to apply for participation in the Ideas Lab. Full proposals are developed and advanced after the workshop by the newly formed teams and ideas.

How are project teams formed for this program?

The competition is structured to encourage team formation and idea development in real time during the Ideas Lab. Participants refine and assemble multidisciplinary project concepts during the workshop, and those ideas may then become full proposals.

What submission system is referenced for preliminary proposals?

Preliminary proposals to apply for participation in the Ideas Lab are submitted through NSF FastLane.

How many awards did NSF anticipate making?

NSF anticipated making about six awards under this program.

What was the estimated total program budget?

The estimated total budget for the program was $16,000,000.

What was the maximum award size?

The award ceiling was $3,000,000 per project.

Is cost sharing or matching required?

No cost sharing or matching requirement is listed for this opportunity.

What type of grant was this categorized as?

It was categorized as a discretionary grant within "science and technology and other research and development."

Who was eligible to apply?

The opportunity was open to unrestricted applicant types, subject to any additional eligibility language in the full solicitation.

What CFDA numbers are associated with this opportunity?

The CFDA numbers associated with the program were 47.049 (Mathematical and Physical Sciences) and 47.074 (Biological Sciences), reflecting the cross-directorate nature of the effort.

When was the solicitation posted and when did it close?

The solicitation was posted on February 27, 2015, and had a closing date of July 31, 2015.

Is this funding opportunity still open?

No. The solicitation later moved to archive status.

How does this opportunity connect to the federal BRAIN Initiative?

This solicitation sits within NSF's multi-year contribution to the federal BRAIN Initiative (Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies). That context signals interest in research that is scientifically ambitious and methodologically forward-looking, including pairing new conceptual models with modern measurement, analysis, or tool-building approaches.

What kinds of disciplines or methods are implied as important for competitiveness?

The solicitation implies that successful projects will blend neuroscience and biology with mathematics, physics, computation, and potentially engineering, using integrative approaches that connect theory, modeling, behavior, experimentation, and engineering methods.

Why does the solicitation emphasize real-world behavior?

The program aims to explain how higher-order odor representations are formed and used by the brain during ongoing, real-world behavior, linking representations directly to odor identification, discrimination, and decision-making.

What is the overall strategic intent of the program?

Overall, the program is positioned as an NSF-driven attempt to accelerate progress on a fundamental and stubborn problem in neuroscience by forcing cross-disciplinary contact, emphasizing behaviorally grounded understanding, and supporting projects large enough to integrate theory, computation, experiments, and novel behavioral designs under a single coherent framework.