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FAQs: NSF Genealogy of Life (GoLife) Grant Opportunity

What is the NSF Genealogy of Life (GoLife) grant opportunity?

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Genealogy of Life (GoLife) grant opportunity is a program intended to accelerate progress toward a complete, openly accessible evolutionary "family tree" for all life. This includes both living organisms and extinct organisms, with an emphasis on building resources the broader research community can use.

What is the main scientific focus of GoLife?

The core focus is phylogeny: resolving evolutionary relationships across Earth's biodiversity and using those relationships as a unifying framework to understand how life has changed through deep time, how it functions in modern ecosystems, and how it may respond to future environmental change.

How does GoLife treat phylogenies compared with traditional approaches?

GoLife emphasizes that phylogenies should not be treated as standalone products. Instead, the program prioritizes building an integrated knowledge architecture where evolutionary trees are tightly connected to other types of biological and Earth science data used to explain patterns and processes.

What does "integration" mean in the context of GoLife proposals?

Integration means proposals should strategically combine phylogenetic information with complementary data layers. The goal is to create a synthesis that supports comparative analyses across multiple disciplines, rather than focusing only on producing a tree.

What kinds of data are expected to be integrated with phylogenies?

The opportunity highlights integrating phylogenetic information with data such as genomic sequences, phenotypic traits, geographic and spatial distributions, ecological interactions and conditions, geological context, and temporal information (including fossil ages and historical timelines).

Which scientific fields does GoLife aim to connect through its integrated approach?

GoLife is designed to support comparative analyses across fields including systematics, evolutionary biology, ecology, paleontology, and related disciplines by aligning evolutionary relationships with organismal and environmental datasets.

What kinds of research questions or biological dynamics does GoLife aim to enable?

By aligning phylogenies with organismal and environmental datasets, GoLife aims to enable large-scale synthetic research on biological dynamics, including diversification, adaptation, extinction, community assembly, and long-term responses to climatic or geological shifts.

Does GoLife prioritize building new branches on the tree of life, or something broader?

The program is looking for projects that do more than generate new branches on the tree of life. Competitive proposals are expected to combine phylogenies with other data layers and contribute to a broader, more usable genealogy resource.

What does NSF indicate about efficiency and scalability in GoLife projects?

NSF signals a strong preference for approaches that increase efficiency and scalability in building the Genealogy of Life. Competitive projects are expected to contribute in ways that measurably advance the completeness and usability of the broader genealogy.

What types of contributions are described as competitive for GoLife?

Examples of competitive contributions mentioned include methodological innovations, new analytical pipelines, data harmonization efforts, or frameworks that make it easier to integrate heterogeneous data with phylogenies.

What is the end vision or long-term outcome GoLife is aiming for?

The stated vision is an open-access, comprehensive resource that functions as shared infrastructure for the research community. The program emphasizes improved reproducibility, reusability, and the ability to test broad comparative hypotheses across many groups of organisms.

What does GoLife say about open access?

GoLife is oriented toward an openly accessible evolutionary family tree and an open-access comprehensive resource intended for broad community use as shared research infrastructure.

Is workforce development part of the GoLife program goals?

Yes. Workforce development is an explicit goal. GoLife is intended not only to deliver phylogenetic and integrative products, but also to train the next generation of integrative phylogenetic biologists.

What training components are expected in GoLife proposals?

Proposals are expected to incorporate meaningful training components that expose students to the multidisciplinary nature of the project work, preparing them for diverse career paths connected to integrative phylogenetic biology.

What disciplines are mentioned as part of the multidisciplinary training emphasis?

The opportunity highlights building human capacity to connect evolutionary biology with genomics, informatics, ecology, geosciences, and other relevant areas.

What is the Funding Opportunity Number for this NSF solicitation?

The Funding Opportunity Number listed is 16-522.

How is this opportunity categorized administratively?

It is described as a discretionary NSF grant opportunity in the "Science and Technology and other Research and Development" category.

What CFDA numbers are associated with this opportunity?

The CFDA numbers listed are 47.050 and 47.074.

Who is eligible to apply for the GoLife opportunity?

Eligibility is listed as unrestricted, meaning proposals can come from any entity type, subject to any additional eligibility notes in the solicitation text.

When was this opportunity posted and what was the closing date?

The opportunity was posted on December 18, 2015, and the closing date was March 23, 2016.

What is the award ceiling for GoLife awards?

The award ceiling listed is $2,500,000.

How many awards were expected to be made?

About six awards were expected, suggesting support for relatively large-scale, integrative projects.

What does the expected number and size of awards suggest about the program?

The combination of a relatively high award ceiling and an expectation of about six awards indicates a program structure geared toward substantial, integrative projects that can produce broadly useful outcomes for the scientific community.

Does GoLife explicitly include extinct organisms, or only living species?

GoLife explicitly includes both living and extinct organisms as part of its aim to build a complete evolutionary family tree for all life.

Why does GoLife emphasize connecting phylogenies to geological and temporal context?

The opportunity describes integrating geological context and temporal information (including fossil ages and historical timelines) so evolutionary relationships can be used to understand patterns through deep time and support cross-disciplinary comparisons involving paleontology and Earth sciences.

What is meant by "integrated knowledge architecture" in this program?

In the GoLife description, an integrated knowledge architecture means evolutionary trees are connected to the kinds of datasets biologists and Earth scientists use, enabling phylogeny to serve as a unifying framework for synthesis and explanation across data types.