Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis | Apply Online

Opportunity Summary:

The National Science Foundation (NSF) funding opportunity titled Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis (OPUS) is a discretionary grant program housed within the Division of Environmental Biology. It is designed to support projects that pull together, integrate, and make broader sense of a substantial body of related research that has been carried out over an extended period. Rather than funding a brand-new line of field or lab work as the central focus, OPUS emphasizes synthesis: taking multiple studies, datasets, publications, and long-running research threads and combining them into a coherent, higher-level understanding that produces new insights for the scientific community.

A key feature of OPUS is that it is welcomed across all four program clusters in Environmental Biology: Population and Community Ecology, Ecosystem Science, Evolutionary Processes and Systematic Biology, and Biodiversity Inventories. This makes the program broadly relevant to environmental and organismal biology, especially where a mature research portfolio can be distilled into a unifying framework, comparative analysis, conceptual model, or integrative set of conclusions that could not be achieved by looking at the component projects in isolation. The opportunity explicitly supports synthesis efforts built from the work of a single investigator as well as from a team of investigators who have collaborated over time, with award funds able to facilitate the collaboration needed to complete the synthesis.

In terms of career stage, OPUS is often positioned as particularly suitable for mid- to late-career scientists who have accumulated enough interconnected research to warrant a full synthesis. At the same time, NSF makes clear that the program is not limited to senior investigators. It can also be appropriate earlier in a career if the applicant(s) are at a point where synthesizing prior work will yield a distinctive and integrated perspective that is valuable to the broader field and also helps shape the next stage of the investigator's research trajectory. In collaborative situations, OPUS can function as dedicated support for coauthors and partners to jointly produce the synthesis outcomes.

Administratively, this opportunity is a grant (Funding Instrument Type: Grant) in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category, under CFDA 47.074 (Biological Sciences). The program anticipated about 8 awards with an estimated total funding amount of $1,200,000. Individual awards were expected to fall within a relatively narrow range, with an award floor of $125,000 and an award ceiling of $150,000. The opportunity did not require cost sharing or matching.

Eligibility was listed as unrestricted, meaning it was open to any type of entity, subject to any additional clarifications provided in the full solicitation. The original posting date was April 9, 2010, with proposal deadlines indicated as July 7, 2010 and then annually thereafter (with an additional annual deadline of January 7 beginning in 2011). This specific announcement was later archived (Archive Date: December 19, 2011) and marked as replaced by NSF opportunity 12-506, indicating that while the OPUS concept continued, applicants would need to consult the successor solicitation for current requirements, dates, and submission instructions.

For reference and official details, NSF associated the opportunity with NSF Publication 10-557. For access issues related to the announcement through Grants.gov, the listed support contact was grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov.

Browse more opportunities from the same agency: National Science Foundation

Browse more opportunities from the same category: Science and Technology and other Research and Development

Next opportunity: Integrating HIV Care and Treatment within the Network of Facilities Offering TB Treatment and Providing Technical Assistance to the Ministry of Health Toward Strengthening the National TB/HIV System in Haiti Under the President s Emergency Plan for A

Previous opportunity: Strategic Agricultural Initiative (SAI) Grant Program FY 2010

USGrants.org Applicant Portal:

Are you interested in learning about about how to apply for this government funding opportunity? You can create a free applicant account and receive instant access to our applicant portal that many business owners like you have benefited from.

Apply for 10 557

 

[Watch] how do funding administrators access proposals?

Applicants also applied for:

Applicants who have applied for this opportunity (10 557) also looked into and applied for these:

 

Grant application guides and resources

It is always free to apply for government grants. However the process may be very complex depending on the funding opportunity you are applying for. Let us help you!

Apply for Grants

 

 

Premium leads for funding administrators, grant writers, and loan issuers

Thousands of people visit our website for their funding needs every day. When a user creates a grant proposal and files for submission, we pass the information on to funding administrators, grant writers, and government loan issuers.

If you manage government grant programs, provide grant writing services, or issue personal or government loans, we can help you reach your audience.

Subscribe to Leads

 

Request more information:

Would you like to learn more about this funding opportunity, similar opportunities to "10 557", eligibility, application service, and/or application tips? Submit an inquiry below:

Don't forget to subscribe to our grant alerts mailing list to receive weekly alerts on new and updated grant funding opportunities like this one in your email.