Build and Broaden 3.0: Enhancing Social, Behavioral and Economic Science Research and Capacity at Minority-Serving Institutions | 22 530

Opportunity Information: Apply for 22 530

Build and Broaden 3.0 (B2 3.0) is a National Science Foundation (NSF) grant opportunity run through the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate. The program is aimed at strengthening fundamental research and research capacity at Minority-Serving Institutions (MSIs) while also increasing meaningful collaborations between MSI-based scholars and researchers at other institutions. At its core, B2 3.0 is designed to broaden participation in the federal research enterprise by expanding who gets supported to do SBE research and by building stronger, more connected research networks that include MSI faculty, staff, and students.

The need behind the program is straightforward: MSIs play a major role in educating and training future STEM talent that the United States relies on for economic growth and competitiveness, yet NSF has historically received relatively few proposals from, or involving, MSI scholars, especially within SBE. NSF outreach has shown that familiarity with NSF funding opportunities can vary widely across MSIs, and this uneven awareness and access can limit the amount of SBE research and training that NSF is able to support at these institutions. B2 3.0 is NSF SBE's targeted response to that gap, with an emphasis on increasing proposal submissions from MSIs, expanding collaborative research networks that include MSI researchers, and supporting research activities that build durable capacity in the SBE sciences at MSIs.

The solicitation encourages proposals that are not only scientifically strong, but also structured to produce clear institutional and workforce impacts at MSIs. In practice, NSF highlights projects that do things like increase students' interest in and preparation for graduate study, improve principal investigator (PI) research productivity and competitiveness, and cultivate sustained partnerships with researchers at other institutions. While the program supports fundamental research (not just training or outreach alone), it strongly favors proposals that explain how the research plan will also strengthen the MSI research environment, such as by developing new collaborations, mentoring structures, research pipelines, or other capacity-building elements tied directly to the proposed SBE work.

In terms of who can apply, proposals may come from a single PI based at an MSI or from teams made up of multiple co-investigators across a group of MSIs. Researchers who are not affiliated with an MSI are still allowed to submit, but they must partner with MSI personnel (as PIs, co-PIs, or senior personnel) and must make research partnership development or MSI capacity-building a primary goal of the project, not a minor side benefit. This requirement is central to the program: NSF is not simply funding SBE research that happens to include an MSI, but rather research that intentionally builds MSI-centered capability and long-term participation in SBE scholarship.

B2 3.0 is open to the broad range of scientific areas supported by NSF SBE. The solicitation explicitly includes fields such as anthropology, archaeology, cognitive neuroscience, decision science, ecological research, economics, geography, linguistics, law and science, organizational behavior, political science, public policy, security and preparedness, psychology, and sociology (among others supported by SBE programs). That breadth means applicants can propose work across many types of questions and methods, as long as the project aligns with SBE priorities and advances the program's MSI participation and capacity goals.

From the listing information provided, the opportunity is a discretionary NSF grant (CFDA 47.075), numbered 22-530, created December 2, 2021, with an original closing date of March 1, 2022. The anticipated number of awards was 30, and the award ceiling is shown as 0 in the source data (which typically signals that applicants should rely on the solicitation text for budget guidance rather than a single fixed cap in the summary record). Overall, the program can be understood as NSF SBE's effort to broaden who leads and benefits from federally funded social, behavioral, and economic science research by making MSI-based research activity, networks, and student pathways a direct focus of the funded work.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Build and Broaden 3.0: Enhancing Social, Behavioral and Economic Science Research and Capacity at Minority-Serving Institutions" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.075.
• This funding opportunity was created on Dec 02, 2021.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Mar 01, 2022. (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 30 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for 22 530

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