The U.S. National Science Foundation is an independent federal agency that supports science and engineering in all 50 states and U.S. territories. NSF was established in 1950 by Congress to promote the progress of science, advance the national health, prosperity and welfare, and secure the national defense.
The grant program seeks to fund research that contributes to our understanding of socio-cultural drivers and processes such as deforestation, desertification, urbanization, and poverty, among others. It encourages the study of resilience and robustness in socio-cultural systems, the scientific principles underlying conflict and cooperation, and the exploration of economy, culture, migration, globalization, and more. The program prioritizes research that increases understanding of variability and change in kinship and family norms, social regulation, origins of complexity in socio-cultural systems, language and culture, human variation, and the development of mathematical and computational models of sociocultural systems. Additionally, it supports doctoral dissertation projects that enhance basic scientific knowledge, provided they integrate education and basic research. Research aimed primarily at improving clinical practice, humanistic understanding, or applied policy is not funded.