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 DEB Core supports a wide range of research and training endeavors that investigate evolutionary and ecological processes. It encourages proposals across a broad spectrum, including field, laboratory, or collection-based approaches; observational or manipulative studies; synthesis activities; phylogenetic discovery projects; and theoretical approaches through analytical, statistical, or computational modeling. Proposals can be submitted to core clusters such as Ecosystem Science, Evolutionary Processes, Population and Community Ecology, and Systematics and Biodiversity Science. Interdisciplinary proposals that cross conceptual boundaries and integrate across biological organization levels or multiple scales are encouraged. DEB emphasizes leveraging NSF-supported data networks, databases, and scientific infrastructure in proposals and focuses particularly on inclusive efforts to recruit and retain biology students, postdoctoral researchers, and early-career investigators from underrepresented groups in the biological sciences.