Convergence

LIFE: LEVERAGING INNOVATIONS FROM EVOLUTION – TOWN HALL AND SCOPING SESSIONS

NSF, in partnership with KnowInnovation, will be hosting a virtual Town Hall and two Scoping Sessions (one in-person and one virtual) focused on LIFE: Leveraging Innovations From Evolution. LIFE aims to bring together diverse scientists to think on specific research challenges and opportunities, including technological and educational training needs, that leverage convergent evolution to investigate the evolution of innovation and adaptive traits.

About the Town Hall

The informational Town Hall on May 15, 2023, 1:00 – 2:30pm ET will include an overview of the goals of LIFE and provide details on the Scoping Sessions.

Register for the Town Hall by clicking here.  Deadline to register is May 14, 2023, 5:00 pm EDT.

About the Scoping Sessions

The Scoping Sessions will be held in-person in Indianapolis (August 14-16, 2023) and virtually (September 11, 13, 15, 2023).  These sessions will be highly interactive, with discussion- and solution-based formats aimed at providing actionable outcomes and recommendations to NSF for both near- and long-term research priorities.

Goals include:

  • Engaging the life sciences and adjacent communities to focus on research challenges and opportunities pertaining to evolutionary innovations within a convergent evolution framework to better understand generalizable as well as unique solutions to life’s common problems. 
  • Articulating needs, strategies, and recommendations to enable transdisciplinary research into life’s evolutionary innovations and solutions to changing environments. This includes research, infrastructure, and educational priorities.
  • Jumpstarting ideas, building new networks and teams, and outlining the most exciting areas of research that would leverage natural systems and convergently evolved innovations to help us more efficiently and effectively engineer new and sustainable technologies that power our economy.

Who Should Apply?

If you are eager to engage with diverse researchers to spark creative paths forward to advance our understanding of LIFE, join us!

We encourage researchers with interest and expertise in a variety of fields, including but not limited to the following: Systematics, Evolutionary Biology, Developmental Biology, Biomechanics, Physiology, Molecular Biology, Biochemistry, Cellular Biology, Genetics, Genomics, Chemistry, Computational Biology, Biological Informatics, Mathematical Modeling, Biogeography, Ecology, Synthetic Biology, Cyberinfrastructure, Biophysics and Engineering.

Apply for the Scoping Sessions by clicking here.  Deadline to apply is June 5, 2023 by 11:59 pm EDT.

Future Topics for the NSF Convergence Accelerator: NSF Wants Your Ideas

Your ideas must meet: Significant national-scale societal impact. Be built upon basic research. Convergence research approach. Submissions are due November 9, 2020.

NSF Wants Your Ideas! Requesting Future Topics for the NSF Convergence Accelerator

The NSF Convergence Accelerator has issued a Dear Colleague Letter (NSF-21-012): Request for Information on Future Topics for the NSF Convergence Accelerator to capture national-scale societal impact ideas from the global community for fiscal year 2022. The request for information (RFI) is the kickoff of the Convergence Accelerator’s ideation process. The providers of selected ideas will be asked to submit a conference proposal to further develop the proposed idea and to gather insights for a final report to assist NSF in determining convergence research topics for 2022.

Participants from academia, industry, government, non-profit, and other sectors are encouraged to submit their ideas at https://bit.ly/31sNzDg. Responses to the RFI are due by November 9, 2020.

Upcoming Webinars for RFI
Interested individuals may join the Convergence Accelerator on October 21 or 27, 2020 to learn about the program’s ideation process, specifically focusing on the FY 2022 RFI on future topics. Attendees will learn about the Convergence Accelerator’s model and fundamentals, designed to leverage a convergence approach to transition basic research and discovery into practice. Through this program, fundamental knowledge generated by MCB-supported science can be transitioned to address complex societal issues.

The goal of this webinar is to bring awareness of this exciting opportunity to accelerate NSF-funded research and discovery to further societal impact.

Wednesday, October 21, 2-3:30 p.m. (ET)
To register, visit https://bit.ly/NSFCA_Oct21_RFIWebinar

Tuesday, October 27, 2-3:30 p.m. (ET) 
To register, visit https://bit.ly/NSFCA_Oct27_RFIWebinar

After registering a confirmation email containing the meeting information, including how to join will be provided. 

For additional information on the NSF Convergence Accelerator program, visit https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/convergence-accelerator/ or email C-Accel@nsf.gov.