NSF 25-505: Build and Broaden: Enhancing Social, Behavioral and Economic Science Research and Capacity at Minority-Serving Institutions

Overview

Build and Broaden (B2) supports fundamental research and research capacity across disciplines at minority-serving institutions (MSIs) and encourages research collaborations with scholars at MSIs. Growing the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) workforce is a national priority. National forecasts of the impending shortage of workers with science and engineering skills and essential research workers underscore a need to expand opportunities to participate in STEM research ( President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, 2012).

The Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) supports research in many areas associated with our evolving world, including fundamental research on human behavior and surrounding social, economic and natural environments. Research supported in SBE advances the understanding of people, social organizations and society in a changing world where there are increasing new opportunities for interconnectedness as well as challenges that affect the ability to live dignified, healthy and productive lives.

Minority-serving institutions (MSIs) play a critical role in educating millions of Americans. They provide a vehicle for educational attainment, social mobility, and promote higher education for both rural and urban communities. MSIs thus enable millions of students from a variety of backgrounds to participate in STEM fields. 

Program Description
The goal of the SBE B2 funding opportunity is to encourage submission of proposals from MSIs, and partnerships with and among MSIs, in order to advance fundamental research and build capacity in the SBE sciences. NSF’s SBE directorate welcomes submission of proposals from MSIs, and from partnerships that include MSIs, that address any of the research areas supported by the directorate.

B2 is designed to support research projects that:
•    Contribute to stronger, more innovative science by diversifying research and widening the STEM pipeline.
•    Furthers intellectual innovation in the social and behavioral sciences.
•    Provide researchers with new ways to diversify and sustain collaborations.
•    Build capacity and enhance research productivity in the SBE sciences at MSIs.
•    Foster partnerships that strengthen career and research trajectories for faculty at MSIs.

Supported projects are expected to yield results that will promote scientific progress; advance national health, prosperity and welfare; strengthen collaborative research initiatives involving MSI scholars and MSI institutions; and establish more robust training and research networks among researchers in the SBE sciences and across other disciplines that have similar interests.

Proposals from Principal Investigators who are not affiliated with MSIs must partner with senior/key personnel, a co-PI or a sub-awardee PI who is based at an MSI. In these cases, PIs must describe how their project will foster partnerships or research capacity-building with at least one MSI.

In addition to standard research and collaborative research proposals that advance research and build capacity for investigators at MSIs, the B2 Program also invites conference proposals, Early-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals) and Research Coordination Network (RCN) proposals.

An individual may be the principal investigator (PI) or co-PI for only one proposal for this program; i.e., no investigator, PI or co-PI, can be listed on the NSF proposal cover sheet on more than one proposal to the Build and Broaden Program per year. 

NSF's Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) Sciences Directorate Replaces: NSF 22-638
Award Information
Estimated Number of Awards: 25 to 30
Anticipated Funding Amount: $8,000,000  
Estimated program budget, number of awards and average award size/duration are subject to the availability of funds and quality of proposals.
Due Dates: Full Proposal Target Date(s): January 23, 2025; January 15, 2026 (and the Third Thursday in January, Annually Thereafter)