Developmental and Learning Sciences ProgramDevelopmental and Learning Sciences Program

Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences DivisionBehavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division

Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences

Amy SussmanAmy Sussman

National Science FoundationNational Science Foundation(NSF)(NSF)

Funding Opportunities Funding Opportunities for Adolescence Researchfor Adolescence Research

Social & Economic Sciences (SES)

Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences

(BCS)

Science Resources Statistics

Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic

Sciences (SBE)

Office of the Director

Division of Behavioral and Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS)Cognitive Sciences (BCS)

• Supports:– Research to develop and advance

scientific knowledge focusing on human cognition, language, social behavior, and culture

– Research on the interactions between human societies and the physical environment

Developmental andDevelopmental and Learning Sciences (DLS) Learning Sciences (DLS)

Program Officer: Amy SussmanProgram Officer: Amy Sussman

Target Deadlines: January 15 and July 15Target Deadlines: January 15 and July 15

•Individual Investigator Award: Approx $75,000 – $120,000 / year

•Conference or Workshop Award: Average of $15,000 - $30,000

•Integrative Research Activities for Developmental Science

(IRADS): Up to $500,000 / year (not every year)

• DLS supports research that increases basic understanding of cognitive, social, and biological processes related to infant, child, and adolescent development and learning in formal and informal settings

Examples of Topics Funded by DLSExamples of Topics Funded by DLS• Developmental cognitive neuroscience research on learning, brain

adaptability, and experiential factors that affect brain development.

• Development of higher-order cognitive processes (e.g., critical thinking, memory, language, mental representation) that maximize learning potential.

• Use of molecular genetics data to inform the study of continuities and discontinuities in development.

• Development of peer relations and family interactions.

• Multiple influences on children's development and learning, including the impact of family, school, community resources, social institutions, and the media.

• Relation of adolescents' development to their preparation for entry into the workforce.

• Transfer of knowledge from one domain or situation to another.

• Cross-cultural research on development and learning, and the role of cultural influences on development.

• Multidisciplinary, multi-method, microgenetic, and longitudinal approaches to the study of development and learning.

• Development of new methods, models, and theories for studying learning and development.

• Research that integrates different processes (e.g., memory, emotion), levels of analysis (e.g., behavioral, social, neural), and time scales (e.g. infancy, middle childhood, adolescence)

Some DLS PrioritiesSome DLS Priorities

Perception, Action &Perception, Action &Cognition (PAC)Cognition (PAC)

• Supports basic research on human cognition, action, and perception

• Topics include, but are not limited to:– Attention– Memory– Spatial Cognition– Language Processing– Visual, Auditory, and Tactile Perception– Motor control– Reasoning– Developmental issues in all PAC topic areas

• Research supported by the program encompasses a broad range of theoretical perspectives such as Symbolic Computation, Connectionism, and Dynamical Systems

Program Officers: Betty Tuller and Vince Brown

Cognitive NeuroscienceCognitive Neuroscience• Supports highly innovative and interdisciplinary

proposals • Proposals should aim to advance a rigorous

understanding of how the human brain supports:• Thought

• Perception

• Affect

• Action

• Social processes

• Other aspects of cognition and behavior, including how such processes develop and change in the brain and through evolutionary time

Program Officer: Lynne Bernstein

Social PsychologySocial Psychology• Supports basic research on human social behavior,

including cultural differences and development over the life span

• Among the many research topics supported are:– Attitude formation and change– Social cognition– Personality processes– Interpersonal relations and group processes– The self– Emotion– Social comparison and social influence– Psychophysiological and neurological correlates

of social behavior

Program Officers: Kellina Craig-Henderson and Brett Pelham

LinguisticsLinguistics

• Supports scientific research of all types that focus on human language as an object of investigation – the syntactic, semantic, phonetic, and phonological

properties of individual languages and of language in general

– the psychological processes involved in the use of language– the development of linguistic capacities in children– social and cultural factors in language use, variation, and

change– the acoustics of speech and the physiological and

psychological processes involved in the production and perception of speech

– the biological bases of language in the brain

Program Officers: Joan Maling and Eric Potsdam

Additional Standing BCS ProgramsAdditional Standing BCS Programs

• Cultural Anthropology

• Physical Anthropology

• Archaeology

• Geography and Spatial Sciences

• Documenting Endangered Languages

Division of Social & Division of Social & Economic Sciences (SES)Economic Sciences (SES)

• Decision, Risk & Management Science• Economics• Innovation and Organizational Sciences• Law and Social Science• Methodology, Measurement, & Statistics• Political Science• Science, Technology, & Society• Sociology

Co-Review, Co-FundingCo-Review, Co-Funding

• Investigators may request co-review by more than one program

• Proposals may be co-reviewed by programs located anywhere within NSF (not limited to SBE Directorate)

• Program Directors may decide to share proposals with other programs on their own – For DLS community, most commonly shared within the

psychological and linguistic cluster of BCS programs, as well as education…

Other Programs of InterestOther Programs of Interest• Research and Evaluation on Education in Science and

Engineering (REESE), Division of Research on Learning in Formal & Informal Settings (DRL), Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR) – Advance research focused on core scientific questions of STEM

learning, education, and evaluation, and provide the foundational knowledge necessary to improve STEM teaching and learning at all educational levels and in all settings

• Science of Learning Centers (SLC), SBE

– Large-scale, long-term centers aimed at understanding what learning is and how it is affected at all levels

– Small-scale proposals for research or workshops that connect new collaborations with current SLCs or bridge gaps in our understanding of the science of learning

– Must contact program officers directly before submitting a proposal

Other Programs of Interest Other Programs of Interest (cont.)(cont.)

• Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE)– Supports true intellectual collaboration with foreign research

partners, formation of new international collaborations, clear benefit to U.S science community, and especially the active engagement of U.S. students and junior researchers at foreign sites

• Biological Systems Cluster (Animal Behavior), BIO– For comparative studies of development: Funds research on the

development, function, mechanisms, and evolutionary history of behavior; encourages projects that seek to understand how combinations of neural, hormonal, physiological, and developmental mechanisms act synergistically as a system from which behavior emerges.

Additional NSF Initiatives of InterestAdditional NSF Initiatives of Interest

• Training and early career awards– Graduate Research Fellowships (through DGE/EHR)– Minority Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (through SBE)– CAREER: Faculty Early Career Development Program (through

individual programs like DLS)– new Fostering Interdisciplinary Research on Education (FIRE)

(through DRL/EHR)

• Cyber-enabled Discovery and Innovation (CDI)• Social-Computational Systems (SoCS)• Collaborative Research in Computational Neuroscience

(CFCNS)

Final NoteFinal Note

• Postdoctoral mentoring

– To implement the mentoring portion of the America COMPETES Act of 2007, NSF now requires a written plan for mentoring funded postdoctoral fellows to be included in the supplementary section

National Science Foundation