Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact | PD 19 126Y

Opportunity Information: Apply for PD 19 126Y

The National Science Foundation (NSF) Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact (SoSDCI) program funds research that helps explain how science works and how it creates public value. The core aim is to build stronger theory and evidence about the processes behind scientific discovery, the ways scientific knowledge is communicated, and the real-world impacts science has on society and policy. This program is positioned as an expansion of NSF's earlier Science of Science and Innovation Policy (SciSIP) program, with a broader emphasis on understanding science as a social, organizational, and institutional system and on generating insights that can improve evidence-based decision-making.

SoSDCI is interested in rigorous empirical work that advances knowledge in three main areas. First, it supports studies on the social and structural mechanisms that shape scientific discovery, such as how teams form, how collaboration networks evolve, how incentives and norms influence research directions, and how institutions affect what gets studied and what gets published. Second, it encourages research that develops or improves theories, frameworks, models, and data resources for understanding scientific communication and outcomes, which can include how findings move through journals, preprints, conferences, media, and professional communities, and how those pathways affect credibility, uptake, replication, and downstream use. Third, it prioritizes work that clarifies the societal benefits of scientific activity, including how scientific evidence informs policy, how public value is produced, and which conditions help science translate into tangible improvements in areas like health, economic growth, public services, and national preparedness.

A key feature of the program is its openness to multiple levels of analysis and to different scales of scientific systems. Proposals may focus on individuals (for example, career trajectories, mentoring, productivity, and inclusion), organizations (such as universities, firms, labs, and funding bodies), or institutions and large-scale systems (like national research ecosystems, global collaboration patterns, and science policy regimes). NSF signals interest in micro, meso, and macro perspectives, as well as complex systems approaches, meaning proposals can range from detailed field experiments and observational studies to computational modeling, network science, and large-scale data integration, as long as the work is methodologically sound and theory-driven.

The solicitation emphasizes that proposals should do more than produce incremental improvements. Competitive projects are expected to draw clearly from science-of-science theory and push it forward, while also building models, datasets, indicators, or analytic tools that enable genuinely transformative advances. Applicants are asked to include credible, rigorous assessments of the project's potential impact, including social and policy implications, not just academic contributions. Another major expectation is a robust data management plan aligned with open science goals, with an emphasis on making research materials broadly accessible and usable while maintaining validity, reliability, and appropriate protections where needed.

NSF also highlights strategic national interests. Proposals that could strengthen U.S. global leadership in science and improve national competitiveness are of particular interest, including work that evaluates strategies to expand and strengthen the scientific workforce and efforts that identify how to cultivate high-impact discovery across sectors (academia, industry, government, and nonprofits). The program strongly encourages convergent, collaborative research, reflecting an interest in teams that bring together multiple disciplines, methods, and perspectives to answer complex questions about the scientific enterprise.

Like other NSF programs, SoSDCI is evaluated on intellectual merit and broader impacts, with explicit encouragement to treat broader impacts as a serious design element rather than an afterthought. Broader impacts can include practical benefits to society and clearer pathways to achieving specific policy-relevant outcomes. The program places a high priority on broadening participation in science and encourages submissions from early-career researchers and from investigators and regions that have historically been underrepresented in science, math, and engineering fields.

In terms of award mechanisms, SoSDCI supports standard research grants, collaborative research grants, conference grants, and a targeted topic area called SoSBIO (A Science of Science Approach to Analyzing and Innovating the Biomedical Research Enterprise). It may also participate in special NSF cross-cutting or cross-directorate funding opportunities. Administrative details from the opportunity listing include: the funding opportunity title is Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact; the opportunity number is PD 19-126Y; the agency is the U.S. National Science Foundation; the instrument type is a grant; the activity category is science and technology and other research and development; applicants are listed as unrestricted; the CFDA number is 47.075; the original closing date is 2025-09-09; and the posting/creation date is 2025-05-09.

• The U.S. National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Science of Science: Discovery, Communication and Impact" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.075.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-05-09.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-09-09. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted.

Apply for PD 19 126Y

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