A new Enabling Discovery Through GEnomic Tools (EDGE) solicitation (NSF 19-527) has been released. Although for the Directorate of Biological Sciences there are no deadlines for many kinds of proposals, as a special program EDGE will continue to have a deadline – in 2019, EDGE proposals will be due on Tuesday, February 12^th.

EDGE continues to focus solely on tool development for direct tests of gene function in non-model organisms.  The expectation is that those tools will be rapidly disseminated throughout the biological community for future hypothesis-driven research.

With this solicitation EDGE introduces two separate funding tracks:

The Comprehensive Track is intended for projects to develop and provide proof-of concept tests of functional genomic tools and infrastructure to enable direct tests of hypotheses about gene function in diverse animals,  plants, microbes, fungi and viruses for which such tools and infrastructure are presently unavailable.

The Targeted Track is intended to address a specific bottleneck that impedes either transformation or aspects of husbandry required to produce sufficient biological material (e.g. specific cell types, life history stages etc.) needed to efficiently conduct direct tests of gene function. Targeted track proposals are expected to be smaller in scope and thus have more limited budgets.

Prior to submission please read the EDGE solicitation carefully. There are some significant differences for EDGE proposals from the general instructions in NSF’s PAPPG. EDGE proposals have required sections in the project description and additional supplementary documents compared to regular proposals submitted to IOS core programs. Collaborative projects from a consortium of organizations must submit a single proposal with one eligible organization serving as the lead, and all other organizations as sub-awardees.

EDGE proposals also have special review criteria. For EDGE proposals, reviewers will be instructed to focus on the following critical aspects of the proposed work:

• The potential catalytic impact of enabling the species named in the proposal to advance research in organismal biology;
• The potential catalytic impact of the proposed research to advance organismal research by enabling new tools, approaches, and infrastructure;
• The feasibility of the proposed methods and approaches to achieve the stated goals, and the likelihood of success;
• The quality and potential for rapid and high impact of the Dissemination and Education Plan; and,
• For those proposals involving multiple organizations, the quality of the Project Management Plan and likelihood of successful project coordination.

Questions?

Contact the EDGE working group: BIOIOSEDGE@NSF.GOV