Next Generation Networks For Neuroscience (NeuroNex)

Understanding the brain is one of the grand scientific challenges at the intersection of experimental, theoretical, and computational investigation in the life, physical, behavioral, and cognitive sciences. Rapid proliferation of advanced measurement instrumentation and techniques has allowed researchers to study the brain and behavior at ever finer physical and temporal scales and in broader social and environmental contexts. At the same time, achieving a comprehensive, transformational understanding of the brain in action and in context will require an increased emphasis on systematic, interdisciplinary collaboration and team science, and the increased use of theoretical frameworks, including evolutionary ones, to explore questions that span organizational levels, scales of analysis, and a wider range of species optimal for experimental exploration of brain function. To catalyze such understanding, NSF announced its intention to support the development of innovative, accessible, and shared capabilities and resources towards the establishment of a coherent national infrastructure for neuroscience research, as described in the Dear Colleague Letter NSF 16-047.

The goal of this solicitation is to foster the development and dissemination of (1) innovative research resources, instrumentation, and neurotechnologies, and (2) theoretical frameworks for understanding brain function across organizational levels, scales of analysis, and/or a wider range of species, including humans. This interdisciplinary program is one element of NSF’s broader effort directed at Understanding the Brain, a multi-year activity that includes NSF’s participation in the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies (BRAIN) Initiative (http://www.nsf.gov/brain/) and the phased approach to develop a national research infrastructure for neuroscience as outlined in the Dear Colleague Letter NSF16-047. NSF envisions a connected portfolio of transformative, integrative projects that create synergistic links across investigators and communities, yielding novel ways of tackling the challenges of understanding the brain in action and in context.

This program solicits proposals that will develop and disseminate innovative neurotechnologies and/or theoretical frameworks that will transform our understanding of the linkages between neural activity and cognition and behavior across different systems, environments, and species, while also providing an avenue for widespread dissemination of  these technologies and theoretical frameworks as well as broad training opportunities.