Organismal Response to Climate Change | 25 504

Opportunity Information: Apply for 25 504

The National Science Foundation (NSF) grant opportunity titled Organismal Response to Climate Change (ORCC) supports research that explains, in a mechanistic and predictive way, how living organisms respond to rapidly changing climate conditions. The program is motivated by the reality that climate change is already reshaping ecosystems across every biome and affecting nearly all forms of life, with cascading consequences for individual growth and reproduction, species ranges, community composition, agricultural productivity, and the frequency and severity of disease and pathogen outbreaks. NSF is emphasizing that these biological impacts are not just ecological concerns; they already influence the U.S. bioeconomy, global food security, and the ecosystem services people rely on.

A central goal of ORCC is to move beyond climate studies that describe patterns (for example, shifts in distribution or phenology) without fully connecting those patterns to the underlying biological mechanisms and to longer-term ecological and evolutionary outcomes. This solicitation is specifically designed to fund projects that integrate organismal-level mechanisms of climate response (such as physiology, development, behavior, and genomics) with eco-evolutionary approaches that explain how traits affect fitness, how selection acts in changing environments, and how adaptive or maladaptive responses spread or persist across generations. NSF is looking for convergent, cross-disciplinary proposals that link what happens inside organisms to what happens in populations, species, and communities over space and time, with the explicit intent of improving prediction and supporting mitigation or management strategies.

The solicitation highlights several example research directions, while making clear that the list is not exhaustive. Priority areas include integrating physiology and genomics into the next generation of species distribution models, identifying the mechanistic bases of plastic responses to climate change (how organisms adjust without genetic change), and using functional genomics to understand the molecular and genetic architecture of climate responses. It also encourages work on biological interactions under climate change, such as how altered temperature, moisture, or seasonality changes competition, predation, mutualisms, host-pathogen dynamics, and other interactions, and how those interaction shifts feed back to influence organismal performance and survival. Another emphasis is improving the ability to predict limits of resilience, both biological and global, as organisms face novel and more extreme climatic conditions that may push them beyond tolerable thresholds.

A distinguishing requirement of ORCC is that proposals must genuinely bridge disciplines and scales: they should not only document responses, but also explain mechanisms, connect those mechanisms to eco-evolutionary consequences above the level of the individual, and describe how the foundational science will be translated into use-inspired outcomes. In practice, that means NSF expects applicants to articulate a pathway from mechanistic discovery to practical relevance, such as better forecasting of vulnerability, improved management or conservation decisions, more robust predictions for agriculture or disease risk, or other societally relevant applications tied to anticipating and managing climate impacts. Proposals that do not integrate across disciplinary components, that do not maintain a clear focus on organismal mechanisms, that fail to connect mechanisms to broader eco-evolutionary implications, or that do not lay out a plan for use-inspired applications are considered a poor fit for this ORCC solicitation and are instead expected to be submitted to other relevant NSF core or special programs (for example, in IOS, OCE, or DEB). NSF also advises prospective applicants to contact the appropriate program officer if there is uncertainty about fit.

Eligibility is limited to specific applicant types. Eligible applicants include U.S.-based non-profit, non-academic organizations directly associated with education or research activities (such as independent museums, observatories, research laboratories, and professional societies), accredited U.S. institutions of higher education (two- or four-year institutions, including community colleges) applying on behalf of their faculty, and federally recognized Tribal Nations (American Indian or Alaska Native tribes, bands, nations, pueblos, villages, or communities recognized under the Federally Recognized Indian Tribe List Act). If a proposal involves funding to an international branch campus of a U.S. institution (including via subawards or consultants), the submission must clearly explain why that international location is beneficial and why the work cannot be performed at the U.S. campus.

Administratively, this is a discretionary NSF grant opportunity in the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category, associated with CFDA numbers 47.050 and 47.074. The funding opportunity number is 25-504. NSF anticipates making about 20 awards. The original closing date listed for submission is 2025-01-23, and the opportunity record indicates a creation date of 2024-10-23. The award ceiling is not specified in the provided source details.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Organismal Response to Climate Change" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.050, 47.074.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2024-10-23.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-01-23. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 20 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others.

Apply for 25 504

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