Signals in the Soil | 20 548

Opportunity Information: Apply for 20 548

Signals in the Soil (SitS) is a competitive research grant opportunity led by the National Science Foundation (NSF) in collaboration with the US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture (USDA NIFA). The program is built around a straightforward but urgent idea: soils take centuries to form, can be damaged quickly, and are easy to overlook even though they underpin food production, ecosystem health, infrastructure, water and nutrient cycling, and even medical breakthroughs such as antibiotics that originated from soil organisms. SitS treats soil not as a static backdrop, but as a living, dynamic system where organic matter, minerals, water, air, and vast communities of microbes and other organisms interact to drive biological, chemical, and physical processes that matter directly to society.

The central goal of the opportunity is to accelerate transformative advances in how scientists measure, interpret, and model soil processes, including soil formation and the ongoing signaling and interactions among plants, animals, microbes, the soil matrix, and water and gases moving through pore spaces. The solicitation emphasizes convergent research, meaning proposals are expected to bring together expertise across multiple disciplines rather than staying within a single traditional field. On the NSF side, the opportunity spans Engineering (ENG), Geosciences (GEO), Biological Sciences (BIO: Integrative Organismal Systems and Environmental Biology), Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE: Computer and Network Systems), and Chemistry (CHE). In practical terms, the program is looking for teams that can connect engineering and sensor development, computing and networking, chemistry and biogeochemistry, and ecological and organismal biology into a cohesive approach to understanding soils as complex ecosystems.

A major focus is the development of environmentally benign, novel sensing systems that use multiple measurement modalities and can operate in varied conditions. The intent is not just to build a sensor, but to create sensing approaches that can adapt across environments (for example, different soil types, moisture regimes, temperatures, and land uses) and capture a wide range of parameters, including biological signals, chemical gradients, and physical conditions. The opportunity also stresses the importance of collecting, transmitting, and integrating data effectively, pointing to sensor networks and modern data pipelines as key enablers. In other words, SitS is as much about the end-to-end system (sensing, networking, data integration, and interpretation) as it is about any single device.

Equally important is the modeling side. SitS explicitly encourages work that uses these new data streams to improve or rethink models of soil processes. The idea is that better and more continuous observations can reshape how models are built, calibrated, and validated, and ultimately change how soil data are obtained in both natural and managed ecosystems, including urban and rural settings. The long-term payoff described in the opportunity is a more predictive, mechanistic understanding of soil function that can inform real-world decisions for communities that depend on soils for food, livelihoods, and environmental quality.

From the funding details provided, this is a discretionary grant program (Funding Opportunity Number 20-548) with an award ceiling of $1,200,000 per award and an expectation of about 10 awards. Eligibility is listed as unrestricted (open to any type of entity), subject to any additional eligibility clarifications in the full solicitation. The opportunity was created February 20, 2020, with an original closing date of May 20, 2020. The listed CFDA numbers (10.310 and multiple NSF research CFDA entries) reflect the joint NSF and USDA NIFA involvement and the cross-directorate nature of the program. Overall, SitS is positioned for high-impact, interdisciplinary projects that push beyond incremental soil monitoring and instead build new sensing-and-modeling capabilities to reveal the "signals" that govern how soils form, function, and respond to change.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Signals in the Soil" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.310, 47.041, 47.049, 47.050, 47.070, 47.074.
• This funding opportunity was created on Feb 20, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by May 20, 2020. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $1,200,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 10 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Unrestricted (i.e., open to any type of entity above), subject to any clarification in text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility.

Apply for 20 548

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