Ethical and Responsible Research | 19 609

Opportunity Information: Apply for 19 609

The National Science Foundation's Ethical and Responsible Research (ER2) grant opportunity supports research that explains how ethical STEM researchers are formed and how those conditions can be intentionally developed across the full range of NSF-supported disciplines. The core purpose is to build evidence, using rigorous basic research, about what responsible conduct of research (RCR) looks like in practice and which cultural, institutional, and organizational environments reliably encourage ethical behavior. Rather than treating research ethics as a checklist or a one-time training requirement, ER2 is aimed at understanding the deeper systems that shape day-to-day decisions in labs, classrooms, departments, and research organizations, including why some settings foster integrity while others enable questionable or harmful practices.

A central theme of the solicitation is the idea that research integrity is strongly influenced by context. ER2 invites projects that examine questions like: What does "responsible conduct" actually mean in different STEM fields and career stages? Do some labs or departments develop a recognizable culture of academic integrity, and if so, what specific routines, expectations, incentives, mentoring styles, and governance structures create and sustain that culture? The program is interested not only in identifying effective factors, but also in explaining the mechanisms behind them. In other words, proposals should move beyond describing that a practice works and instead investigate how and why it works, under what conditions it fails, and whether it can be adapted to new environments without losing its impact.

The opportunity highlights a wide range of potential factors to study, reflecting how ethics can be embedded in many parts of STEM education and research. Examples include honor codes; professional ethics codes and licensing requirements; service-oriented norms such as service learning or an ethic of public service; expectations for life-long learning; curricula, training programs, or professional communities that emphasize responsible conduct (including groups like Engineers Without Borders); and institutional models that cultivate integrity at multiple levels, such as ethics-across-the-curriculum approaches, collaborative or group-work-centered learning environments, and even alternative assessment structures like ungraded programs. The solicitation also points to the value of studying institutions that serve underrepresented groups and environments where academic and research integrity are actively reinforced through policies, mentoring, and community norms.

Competitive ER2 proposals typically include a comparative dimension. That comparison might be between different institutions, departments, labs, or training models, or within a single institution that contains distinct cultures or policies. The goal of the comparative approach is to isolate which features of an environment are actually driving ethical outcomes and to reduce the risk of attributing success to factors that are merely correlated. Proposals are also expected to lay out clear plans for translating findings into practical interventions, meaning concrete, testable strategies for strengthening ethical and responsible research conduct. While all projects are grounded in basic research, some may explicitly include the development and evaluation of interventions designed to improve ethical behavior and research integrity across career stages, from students and trainees to faculty and senior researchers.

NSF strongly encourages submissions from minority-serving institutions (including Tribal Colleges and Universities, Historically Black Colleges and Universities, Hispanic-Serving Institutions, Alaska Native or Native Hawaiian Serving Institutions), women's colleges, and organizations that primarily serve persons with disabilities. International collaborations are also encouraged when they add real value to the project, such as access to unique expertise, facilities, populations, or research sites, with the note that international partners should ideally secure funding from sources outside the NSF award when feasible.

In terms of administrative details, this is a discretionary NSF grant opportunity (Funding Opportunity Number 19-609) in the science and technology research and development category, with CFDA numbers spanning multiple NSF directorates and programs (47.041, 47.049, 47.050, 47.070, 47.074, 47.075, 47.076, 47.079). The opportunity was originally posted September 22, 2019, with an original closing date of February 24, 2020, and NSF anticipated making about eight awards. The award ceiling is listed as 0 in the source data, which typically indicates that a fixed maximum was not specified in that particular listing rather than implying no funding is available.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Ethical and Responsible Research" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 47.041, 47.049, 47.050, 47.070, 47.074, 47.075, 47.076, 47.079.
• This funding opportunity was created on Sep 22, 2019.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Feb 24, 2020. (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 8 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for 19 609

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