Grants / National Science Foundation / U.S. National Science Foundation

NSF 20-583: Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program - Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Awards

Closed Closed Opportunity NSF 20-583 ☆ Save

This grant is closed. A newer notice from the same program is open now: Major Research Instrumentation Program: (MRI) (NSF 27-500). Status: Closes January 29, 2027 (83 days left). It is in our archive of U.S. National Science Foundation notices from 2025.

• Award ceiling$20,000
• Total funding$600,000
• Expected awards30
• Cost sharingNot required
• Funding typeGrant

Key dates

Who can apply

This opportunity was open to the applicants described in the notice.

• Others (see text field entitled "Additional Information on Eligibility" for clarification)

*Who May Submit Proposals: Proposals may only be submitted by the following: -Institutions of Higher Education (IHEs): Two- and four-year IHEs (including community colleges) accredited in, and having a campus located in the US, acting on behalf of their faculty members. Special Instructions for International Branch Campuses of US IHEs: If the proposal includes funding to be provided to an international branch campus of a US institution of higher education (including through use of sub-awards and consultant arrangements), the proposer must explain the benefit(s) to the project of performance at the international branch campus, and justify why the project activities cannot be performed at the US campus. *Who May Serve as PI: DDRI proposals must be submitted with a principal investigator (PI) and a co-principal investigator (co-PI).<br /><br />The PI must be the advisor of the doctoral student or another faculty member at the U.S. university where the doctoral student is enrolled. There is no limitation on the number of times that an individual may be the principal investigator on a DDRI proposal submitted to HEGS, either during a specific competition or over the course of her/his career.<br /><br />A doctoral student may submit a DDRI proposal to HEGS to support her/his dissertation research only twice during her/his lifetime. A student and her/his advisor therefore should carefully consider what times during the student's graduate program are most appropriate forsubmission ofa DDRI proposal.

Is this a realistic fit?

• Past Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences awards averaged $247,002; this notice allows up to $20,000 per award.
• Most of the program's money (87% over five years) went to colleges and universities.
• No cost sharing or match is required.

What the grant funds

The objective of the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences (HEGS) Program is to support basic scientific research about the nature, causes, and/or consequences of the spatial distribution ofhuman activity and/or environmental processes across a range of scales. Projects about a broad range of topics may be appropriate for support if they enhance fundamental geographical knowledge, concepts, theories, methods, and their application to societal problems and concerns. Recognizing the breadth of the field’s contributions to science, the HEGS Program welcomes proposals for empirically grounded, theoretically engaged, and methodologically sophisticated geographical research. National Science Foundation's mandate is to support basic scientific research. Support is provided for projects that are most effective in grounding research in relevant theoretical frameworks relevant to HEGS, that focus on questions that emanate from the theoretical discussions, and that use scientific methods to answer those questions. HEGS supported projects are expected to yield results that will enhance, expand, and transform fundamental geographicaltheory and methods, and that will have positive broader impacts that benefit society. The HEGS Program recognizes that geography is a broad discipline that includes the natural sciences, the social sciences and the humanities. However, HEGS does not fund research that is solely humanistic, non-science. A proposal to the HEGS Program must explain how the research will contribute to geographic and spatial scientific theory and/or methods development, and how the results are generalizable beyond the case study. It should be noted that HEGS is situated in the Behavioral andCognitive Sciences Division of the Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences Directorate at NSF. Therefore, it is critical that research projects submitted to the Human-Environment and Geographical Sciences Program illustrate how the proposed research is relevant and important to people and societies. A proposal that fails to be responsive to these program expectations will be returned without review.

Category: Science and Technology and other Research and Development.

Applying now

This notice no longer takes applications. Apply under the newer notice, NSF 27-500, which is open now.

The notice on Grants.gov keeps its full text and attachments, which is useful for planning a resubmission.