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Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis program awards $1.5 million in new grant

October 15th, 2015

Synthesis: the combination of ideas that forms a theory or system.

For the National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Environmental Biology (DEB), synthesis translates into a larger understanding of everything from the ecosystem of the Amazon, to lakes large and small, to predator-prey relationships, to the secret lives of mosquitoes—and the diseases they sometimes carry.

To encourage such syntheses, DEB has established a program called Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis (OPUS). This year, the program awarded $1.5 million in nine new grants.

Research projects that incorporate synthesis—integrating information from several studies—have been influential in spawning new knowledge, understanding and research directions, scientists have found.

"OPUS awards provide unique opportunities for scientists to reflect on larger themes that emerge over the course of several studies," says George Gilchrist, lead OPUS program director in DEB. "OPUS products are unique synergies that offer insights and tools to inspire new research."

The initiative supports scientists in projects that bring together the body of their research. The awards are given to researchers who have, over time, produced scientific journal papers from a series of related projects but have not yet integrated that series in a single set of conclusions.

OPUS grants are awarded to scientists at mid-to-late career stages, as well as to those early enough in their careers to produce unique insights important to science and to developing future work.

Projects culminate in one or more products such as scientific papers, monographs, software, websites, books, films and artistic interpretations.

Whether about the organisms that live in lakes or what happens to animals in a time of climate change, OPUS awards generate new conclusions that are more than the sum of their parts.

2015 NSF DEB OPUS Awards:

OPUS: Geographical gradients and contemporary end points of organic evolutionWilliam Bradshaw and Christina Holzapfel, University of Oregon

OPUS: Collaborative Research: Analysis of Cross-Boundary Fluxes, Trophic Cascades and Ecosystem Stability Based on 32 Years of Whole-Lake ExperimentsStephen Carpenter, University of Wisconsin-Madison

OPUS: Biogeochemistry of Amazonian Terrestrial EcosystemsEric Davidson, University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science

OPUS: Ectotherms in Changing ClimatesMarc Mangel, University of California, Santa Cruz

OPUS: Ecological and Evolutionary Perspectives on the Origins of Community DiversityGary Mittelbach, Michigan State University

OPUS: Collaborative Research: Analysis of Cross-Boundary Fluxes, Trophic Cascades and Ecosystem Stability Based on 32 Years of Whole-Lake ExperimentsMichael Pace, University of Virginia

OPUS: Intrinsic Dynamics of the Regional CommunityRobert Ricklefs, University of Missouri-Saint Louis

OPUS: Integrating ecology, behavioral syndromes and social selectionAndrew Sih, University of California, Davis

OPUS: Developing a synthetic understanding of suspension-feeders, master switches in freshwater ecosystemsDavid Strayer, Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies

Provided by National Science Foundation

Citation: Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis program awards $1.5 million in new grant (2015, October 15) retrieved 13 August 2025 from https://sciencex.com/wire-news/206368026/opportunities-for-promoting-understanding-through-synthesis-prog.html

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