Plant Biotic Interactions | 20 576

Opportunity Information: Apply for 20 576

The Plant Biotic Interactions (PBI) program is a joint National Science Foundation (NSF) and National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant opportunity that funds research aimed at understanding how plants interact with other living organisms that are closely associated with them. These partners can be beneficial or harmful and include viruses, bacteria, oomycetes, fungi, other plants, and invertebrates that act as symbionts, pathogens, or pests. The program is interested in both established and emerging model systems as well as non-model systems, with a clear openness to projects involving agriculturally important plants. A central theme is explaining the biological processes that shape these relationships, ranging from basic, curiosity-driven science to more translational work intended to move findings toward agricultural practice.

The scope covers the full range of symbiotic outcomes, including commensalism, mutualism, parasitism, and classic host-pathogen interactions. Proposed research can focus on the plant side, the microbe or pest side, or the interaction itself, including multi-partner interactions and the roles of plant-associated microbiomes. The program explicitly welcomes studies that tackle how these associations begin, spread, persist, and ultimately influence plant health and performance. Topics of interest include metabolic exchanges between partners, immune recognition and signaling, regulatory mechanisms that control host-symbiont relationships, reciprocal responses where each organism adjusts to the other, and self versus non-self recognition processes, including examples such as pollen-pistil interactions.

PBI emphasizes mechanistic explanations, encouraging proposals that use molecular, genomic, metabolic, cellular, network-level, and whole-organism approaches to uncover how these interactions work. Projects can be hypothesis-driven, discovery-driven, or combine both, and quantitative or mathematical modeling is encouraged when paired with experimental validation. In contrast, projects that are strictly ecological in nature without probing underlying mechanisms are not considered a good fit. Overall, the program is designed to deepen fundamental understanding of plant-associated interactions while also supporting research that can be translated into practical advances that benefit agriculture.

Key administrative details include that this is a discretionary grant program administered by NSF (Funding Opportunity Number 20-576), within the Science and Technology and other Research and Development category, with CFDA numbers 10.310 and 47.074. Proposals are accepted at any time (no fixed deadline listed). The opportunity lists an expected total of around 30 awards, and the award ceiling is shown as 0 (typically indicating that applicants should refer to the solicitation or program guidance for budget expectations rather than assuming a preset maximum). Eligibility is described broadly as "Others" with additional clarification referenced in the full eligibility text. The opportunity was created on May 14, 2020.

• The National Science Foundation in the science and technology and other research and development sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Plant Biotic Interactions" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 10.310, 47.074.
• This funding opportunity was created on May 14, 2020.
• Applicants must submit their applications by Proposals accepted anytime. (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 30 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Others (see text field entitled Additional Information on Eligibility for clarification).

Apply for 20 576

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