National Academies Press: OpenBook

Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities (2023)

Chapter: Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Program Activities and Impact

« Previous: Contents
Suggested Citation:"Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Program Activities and Impact." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27021.
×

URoL Program Activities and Impact

The URoL program is one of the 10 “Big Ideas” that NSF unveiled in 2016. The Big Ideas are bold, long-term research and process ideas that provide unique opportunities to position our nation at the cutting edge of global science and engineering through multidisciplinary research. A fundamental goal of the URoL program is to identify the causal predictive relationships that could be “rules of life,” but the program also seeks to train the next generation of researchers to work across scales and scientific disciplines and to foster convergent research. An ultimate goal is to provide the capacity to approach more complex questions than ever before.

To meet this vision, NSF funded projects involving multidisciplinary teams and addressing fundamental questions in a variety of living systems and organisms. As of May 2023, NSF has awarded funding to more than 100 principal investigators (PIs) on more than 60 projects at institutions across the United States (see URoL By the Numbers). NSF issued six program announcements to support research to build a synthetic cell, study microbiomes and emergent networks, study epigenetics, and to look at how the rules of life could be applied to societal challenges (see Program Timeline).

URoL Program Goals

images To enable discoveries that will allow us to better understand such interactions and identify causal, predictive relationships across these scales—so called “rules” for how life functions.
images To provide us with the capacity to approach more complex questions than ever before.
images To train the next generation of researchers to approach scientific inquiry in a new way that crosses scales and scientific disciplines.
images To foster collaboration and convergent research to consider multiple levels of organization and complexity in addressing key questions in the life sciences.
Suggested Citation:"Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Program Activities and Impact." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27021.
×

URoL Program Areas

CALL FOR PROPOSALS

Image

Suggested Citation:"Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Program Activities and Impact." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27021.
×

Diversity of Institutions Involved in the Understanding the Rules of Life Program

Since 2016, more than 100 principal investigators were awarded funding to identify generalizable rules that govern biological systems at micro and macro levels.

Image

Suggested Citation:"Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Program Activities and Impact." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27021.
×
Page 4
Suggested Citation:"Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Program Activities and Impact." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27021.
×
Page 5
Suggested Citation:"Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) Program Activities and Impact." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2023. Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/27021.
×
Page 6
Next: Program Areas by the Numbers »
Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities Get This Book
×
 Understanding the Rules of Life Program: Scientific Advancements and Future Opportunities
MyNAP members save 10% online.
Login or Register to save!
Download Free PDF

In 2023, the National Academies held a series of facilitated workshops to gather information on progress to date on projects funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) Understanding the Rules of Life (URoL) program. A fundamental goal of the URoL program is to identify the causal, predictive relationships that drive how life functions—a concept articulated as the "rules of life." Principal investigators of the URoL program shared findings from their research and how those findings might contribute to identifying rules of life that are generalizable across fields and scales. Participants also discussed how they have incorporated multidisciplinary, systems-level approaches into their work. This booklet highlights the program's focus areas and reach, major scientific breakthroughs, and lessons for research and education across scientific disciplines. This booklet is intended for policy and lay audiences interested in learning more about the goals and opportunities of NSF's URoL program.

READ FREE ONLINE

  1. ×

    Welcome to OpenBook!

    You're looking at OpenBook, NAP.edu's online reading room since 1999. Based on feedback from you, our users, we've made some improvements that make it easier than ever to read thousands of publications on our website.

    Do you want to take a quick tour of the OpenBook's features?

    No Thanks Take a Tour »
  2. ×

    Show this book's table of contents, where you can jump to any chapter by name.

    « Back Next »
  3. ×

    ...or use these buttons to go back to the previous chapter or skip to the next one.

    « Back Next »
  4. ×

    Jump up to the previous page or down to the next one. Also, you can type in a page number and press Enter to go directly to that page in the book.

    « Back Next »
  5. ×

    Switch between the Original Pages, where you can read the report as it appeared in print, and Text Pages for the web version, where you can highlight and search the text.

    « Back Next »
  6. ×

    To search the entire text of this book, type in your search term here and press Enter.

    « Back Next »
  7. ×

    Share a link to this book page on your preferred social network or via email.

    « Back Next »
  8. ×

    View our suggested citation for this chapter.

    « Back Next »
  9. ×

    Ready to take your reading offline? Click here to buy this book in print or download it as a free PDF, if available.

    « Back Next »
Stay Connected!