Division of Integrative Organismal Systems

The National Science Foundation Division of Integrative Organismal Systems is a civilian sub-agency within the NSF that funds research grants in biological and organismal science but conducts minimal contract procurement. The Division operates as the funding arm for NSF's Integrative Organismal Systems directorate, channeling federal research dollars to academic and research institutions pursuing fundamental science in integrative biology.

The Division's grant portfolio dominates its activity footprint. It has awarded 2,351 grants totaling $1.67 billion in federal dollars obligated since 2010, with recent cadence holding steady at 217 awards in 2022, 220 in 2023, 204 in 2024, 189 in 2025, and 18 year-to-date in 2026. The most recent grant award closed on July 1, 2026. All grants are structured as Project Grants, the standard mechanism for NSF investigator-initiated research. Grant recipient concentration is highly fragmented — the top five recipients account for only 10 percent of recent awards by count and 4 percent of federal dollars over the last five years. Cornell University leads by federal dollars obligated ($16.1 million across 18 awards), followed by University of California, Davis ($12.7 million across 19 awards) and University of Washington ($12.4 million across 15 awards). The remaining 399 distinct recipients span 404 institutions, with Gordon Research Conferences appearing among the top five by award count (19 awards, $407 thousand federal dollars), reflecting the Division's support for both university-based research and specialized conference programming in organismal systems.

The Division maintains a negligible contract portfolio — six total awards since 2016, the most recent awarded on September 11, 2019. Combined contract potential value stands at $120 thousand, with $114 thousand obligated. All six awards were open market with no set-aside designations, distributed across five distinct prime contractors. This contract activity is not an operational focus area for the Division.

No recent contract opportunities are recorded against the Division. For grant funding, solicitations are issued through NSF's standard notice-of-funding-opportunity cycle; prospective applicants should monitor the NSF FASTLANE or grants.gov systems for Integrative Organismal Systems announcements and program solicitations aligned with organismal research priorities in comparative biology, ecology, physiology, and related fields.

IOS supports research aimed at improving our understanding of organisms as integrated units of biological organization. The Division welcomes projects that employ diverse approaches to research addressing organismal-level questions.