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The FY 2002 Budget Request for the Behavioral and
Cognitive Sciences (BCS) Subactivity is $56.56 million, a decrease
of $250,000, or 0.4 percent, from the FY 2001 Current Plan of $56.81
million.
(Millions of Dollars)
|
FY
2000
Actual |
FY
2001
Current Plan |
FY
2002
Request |
Change |
Amount |
Percent |
Behavioral and
Cognitive Sciences |
46.06
|
56.81
|
56.56
|
-0.25
|
-0.4%
|
Total, BCS |
$46.06
|
$56.81
|
$56.56
|
-$0.25
|
-0.4%
|
The BCS Subactivity supports research and related
activities that develop and advance scientific knowledge and methods
focusing on human cognition, cognitive neuroscience, language, and
learning; children's development, learning, and literacy; social
behavior and culture; human social, demographic, and cultural variation;
human evolution and contemporary human biological variation; geographic
patterns and processes and geographic information science; and interactions
between humans and the natural environment. Programs include human
cognition and perception, cognitive neuroscience, linguistics, social
psychology, developmental and learning sciences, archaeology, cultural
anthropology, physical anthropology, and geography and regional
sciences.
Emphasis is being placed on collaborative and interdisciplinary
projects that can build capacity across multiple fields. One rapidly
growing area is cognitive neuroscience. To recognize the scale and
complexity of this sort of work, a new Cognitive Neuroscience program
will fund larger scale proposals and innovative technical developments
and will also help train future generations of cognitive neuroscientists.
The goals of introducing new funding for neuroscientific approaches
within BCS are to: enhance support of research on the basic mechanisms
of cognition and perception; provide substantially larger and longer
grants in recognition of the higher cost of conducting such studies;
foster collaborations among investigators from different fields
who would benefit by working together; and support basic developmental
cognitive neuroscience studies of the brain mechanisms that help
explain when and how children and adults learn new knowledge and
skills.
The essential shared characteristics of human beings
represent the culmination of millions of years of development, and
can only be understood when set in a broad chronological and spatial
context. Thus the past has the ability to inform the present. An
understanding of human change over time requires that the lineage
be viewed as one of many that interact with each other and that
adapt to highly variable and unpredictable environmental conditions.
Such issues involve long-standing questions that bear on the essence
of who we are as a species. They shape our understanding of how
we relate to our environment today and into the future. With the
greater availability of powerful genetic technology and the completion
of the human genome sequence, increasing attention is turning to
comparative genomics. Along these lines, BCS will provide large-scale
support for work that attempts to document primate biomaterials
so that it can inform the social and behavioral research community.
These and other considerations have led to establishing a Humans
Origins emphasis that will provide sufficient funding to support
several annual large scale awards.
Research in the developmental and learning sciences
supports integrative studies that increase our understanding of
cognitive, linguistic, social, cultural, and biological processes
related to children's and adolescents' learning in formal and informal
settings. Also supported in this area is research that incorporates
multidisciplinary, multi-method, microgenetic, and longitudinal
approaches; develops new methods and theories; examines transfer
of knowledge from one domain to another and from one situation to
another; assesses peer relations, family interactions, social identities,
and motivation; examines the impact of family, school, and community
resources; assesses adolescents' preparation for entry into the
workforce; and investigates the role of demographic characteristics
and cultural influences on children's learning and development.
Ongoing support will also be provided for the Children's Research
Initiative, to support several centers and other activities.
In FY 2002, the BCS Request of $56.56 million will
support a range of activities, including:
Maintenance of large-scale funding at a level
of $10.0 million to continue the Cognitive Neuroscience program
that is aimed at understanding the relationship between cognitive
processing and brain function. The emphasis in FY2002 will be
on bridging neuroscience and cognitive neuroscience. This program
will include considerable support for a variety of training options.
Support for the Children's Research Initiative
will be maintained at $5.0 million. This will include continued
funding for centers and individual investigator awards related
to theory-driven, basic and applied research on children, learning,
and the influences of families. In addition, there will be an
increased focus on research related to enhancing literacy and
improving math and science skills. BCS will maintain support for
this initiative at this level for five years, with future funding
more likely to emphasize support for multidisciplinary, integrated
research centers.
Funding for the Human Origins emphasis will increase
by $500,000 in order to continue to expand knowledge of the origins
and development of the human species, our relationship with the
world's environments, and human adaptation processes over the
last 5-6 million years.
Support will continue for both disciplinary and
interdisciplinary research on human-environmental interactions,
including support for two Human Dimensions of Global Change centers,
support for Long-Term Ecological Research sites, and support to
complement research on Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems,
a major emphasis of the Biocomplexity in the Environment priority
area.
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