Accelerating Behavioral and Social Science through Ontology Development and Use: Research Network Projects (U01 Clinical Trial Not Allowed)

This Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) invites applications to support research projects focused on the expansion of existing or development of new ontologies for behavioral or social science research (BSSR). The research projects must include multi-disciplinary teams of subject matter experts in one or more BSSR fields, as well as ontology related informatics and computational approaches. Projects should address health-related behavioral and social science problems not easily solved without improvement in semantic knowledge structures (e.g., controlled vocabularies, taxonomies, and ontologies). Each project should identify one or more BSSR use cases and elucidate how the proposed ontological resources or tools to be developed and tested will advance BSSR research capabilities and efficiencies. This includes a plan for promoting dissemination and use of the resources and tools. Tools or resources proposed should include health-relevant terminology related to constructs, measures, and/or intervention components. Tools or resources must also account for socio-behavioral cultural context in vocabulary/ontology development. As part of a cooperative agreement, each project will focus on independent ontology development research aims and be expected to work collaboratively with the Dissemination and Coordination Center (DCC; PAR-23-181) and the other funded projects in a Behavioral and Social Science Ontology Development U01 Research Network.