The NSF Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) Directorate supports foundational research that deepens our understanding of human behavior, societal dynamics, cultural systems, economic structures, and decision-making processes. Unlike NSF’s natural science directorates, SBE focuses on the human dimensions of scientific and societal challenges—how people think, learn, communicate, govern, innovate, collaborate, and adapt to social and technological change. SBE Core programs span the Division of Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences (BCS), the Division of Social and Economic Sciences (SES), and the National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics (NCSES). Collectively, these units advance rigorous, theory-driven research at individual, community, organizational, and societal scales. 

Typical SBE Core proposals explore topics such as cognition and perception, linguistics and language learning, cultural and social anthropology, archaeology and human history, social inequalities, political behavior, democratic processes, macroeconomic forces, labor market trends, financial systems, organizational behavior, public policy, decision science, and rapidly evolving socio-technical systems. Research methods may include experiments, surveys, ethnography, field studies, archival analysis, modeling and simulation, computational social science, agent-based modeling, AI-driven analytics, and advanced econometric methods. 

Eligibility follows standard NSF requirements, allowing U.S. universities, research institutions, Tribal entities, and qualified small businesses to serve as primary applicants. For-profit organizations may participate when contributions advance basic scientific knowledge rather than commercial product development. International collaborators may engage through subawards but cannot receive direct NSF funding. 

Competitive SBE proposals must articulate a compelling theoretical contribution, robust and transparent methodology, ethical considerations (including human subjects protections, community engagement, and data stewardship), and clear broader impacts. Broader impacts may include educational initiatives, public policy relevance, community partnerships, diversity and inclusion efforts, open-access datasets, or contributions to national priorities such as public health, economic stability, resilience, technological adaptation, and social equity. 

ScienceDocs Can Help 

ScienceDocs assists SBE investigators with study design, data-management and transparency plans, methodological framing, and development of compelling research narratives aligned with NSF’s expectations. 
Begin at sciencedocs.com/quotes.