Human Networks and Data Science (HNDS)
NSF funds infrastructure or core research using human network and data science to advance fundamental social, behavioral, and economic research and understanding of human behavior.
⚑ Two tracks: HNDS-I infrastructure and HNDS-R core research. · Primarily an NSF SBE program; behavioral/social science content must be central. · Infrastructure awards are for databases or analytic techniques, not general research data collection alone.
HNDS is a strong fit for this team when framed as networked survey/data infrastructure or core research on public opinion, risk perception, and warning/response behavior using large linked data, experiments, and network methods. It is especially natural for the energy/climate/security and education-policy lines (e.g., Carlson for education/networked outcomes; the survey/risk group for human networks around hazards, trust, and protective action), though it is broader SBE methods work rather than one member’s sole program.
JUDGED AGAINST THE ROSTER'S PUBLICATION DOSSIER · GPT-5.4-MINI · 2026-10-02
Unit fits — one characterization, each unit's own rules
| Physical Sciences & Engineering (demo) | 90 strong | technical depth: central; funds data infrastructure |
| IPPRA | 65 good | peripheral portfolio topic: public_health; signature methods: surveys longitudinal; social/behavioral work is central; funds data/survey infrastructure; capped at 65 (limited social-science role) |
| Tom Love Innovation Hub | 15 none | deep-tech content; no commercialization signal |
Description
The Human Networks and Data Science program (HNDS) supports research that enhances understanding of human behavior by leveraging data and network science research across a broad range of topics. HNDS research will identify ways in which dynamic, distributed, or heterogeneous data can provide novel answers to fundamental questions about individual or group behavior. HNDS is especially interested in proposals that provide data-rich insights about human networks to support improved health, prosperity, and security.
HNDS has two tracks:
(1) Human Networks and Data Science – Infrastructure (HNDS-I). Infrastructure proposals will address the development of data resources and relevant analytic techniques that support fundamental Social, Behavioral and Economic (SBE) research. Successful infrastructure proposals will construct, within the financial resources provided by the award, databases or relevant analytic techniques and produce a finished product that will enable previously impossible data-intensive research in the social sciences. The databases or techniques should have significant impacts, either across multiple fields or within broad disciplinary areas, by making possible new types of data-intensive research in the SBE sciences.
(2) Human Networks and Data Science – Core Research (HNDS-R). Core research proposals will advance theory in a core SBE discipline by the application of data and network science methods. This includes the leveraging of large data sets with diverse spatio-temporal scales of measurement and linked qualitative and quantitative approaches, as well as multi-scale, multi-level network data and techniques of network analysis. Supported projects are expected to yield results that will enhance, expand, and transform theory and methods, and that generate novel understandings of human behavior – particularly understandings that can lead to significant societal benefits or opportunities. HNDS-R encourages core research proposals that make innovative use of NSF-supported data networks, databases, centers and other forms of scientific infrastructure including those developed by HNDS-I (formerly RIDIR) projects .
Apply
View on Grants.gov → CONTACT: U.S. National Science Foundation <grantsgovsupport@nsf.gov>
Proposal brief SEE AN EXAMPLE →
A one-page internal memo: fit assessment, submission requirements, document scaffold, and next steps dated back from the deadline — tailored to your project idea if you add one.
Proposal shell · National Science Foundation conventions SEE AN NSF EXAMPLE →
Funder-faithful document skeletons — National Science Foundation's document set with section headings, page limits, reviewer guidance, and writing prompts; add a project idea to get [DRAFT] starter bullets. Download as .md for Word or Overleaf.