The US National Science Foundation Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) has issued a call for brief papers outlining grand challenge problems for the next decade or more in these fields. Given the rich and complex large-scale interactions among information, technology, individuals and societies, this seems to me to be a wonderful opportunity for the CNI community to offer perspectives on the research opportunities and challenges, as well as ideas about infrastructure capabilities and requirements.

I would note that the Science Resource Statistics division, which seeks to understand the structure and development of science broadly, is also part of the SBE directorate.

There is a short deadline on these submissions, which are requested by September 30, 2010.

You can find full information on this call (in the form of an NSF "Dear Colleague" letter) at:

SBE 2020: Future Research in the Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences | NSF - U.S. National Science Foundation

Clifford Lynch Director, CNI