The John Templeton Foundation is offering grants for up to three years of research on the importance of understanding biological conversion for a more informed perspective of the living world. Funding requests for conceptual and pilot projects should not exceed $200,000 and empirical projects should not go beyond $1 million. However, the Foundation is open to possible exceptions.
The Templeton Foundation is particularly interested in research that can answer one or more of the following questions:
- Does convergence at different levels point to a singular phenomenon, or are these processes in fact fundamentally different? Much research in the field seems to assume that convergence is the same phenomenon whether one is studying proteins or the camera eye. Is that correct? And what are the implications of the answer?
- Does the phenomenon of convergence, or specific aspects of it, provide us with a different or novel way of classifying basic elements of living systems, and of understanding how those elements emerge? If so, are structural features of living systems (for example) more likely to converge than functional elements (which might be more variable due to selection history). Could convergence help us tell the difference?
- What is the distribution of convergence and parallelism in phylogenies? Why do some groups show rampant convergence (e.g. C4 photosynthesis)? Why are at least some convergences (e.g. nitrogen fixation) clustered? What can these patterns tell us about the evolutionary process and even the nature of life more broadly?
- What insights might be gained instead from examples of absent convergent forms; for example all major groups of land animals have evolved eel-like swimming morphology — except the mammals. Here we might ask not just why so much convergence on this form, but turn it around and ask why not mammals too?
- Does the apparent fact that convergence has been so common in evolutionary history help us better understand in what ways and under what circumstances the evolutionary process can be described as either random or non-random?
- What are the implications of the fact that convergence is so common for our understanding of causation, for a deeper understanding of reality?
The proposal window is August 1 to October 15. More details can be found in the link below:
http://www.templeton.org/what-we-fund/funding-competitions/the-meanings-of-convergence/