NCSE is happy to congratulate the National Evolutionary Synthesis Center (NESCent) on the renewal of its grant from the National Science Foundation. According to a March 2, 2010, press release, NESCent was awarded a five-year grant renewal in the amount of $25 million, to continue its core programs in evolution research, informatics, and education through 2014. NESCent plans to expand its most successful programs and add a number of new initiatives, including graduate fellowships, international research partnerships, and targeted calls for proposals on specific themes.
A collaborative effort of Duke University, The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and North Carolina State University, NESCent seeks to facilitate broadly synthetic research to address fundamental questions in evolutionary biology. NESCent's Education and Outreach group communicates the results of evolutionary biology research to the general public and scientific community, provides outreach to groups who are underrepresented in evolutionary biology, and works to improve evolution education.