A special feature of the ERC program is the emphasis on undergraduate participation in research. Each of the ERCs has one or more programs through which undergraduates from the host institution are engaged in center research projects. Things were already headed toward interdisciplinary research funding, because that's where the most interesting work is being done. The new criteria ask simply for the intellectual merit and quality of the proposed activity, which leaves more room for NSF to award grants to those conducting cutting-edge research at the interface of disciplines. Nearly all of NSF's divisions fund interdisciplinary projects.
Some programs even require that research be interdisciplinary.
So our choice of budget emphasis should reflect the need to explore those areas. One problem with taking this tact, Gabriel says, is that in this era of tighter budgets for research and development, it is possible that funding new research areas may come at the expense of funding in more traditional disciplines. Another problem for NSF may be finding qualified reviewers for the merit review process. The review process probably looks about the same on paper as it always did, but NSF program officers need to be more proactive in these more innovative areas to choose reviewers who have expertise beyond a narrow traditional discipline. There are, of course, no surefire ways to guarantee funding for a project, but it seems safe to conclude that if a project includes a linkage between discovery and learning, or if it addresses a problem at the crossroads of disciplines, it stands a better than average chance of acceptance.