The two purposes of this session are to inform the ecological research community about current opportunities and processes for funding at NSF and to receive comments and suggestions on how the Foundation can best serve the discipline. Participants from NSF will include program officers from the two clusters most centered on ecology. Much of the session will be a panel discussion, covering topics such as the new system of preliminary proposals to the core programs in Environmental Biology and Integrative and Organismal Systems; existing and emerging initiatives in Science, Engineering, and Education for Sustainability; RAPIDs, EAGERs, and INSPIREs; cross-cutting programs such as Dynamics of Coupled Natural and Human Systems, Dimensions of Biodiversity, Ecology and Evolution of Infectious Diseases, and MacroSystems Biology; and grant supplements to train undergraduates, high school teachers, and faculty.