Writing a proposal . . . that meets NSF

1
Writing a proposal . . .that meets NSFs review
criteria. . . and may even result in an award

• Guy G. Guthridge
• Antarctic Information Program
• Office of Polar Programs

2
NSF support estimate for fiscal 2005

• Number of research grants 6,145
• Funding rate (success ratio) 23
• Median annualized award size 104,150
• Average duration 3 years

3
A Grue of Ice (1962)

• There is only one unexplored continent left, he
  said. That is Antarctica. It was discovered by
  individualists. It is the one continent left for
  mans free spirit to break open. What happens?
  He banged the papers again. Government
  committees sit ten thousand miles away and decide
  its future.
•  
• It is not as bad as that, I interjected.

4
To succeed, follow NSFs rules

• Proposals missing the deadline are subject to
  return
• Proposals unresponsive to the solicitation go
  back
• Pay attention to section length, content, format,
  use of appendixes, content of biographical
  sketches . . .
• Deviations must be authorized in advance by NSF

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Read the Grant Proposal Guide(NSF 04-23, on the
NSF home page)

• The NSF guide for writing and submitting a
  proposal
• Specifies process for deviations
• Describes review process and criteria
• Describes process for withdrawals, returns, and
  declinations
• Describes the award process and how to request
  continued support
• States grant administration highlights
• Know and love the GPG!
• Use it with Antarctic Research (NSF 04-559)

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Read Antarctic Research (NSF 04-559)
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Use other NSF sources(one or two clicks from the
NSF home page)

• Guide to Programs (NSF 04-009)
• Grant Policy Manual (NSF 02-151)
• Funding Opportunities
• Custom News Service
• NSF E-Bulletin
• Polar Programs

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Select a research topic

• Your area of interest
• Know the field
• Top researchers
• Research funding sources
• Recent advance/breakthroughs
• Key literature
• Frontiers of knowledge
• Field-specific research agenda

9
Find the right program

• Read program announcement/NSF web site
• Be sure you are eligible
• Be sure the program exists/has money
• Do not force fit topics into programs
• Be sure you can meet deadlines
• Leave time to do a good job
• Call the NSF program director (before the due
  date) if you have questions
• We like to talk to you.we are here to help!
  

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Consider some questions

• 1. What do you intend to do?
• 2. Why is the work important?
• 3. What has already been done?
• 4. How are you going to do the work?

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Get support in proposal writing

• Workshop reports
• Program officers
• Incumbent
• Former rotators
• Mentors on campus
• Serve as reviewer
• Sponsored research office
• Successful proposals

12
Know what makes a good proposal

• a good proposal is a good idea, well
  expressed, with a clear indication of methods for
  pursuing the idea, evaluating the findings, and
  making them known to all who need to know.

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Fastlane NSFs online proposal system

• Format
• Conform to the required format
• Write no more than 15 pages of narrative or your
  proposal will be disqualified
• Lines per inch and characters per inch are
  defined in the guidelines
• Do not include appendixes, unless specific
  instructions in a solicitation say okay
• Remember
• Provide reviewers with a well organized, clearly
  defined research proposal - clarity, brevity,
  completeness
• Your proposal may state what you will do, but it
  shows what you can do.

14
Your proposed budget

• Amount
• Reasonable for work - realistic
• Well justified - need established
• In line with program guidelines
• Dont inflate the budget.
• Eligible costs
• Personnel
• Equipment
• Travel (but not deployment airline tickets)
• Other direct costs, subawards
• Facilities administrative costs
• See Antarctic Research for field costs

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The review process

• Process is mainly electronic now
• Fastlane receives proposals - proposal number is
  instantly assigned when submitted
• Proposal Processing Unit checks for conformance
  to Grant Proposal Guide
• A jacket (folder with one copy of the proposal)
  is sent to the program manager
• Program manager sends proposal out for review

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NSF sources of reviewers

• Programs officers knowledge
• References listed in proposal
• Reviewer names on file
• Recent technical programs from professional
  societies
• Recent authors in technical journals
• Web-based search
• Reviewer recommendations
• Your suggestions (submitted with the proposal)
  both positive and negative

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The review process (cont.)

• Panels are held in ABM, AGG AG
• Program manager reminds panelists that
  deliberations are confidential discusses
  conflicts of interest
• Panelists discuss, rate, and rank each proposal
  and write a panel summary
• Panels are advisory to NSF
• Program manager ultimately forwards a
  recommendation for funding or declination to the
  Section Head (in OPP)
• An NSF award can be made only by a Grants Officer
  in the Division of Grants and Agreements (DGA)

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What the program manager considers

• Ad hoc (mail) reviews
• Panels recommendations and discussions
• Available funds in program (65 rule)
• Program balance
• Budget negotiation
• Shared funding from other NSF programs

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What makes a proposal competitive?

• Likely high impact
• New and original ideas
• Succinct, focused project plan
• Knowledge of subject area or published, relevant
  work
• Experience in essential methodology
• Clarity concerning future direction
• Sound scientific rationale
• Realistic amount of work
• Sufficient detail
• Critical approach

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Other considerations

• PI career point (tenured?/established/young)
• Program portfolio
• Other support the PI has
• Impact on institution/state
• Special programmatic considerations
• Diversity issues
• Educational impact
• Broader impacts
• Feasibility of fieldwork

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Antarctic proposal timetable

• 2 June 2005 Proposal deadline
• 2 June Operational Requirements
  Worksheets
• June Ad hoc review begins
• September Panels
• October Operational, safety,
  and health review
• November Environmental review
  
• December Negotiation with
  proposers
• January-June 2006 Awards/declines
• October 2006 or 1 Begin deployments

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Merit Review Criteria

• Intellectual Merit What is the intellectual
  merit of the proposed activity?
• Broader Impacts What are the broader impacts of
  the proposed activity?

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Intellectual Merit

• How important is the proposed activity to
  advancing knowledge and understanding within its
  own field or across different fields?
• How well qualified is the proposer (individual or
  team) to conduct the project? (Reviewers may
  comment on the quality of prior work.)
• To what extent does the proposed activity suggest
  and explore creative and original concepts?
• How well conceived and organized is the proposed
  activity?
• Is access to resources sufficient?

24
NSFs proposal review criteria

• What is the intellectual merit of the proposed
  activity? (criterion 1)
• What are the broader impacts of the proposed
  activity? (criterion 2)

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Developing the review criteria

• July 1997 NSF Important Notice 121
• the new criteria are announced
• proposals will be reviewed using them
• September 1999 NSF Important Notice 125
• reminder about broader-impacts criterion
• NSF to address both criteria in funding decisions
• July 2002 NSF Important Notice 127
• NSF will return without review proposals that do
  not address both merit review criteria

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• NSF will return, without review, any proposal
  that does not discuss broader impacts

27
Grant Proposal Guide, NSF 04-23

• Proposals must address both review criteria
• in the one-page Project Summary
• in the Project Description
• Full texts of the criteria are in chapter III
• Read further discussion of broader impacts at
  footnote 33, a document originated by the OPP
  Advisory Committee.

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Broader impacts review criterion

1. promote teaching, training, and learning
2. involve persons in underrepresented groups
3. enhance research/education infrastructure
4. disseminate results broadly
5. benefit society

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1 Teach, train, learn

• Integrate research into teaching
• Integrate research into guest lectures, etc.
• Develop educational materials
• Partner with educators
• Mentoring students and technicians
• Graduates and postdocs teach undergraduates
• Links to programs such as REU
• Give presentations at museums, libraries, etc.
• Develop or adopt models and pedagogy

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2 Help underrepresented groups

• Partner at your institution or another
• Lecture at colleges and universities
• Partner with RUI and EPSCoR groups
• Partner with community colleges
• Mentor first-time NSF proposers
• Document research in relevant terms
• Develop connectivity to underserved
• Participate in diversity activities

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3 Enhance infrastructure

• Develop next-generation shared platforms
• Modernize shared tools
• Upgrade computing infrastructure
• Develop and upgrade new types of tools
• Improve use of multi-user facilities
• Collaborate among disciplines and institutions

32
4 Disseminate results

• Publish promptly in peer-reviewed literature
• Share data in databases, other venues
• Publish in diverse media
• Present results in formats useful to Congress,
  etc.
• Participate in conferences, workshops
• Integrate research with education

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5 Develop benefits to society

• Give examples of link between discovery and
  benefit
• Partner to integrate research into broader
  programs
• Partner to develop products
• Analyze and synthesize results for nonscientists
• Inform policy formulation by agencies

34
Proposers shouldintegrate research education

• at academic and research institutions individuals
  concurrently can be researchers, educators, and
  students
• joint efforts can enrich
• education with the excitement of discovery
• research with diverse learning perspectives

35
U.S. Commission on National Security, March 2001

• ...the inadequacies of our systems of research
  and education pose a greater threat to U.S.
  national security over the next quarter century
  than any potential conventional war we might
  imagine.

36
Public attitude towards science

• Rate of civic scientific literacy in the US is
  only now approaching 20 percent
• Public believes strongly in value of scientific
  research for economic prosperity and quality of
  life.
• Public consistently reconciles reservations about
  pace of change engendered by science, and
  relationship between science and faith, in favor
  of science.
• Jon D. Miller, Northwestern U., 2004

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News followed by U.S. public
38
OPP education/outreach awards 2000-2002

• 11 for new courses and training
• 2 for multimedia education
• 11 for K-12 outreach
• 3 for Alaskan outreach
• 18 for conferences and workshops
• 3 for doctoral research
• 7 for undergraduate research
• 16 for other education topics
• Get, before you leave, a copy of Office of Polar
  Programs education support, 2000-2002

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Add a teacher to your research team?

• TEA, 1992-2003, 100 teachers arctic/antarctic
• TEA winding down joined Armada project 2004
• http//www.armadaproject.org/index.htm (URI)
• tea.rice.edu web site to continue -- Educational
  Materials (in Related Links), Meet the Teachers
  (with field journals), and classroom Activities
• To propose adding a teacher - in absence of TEA -
  try Armada or use Research Experiences for
  Teachers solicitation (NSF 03-554) as a model

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RISE Resources for Involving Scientists in
Education

• Roles for scientists and engineers in the schools
• Working directly with students
• Working with teachers
• Supporting systemic reform
• Helping to develop instructional materials
• http//www.nationalacademies.org/rise/

41
Proposers shouldintegrate diversity into
projects

• Participation of all citizens is essential to the
  vitality of science and engineering
• This principle is central to the activities NSF
  considers and supports

42
A reason to achieve diversity

• Blacks, Asians, Native Americans, and Hispanics
  will attain the U.S. majority shortly after the
  year 2050, according to Census Bureau
  projections.
• They already are a majority in New Mexico,
  Hawaii, and many large cities.
• These minority strongholds are the vanguard of a
  demographic shift that will transform politics
  and business over the next 50 years.

43
Senior science and engineering faculty in 2000

• 12.5 are women
• women earned 36 of se PhDs in 2000
• 94 of full professors are white
• 90 of full professors are male
• Of the top 50 chemistry departments--
• 1,600 top faculty members
• of which 43 are minorities
• of the 43, 17 are African-American
• 0 African-American assistant professors

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NSF is fundingdiversity projects that work

• Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation
  (LSAMP)
• 163 majority institutions, 257 minority and
  community institutions, total of 420 U.S.
  institutions, growing every year
• 25,100 bachelors degrees in 2003
• 35,000,000 per year of NSF funding, 100
  matching
• LSAMP Bridge to the Doctorate program
• Historically Black Colleges and Universities
  Program
• Tribal Colleges and Universities Program
• Lots more at the Division of Human Resource
  Development www.ehr.nsf.gov/hrd/

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Budgeting for broader impacts in your proposal

• Intellectual merit and broader impacts are
  interwoven, and the budget is inseparable
• Broader-impacts budget is a fraction of the total
• Broader-impacts budget is substantial
• Focus of the proposal is education,
  diversification, or outreach

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Broader-impact ideasin existing NSF grants

• On the NSF home page click Search at the top.
• Select Fielded search.
• You are in the NSF awards database.
• In Full Text Search, type the words broader
  impact.
• Click Search at the bottom.
• Result 3,805 award abstracts that include
  descriptions of their broader-impact activities.

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Will your broader-impacts plan influence NSFs
funding decision?

• Committee of Visitors report regarding NSF
  decisions for BE in 2001, 2002, and 2003
• no proposal rose to the top without high
  Intellectual Merit
• within this group of highly meritorious
  proposals, the quality of the Broader Impacts
  played a distinct and defining role in making
  decisions emphasis added