Parts of an NSF full grant proposal

Cover Sheet

Project Summary - 1 page, the most important

Project Description - 15 pages total

References Cited - 5-10 pages

Bio Sketch - 2 pages; list 10 best papers

Budget + Justification - 8-10 pages

Current/Pending Support - all current grants

Facilities - 2 pages

RUI Impact Statement - 2 pages

Letters of Support - 3-5 pages

Suggested ReviewersTotal: 50-70 pages

Project Summary - 1 page, the most important

- often, this is the only part reviewers read if they are

not experts in your area; like an abstract

Project Description - 15 pages total

- results from prior support (2 pages) must show you were productive with prior funding

- introduction + preliminary data must convince reviewers the goals are very important and totally do-able

- proposed work

- broader impacts (1-2 pages) are all the non-intellectual products or benefits of research

Parts of an NSF grant proposal

1) each proposal gets written “mail reviews” from 4-7 experts who evaluate (1) intellectual merit, (2) broader impacts

- intellectual merit is the scientific importance of the ideas; this is what the reviewers are comfortable evaluating, and what they care about

- broader impacts are all the non-intellectual products or benefits of research to society

- formally considered to have “equal weight” by the program officers at NSF

- put in place to justify to congress that the funding for research is not done in a vaccuum

Parts of an NSF grant proposal

broader impacts include:

- training students in research

- increasing participation by minority students in science

- including high school students or teachers in research

- creating educational products for K-12 teachers to use

- presenting information on research to the general public- websites- public lecturing, TV appearances, etc- museum displays

- developing resources for the scientific community (databases, software, web resources)

- general societal benefits: help stop global warming, discover new fuel source, etc

Parts of an NSF grant proposal

NSF grant review panel

1) each proposal gets written “mail reviews” from 4-7 experts who evaluate (1) intellectual merit, (2) broader impacts

2) gets read by 4 people who will be on the review panel

3) panel (25-30 scientists) meets for 3-4 days to discuss ~100 proposals, of which ~10% will be funded

4) each panelist must read:- 16 grants, 50-75 pp each (~1000 pages)- all new mail reviews for each proposal (~100 pp)- on arrival in DC, must also read all prior panel reports and old mail reviews (~200 pp)- must rate each proposal you read- must write summaries of panel discussions on the fly

NSF PRE-review process, NEW

Last year, most NSF divisions (but not all) moved to a process where you get to submit two PRE-PROPOSALS each January

A pre-proposal is 4 pages total, and must address both the intellectual merit and broader impacts of the work

- no budget

Gets read by 3 panelists in D.C., none necessarily an expert in your field

About 30% of proposals “pass” and you are then invited to submit a full proposal in summer, that will get mail reviewed and then evaluated by a panel

- about half of full proposals were expected to be funded

Why change a system that everyone thought worked pretty well?

1) Complaints from mail reviewers: too much work, too many crappy proposals

2) Emphasize importance of ideas & big-picture significance, over the nitty-gritty details

3) Allow NSF to say that a high percentage of full proposals are funded, to make it look not so depressing

- old system: 15% success rate

- new system: (30% pre-proposals) x (15% of full) = 5%

- actual success rate has gone down, in part because budgets PIs are requesting have gone up

NSF PRE-review process – good or bad?

PROS:1) Less mail reviewing, in general

2) Don’t have to write a long proposal unless your odds are good

CONS:1) Only one cycle per year, instead of 2 submission deadlines

2) No way to gradually improve a proposal by addressing mail reviewer comments

- each time, you start over at the pre-proposal stage- each cycle, new panel with different people evaluating

the novelty and importance of your ideas

3) No guarantee a given year’s panel will “get it”

Assignment

1) Identify a conference in your field that would be appropriate to attend in your second year

(a) where is the meeting next year?

(b) when is the abstract deadline?

(c) are there student travel grants available?

2) Identify 3 “broader impacts” of your thesis research. You can be a bit creative here – there are many examples of what makes research important to society, or how you could do outreach and education for the general public, etc