Why NSF $ should matter to you Getting into a good grad school good grades, GREs, etc. Getting a...
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Transcript of Why NSF $ should matter to you Getting into a good grad school good grades, GREs, etc. Getting a...
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Why NSF $ should matter to you
• Getting into a good grad school good grades, GREs, etc.
• Getting a good job strong publications (helps to have $ from NSF to do this…)
• Keeping a good job (= tenure) $ from NSF + publications
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3 common types of NSF grants
• NSF graduate fellowships (3 years of living large); can apply as senior or 1st/2nd year of Ph.D. program
• NSF Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant (DDIG) ~$10,000, after advanced to candidacy + have preliminary data (1-2 years of support)
• Regular grant (usually 3-5 years; typically $100,000--1,000,000; $250,000 for 3 years is common size)
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How NSF reviews a proposal
(regular proposal)
• Proposals are submitted to a given program
• Program officer decides which panel will review the proposal (e.g., ecology, evolutionary ecology, systematics)
• Proposal also sent to ~3-9 outside reviewers
• Panel meets and recommends proposals for funding and recommends different priorities for funding
• Program officer makes quasi-final decision on funding
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How NSF reviews a proposal
(DDIG style)
• Reviewed by 3 panelists ONLY (no outside reviews)
• Panelists make recommendation to Program Officer
• Program Officer makes quasi-final decision
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The bottom line:
• The panel recommendation is the key step in deciding the fate of your grant proposal
• How does the panel work?
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The Panel
• Usually 15-20 scientists (chosen to maximize diversity; junior/senior, male/female, different organisms, conceptual areas, and approaches theory/experimental/comparative)
• Meet for ~3 days at NSF
• Each panelist given 15-20 proposals to review
• Each proposal reviewed by 3 panelists PRIOR to the panel meeting (reviews by panel members are initially independent)
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At the Panel
• Panelists read the other panelist reviews and outside reviews just before the panel begins
• All 15-20 panelists sit around a big table with 3-4 program officers
• Each proposal gets its turn--reviewed for anywhere from 30 seconds to 30 minutes (typically 10-15 minutes)
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The Panel Review-1
(your proposal’s 15 minutes of fame or infamy)
• It begins: the Program Officer to whom the proposal is assigned asks something like: “so, what do you think?”
• Lead panelist gives summary of reviews and his opinion
• 2 secondary panelists give their opinion
• 3 panelists discuss briefly and arrive at consensus (~90% of the time) or agree to disagree and discuss in the hallway
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The Panel Review-2
(your proposal’s 15 minutes of fame or infamy)
• It ends: the Program Officer asks “so, what is your recommendation?”
• The options are basically
--do not fund
--fund if possible (low priority)
--fund if possible (low priority)
--fund (low priority)
--fund (high priority)
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The Panel Review-3
(your proposal’s 15 minutes of fame or infamy)
• The options--TRANSLATIONS
--do not fund--YOU’RE DEAD
--fund if possible (low priority)--YOU’RE ALMOST CERTAINLY DEAD
--fund if possible (low priority)--YOU’RE PROBABLY DEAD
--fund (low priority)--YOU’RE POSSIBLY FUNDED
--fund (high priority)--YOU’RE ALMOST CERTAINLY FUNDED
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How does the panel decide what they like or don’t like?-1
• In theory decide based on “Intellectual Merit” and “Broader Impacts”
• Intellectual merit = good science
• Broader impacts = minority or female participation, educational program, outreach to local schools, capacity building, infrastructure, conservation implications, etc.
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How does the panel decide what they like or don’t like?-2
• In reality most proposals get killed because they fail in terms of intellectual merit
• Most proposals with good science typically have good broader impacts
• Good broader impacts will help a proposal with good science, but will not save a proposal with bad science
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What you (the proposal submitter)
get in the end from NSF
• Individual reviews (3 reviews from the 3 panelists, plus any outside reviews)
• “Panel summary” written summary of the panel’s opinion, including justification for their decision
--written by lead panelist after panelists have conferred
--reviewed and signed by all three panelists
--very important but often brief and written in haste
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3 key ingredients of a successful proposal
• Asking a big question
• “Closing the loop”
• Demonstrating that you can actually do it.
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3 key ingredients of a successful proposal
Asking a big question:
• Many proposals killed because the question is of limited general interest (e.g., population structure of endangered species X)
• Should tackle general conceptual question in a field (i.e., ecology, evolution)
• Many of the strongest proposals combine general conceptual question with strongly applied question
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3 key ingredients of a successful proposal
Asking a big question:
• Program Officer quote: “I ask myself, where will this research be published? I expect NSF to be funding research that could be published in Science or Nature”
• Previously publishing in Science and Nature is not a requirement for getting funded by NSF
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Examples of big questions
• How does sexual selection influence diversification rates?
• How does a parasite’s (disease) virulence co-evolve with host defense among populations across the geographic range of each species?
• How does a hormonal stress response influence survival in the face of environmental change?
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3 key ingredients of a successful proposal
Closing the loop:
• You can ask the big question, but is your project designed in a way that can actually answer it?
• Many proposals start off with great question, but never identify how exactly they will answer it
• If possible, you should identify specific statistical test that will give you the final answer to the big question!
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3 key ingredients of a successful proposal
Can you do it?
• Need to demonstrate or convincingly argue for the feasibility of every part of your project
• Don’t assume anything
• Should have preliminary data for every part of project and every type of data to be gathered
• If possible, do power analyses to demonstrate that design can give statistical significance
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3 key ingredients of a successful proposal
Can you do it?
• Have timeline to show that you can do everything in the allotted time; detailed budget justification
• Should have letters of support from everyone who is involved with the project who is not a PI on the proposal
• Try to anticipate all possible objections from the reviewers
• Publication record helps!
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Lessons from the panel review system
• The fate of your proposal is often decided by people who do not know anything about your subject area
• You need to be doing something that is important and general enough that people will be excited about it no matter what they work on...
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Lessons from the panel review system
• Panelists usually have 20 other proposals to review and may not be paying close attention--you need to get them excited, make everything easy to understand, and strongly emphasize your most important points
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Lessons from the panel review system
• The panel changes every time it meets (example: 85% turnover between panels)
• Responding to panel criticisms in a resubmission is necessary but guarantees nothing; the only thing that matters is whether the panel presently reviewing it likes it.
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Lessons from the panel review system
• Resubmissions don’t get special priority (some proposals get turned down again and again and again)
• May be better to wait and submit very strong proposal than to put in hasty proposal and see what the reviewers say (“luck” is mostly relevant for good proposals…)
• Getting “recommended for funding” doesn’t mean that much
• Outside reviews may be completely ignored by the panel
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Lessons from the panel review system
• Funding rate is around 10--20% (funded proposals/submitted proposals)
• Half the proposals are shoddy, uninteresting, and otherwise obviously flawed and not going to be funded
• Many people have multiple grants at the same time