Federal Research Funding Agencies The Holy Grail of
Academics
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Objectives Agencies and programs Matching ideas, programs, and
scientists Getting ready Getting funded..
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Some of the Agencies With Competitive Research Programs: the
usual suspects National Science Foundation Environmental Protection
Agency (Office of Research and Development) National Institute of
Health US Department of Agriculture ( Cooperative State Research,
Education, and Extension Service, CSREES ) NASA NOAA Research
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What they have in common and what sets them apart from other
funding sources Fund research and research related activities based
on merit Explicit criteria External peer-review Panel based
decisions/recommendations Transparency Low funding rate
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Choosing the right agency and program Example of NSF: 9
Directorates (e.g., Biological Sciences, aka BIO; Social,
Behavioral, and Economic Sciences) BIO: 4 divisions (e.g., Division
of Environmental Biology, aka DEB) DEB: 4 clusters (e.g., Ecosystem
Sciences; Ecological Biology; Population & Evolutionary
Processes Cluster)
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Confused? Additional Funding Opportunities for the DEB
Community 2010 Project Advances in Biological Informatics
(ABI)(ABI) Advancing Theory in Biology (ATB)Advancing Theory in
Biology (ATB) Assembling the Tree of Life (ATOL) Doctoral
Dissertation Improvement Grants in the DBS (DDIG) Dynamics of
Coupled Natural and Human Systems (CNH) Ecology of Infectious
Diseases (EID) Interdisciplinary Training for Undergraduates in
Biological and Mathematical Sciences (UBM) International
Cooperative Biodiversity Groups (ICBG) Long Term Research in
Environmental Biology (LTREB) Microbial Genome Sequencing Program
FY 2009 Opportunities for Promoting Understanding through Synthesis
(OPUS) Partnerships for Enhancing Expertise in Taxonomy (PEET)
Planetary Biodiversity Inventories (PBI) Research Assistantships
for High School Students (RAHSS) Research Coordination Networks in
Biological Sciences (RCN) Research Initiation Grants to Broaden
Participation in Biology (RIG BP) Science, Technology, and Society
(STS)
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So, what to do? It really starts with an idea Can this idea be
developed into a research program? Check against the agency and its
programs: is it research, infrastructure, education, etc. If it
checks out, does the institution meet basic requirements Call the
program officer(s) at more than one agency and/or program Call
colleagues/friends who have been funded
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Think that it is a lengthy process? Activities recommended
above can be done in one day of work A good proposal takes
approximately 160 hours of work plus time from OSP Check the stats
for each program
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Ecosystems Proposals (2008) NSF stats
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Ecosystem Proposals panelist stats
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Now the work starts in earnest Read the RFP very carefully:
Organization Format Do not forget the attachments Most agencies
check proposals for compliance and reject some without review If
the compliance officer does not reject the proposal, the reviewers
might
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Biocomplexity Specification in the RFP: team has to be
interdisciplinary Make-up of the team: 9 scientists in 7
disciplines including ecology, modeling, social sciences,
economics, history, etc. Panel summary: Very good proposal but team
is weakly interdisciplinary
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Intellectual Merit Ensure that the criteria in the RFP are met
If synthesis is one, have a whole section on it (an increasing
number of proposals are rejected on this ground) Try to decipher
agencys jargon (e.g., transformative research)
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National Science Board, 2005 2020 Vision for the national
science foundation, The National Science Foundation must support
the most innovative and potentially transformative researchresearch
that has the capacity to revolutionize existing fields, create new
subfields, cause paradigm shifts, support discovery, and lead to
radically new technologies The Foundation must create an
environment that is more open to and encourages transformative
research proposals from the research community.
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Importance of Good Synthetic Figures
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Broader Impacts Criterion: What are the broader impacts of the
proposed activity? How well does the activity advance discovery and
understanding while promoting teaching, training and learning? How
well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of
underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability,
geographic, etc.)? To what extent will it enhance the
infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities,
instrumentation, networks and partnerships? Will the results be
disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological
understanding? What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to
society?
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Some facts Broader impact activities should make up 7- 10% of
total budget In a 15 page proposal, this criterion should make up
@2 pages In an environment where