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Toolkit for NASA External Research Funding

Mission, History, and Organization of NASA

The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) was established in 1958 to lead the country in the global “race to space.” While aeronautics and space exploration have always been the principle focuses of NASA, the agency has also made considerable investments in airborne and spaceborne earth observing systems and basic earth and environmental research. The fundamental mission of NASA is to:

  • Understand and protect our home planet;
  • Explore the universe and search for life; and
  • Inspire the next generation of earth explorers.

The NASA research enterprise is organized into four major directorates. These include the: 1) Science Mission Directorate; 2) Explorations Systems Mission Directorate; 3) Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate; and 4) Office of the Chief Education Officer. Each of these directorates issue solicitations for external funding in fundamental and applied research in science, engineering, and educational outreach related to earth and space systems. They also each accept unsolicited proposals under certain limitations. The research priorities and directions for these directorates are closely linked with the overall NASA mission, and externally funded science teams must demonstrate that they understand how their work will contribute to NASA’s internal research missions.
 

Science Mission Directorate

The Science Mission Directorate contains NASA’s earth and space science programs. The principal external funding opportunities within these programs come under the Research Opportunities in Space and Earth Sciences (ROSES) series of solicitations.
 

Exploration Systems Mission Directorate

The Exploration Systems Mission Directorate contains NASA’s biological and physical research programs, as well as space flight programs.
 

Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate

The Aeronautics Research Mission Directorate contains NASA’s aerospace technology programs.
 

Office of the Chief Education Officer

The Office of the Chief Education Officer contains equality opportunity programs for improving public understanding of science and mathematics in general, and of NASA science in particular. This includes special programs for Minority Serving Institutions.
 

Granting Mechanisms and Awards

NASA has a centralized system for announcing research solicitations and conducting other tasks associated with external research awards. This is the NASA Solicitation and Proposal Integrated Review and Evaluation System (NSPIRES). This web-based system supports the entire lifecycle of NASA research solicitations and awards, from the release of solicitation announcements through the peer review and selection process, to awards management and publication of research results. The system is intended to facilitate conducting of research business with NASA for the science and technology research community. The web link for NSPIRES is here.
 

Researchers can register with NSPIRES for automatic notifications of research solicitations and other news related to NASA’s external funding programs. In addition, researchers are encouraged to consult NSPIRES regularly for other important information concerning research solicitations. The site maintains links to current, future, and past solicitations, to abstracts of funded proposals, and to valuable background information about the goals and priorities of NASA’s research programs as they relate to external research.

Early Career Awards

NASA has several specialized programs for supporting career development for new faculty members and research scientists. The ROSES program has two opportunities for early career researchers: the New Investigator Program in Earth-Sun System Science, and the Carl Sagan Fellowships for Early Career Researchers. Tenured faculty are excluded from these funding opportunities. Eligibility requirements for the New Investigator Program include: 1) receipt of a Ph.D. no more than five years before January 1, 2000; 2) employment at an institution in the U.S.; 3) not hold or have held tenure or its equivalent on or before the submission of the proposal; and 4) not be a current or former recipient of the New Investigator program or the Presidential Early Career Award for Scientists and Engineers.

Eligibility requirements for Carl Sagan Fellowships include: 1) receipt of Ph.D. no earlier than 1998; and 2) current, nontenured employment at a U.S. institution. However, researchers who received their Ph.D. before 1998 but have been inactive in the field are also eligible to apply providing they have never held a tenured position.

 Both programs are open to tenure and non-tenure track scientists at any nonprofit research organization, such as academic institutions, government or other nonprofit research laboratories, museums, and nonprofit entities in the private sector. These must be single-investigator proposals, although investigators are expected to collaborate with others in order to accomplish both the scientific and educational goals, and such collaborations are encouraged.

The New Investigator Program, in particular, emphasizes the integration of scientific research and educational outreach. All proposals must have both a science plan and an educational plan. The goal of the program is to instill, among new scientists and engineers, a broader sense of responsibility for effectively transferring scientific knowledge to the public and the broader scientific community.

Researchers are encouraged to consult the NSPIRES web site for more specific information on the scientific research priorities of both of these early career funding programs.

Graduate Fellowships

NASA also awards graduate fellowship awards each year in areas of scientific priority. For example, up to 50 new fellowships are awarded each year in the Earth System Science Fellowship program. Graduate Fellowships are valuable not only to those students who receive them, but to faculty mentors as well who benefit by not having to use grant money to pay for the work of the graduate student.

Example Funding Programs

NASA’s external research priorities are broad and diverse. Some example programs are listed here convey the breadth of research possibilities:

  •  Applied Information Systems Research
  • Astrobiology, Exobiology, and Evolutionary Biology
  • Astronomy and Physics Research and Analysis
  • Cosmochemistry
  • Mars Data Analysis
  • Planetary Instrument Definition and Development
  • Geospace Science
  • Land Use/Land Cover Change
  • NASA Energy and Water Cycle Study
  • Ocean Biology and Biogeochemistry
  • Terrestrial Ecology and Biodiversity
  • Terrestrial Hydrology    


Suggestions

NASA has, in the past, released its research solicitations on a three-year cycle, meaning that if a researcher missed an announcement in a given year, they would have to wait three years for another chance. Some of the program schedules appear to be changing, so researchers are advised to contact the relevant program manager for updated information on solicitation timing.

In addition, one of NASA’s primary goals is for external research to closely support the agency’s core scientific missions and priorities. As such, it is important for researchers to closely link their proposals to existing NASA missions and/or NASA datasets. Proposals to conduct earth science research, for example, which do not include use of NASA’s earth observing infrastructure and data in some manner, are not likely to receive positive reviews.