Toolkit for NSF

Mission, Goals and Organization

The National Science Foundation is the only federal agency whose mission includes support for all fields of fundamental science and engineering, except for medical sciences. In addition to research, NSF funds the procurement and development of instrumentation, conferences and workshops, dissertation research in selected areas, international travel and graduate fellowships.

NSF funds 50% of the non-medical basic research funded at academic institutions by federal agencies. Twenty percent of proposals rated “excellent” by reviewers are not funded; only 47% of proposals rated “very good” to “excellent” by reviewers are funded. Twenty five percent of proposals submitted to NSF by prior PIs are funded; only 14% of proposals submitted to NSF by new PIs are funded.

Taken together, these award data help demonstrate the importance of ensuring that proposals developed and written to NSF optimize competitiveness in every way possible, including knowledgeably reflecting the agency mission, strategic plan, and research and educational investment priorities, where appropriate, in the proposal narrative.

Competitiveness at NSF is enhanced by understanding the agency’s core integrative themes and their relevance to specific proposals. NSF’s 2003 – 2008 Strategic Plan discusses the agency’s mission, core strategies, priority research areas and strategic goals in detail and can be found here). These and other themes are woven into the entire fabric of the NSF research and educational mission, and reflect the integrative nature of many of their program announcements. A summary is given below; the strategies and goals listed below are discussed in detail in the Strategic Plan.

NSF’s core strategies are:

Develop intellectual capital (promote diversity in S&E, attract US students to S&E, promote public understanding of S&E, and support research on learning and teaching of S&E)
Integrate research and education (invest in discovery and knowledge creation, accelerate progress and advance frontiers of knowledge in priority areas, invest in Centers, and enhance S&E research and education capability of individuals and institutions)
Promote partnerships

NSF’s current priority research areas are listed below ( a detailed description is given here):

Biocomplexity in the Environment
Human and Social Dynamics
Information Technology Research
Mathematical Sciences
Nanoscale Science and Engineering
Cyberinfrastructure

NSF’s strategic goals are defined in terms of people, ideas and tools, as defined below.

People: A diverse, competitive, and globally engaged U.S. workforce of scientists, engineers, technologists and well-prepared citizens
Ideas: Discovery across the frontier of science and engineering, connected to learning, innovation and service to society
Tools: Broadly accessible state-of-the-art science and engineering facilities, tools, and other infrastructure that enable discovery, learning and innovation

Most NSF funding opportunities are divided into broad program areas under: Directorate for Biological Sciences (BIO), Directorate for Computer and Information Sciences (CISE), Crosscutting Programs, Directorate for Education and Human Resources (EHR), Directorate for Engineering (ENG), Directorate for Geosciences (GEO), Office of International Science and Engineering (OISE), Directorate for Mathematics and Physical Sciences (MPS), Office of Polar Programs (OPP), and Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences (SBE) (). A high-level organization chart is shown in Figure 1. Each directorate is divided into divisions, and divisions have specific programs and funding opportunities; here is a list of directorates and divisions, with web links.

Funding Opportunities

NSF uses several mechanisms to announce funding opportunities. All solicited funding opportunities are listed here, along with Program Announcements.

Unsolicited Proposals

Program Descriptions and Program Announcements describe research programs that will accept “unsolicited” proposals. These programs fund the traditional, disciplinary core research projects usually involving one to three investigators. Descriptions of research areas that each program will fund are given on the program web pages, which can be found going to the Directorate web site, selecting the Division of interest and finally selecting the program web page. (One of the easiest ways to do this is to start here and select the Division from the organization list.) Because Program Descriptions tend to be brief and relatively broad in describing fundable research areas, it is important to talk to the Program Officer and read abstracts of proposals recently funded by the program in order to get a better sense of current areas of interest for that program. Programs typically accept unsolicited proposals once or twice each year at about the same time. Programs may list “due dates,” which are firm dates beyond which proposals will not be accepted, “target dates,” which are more flexible, and “target windows,” which designate a time period, usually 1 or 2 months, within which proposals will be accepted. Unsolicited proposals must follow the formatting guidelines listed in the NSF Grant Proposal Guide unless otherwise specified by the program.

Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER; pronounced “sugar”)

SGER grants are small grants given at the discretion of the Program Officer to fund high-risk, high-pay-off projects. The idea behind the SGER grant is that the money will be used to allow proof of concept work or generation of sufficient preliminary data in order to produce a full-fledged research proposal to NSF. Typical funding amounts for these grants are $30K - $100K for one year. Researchers interested in submitting a SGER grant should always discuss their idea with the Program Officer before proceeding. The Program Officer will give important feedback on whether the idea is appropriate for a SGER and whether funding is available. Proposals for SGER grants are shorter than conventional unsolicited proposals and have different formatting requirements; guidelines are given in the Grant Proposal Guide on page II-19.

Proposals for Conferences, Symposia and Workshops

Supports conferences, symposia and workshops in special areas of science and engineering. Proposals should generally be made at least a year in advance of scheduled date. Guidelines are given in the Grant Proposal Guide on page II-24.

Supplements to Funded Projects

PIs of NSF-funded projects can apply for a range of supplemental funding. These opportunities include:

Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU Supplement)

Provides funding to support one or two undergraduates from the PI’s institution or elsewhere to conduct research on the NSF-funded project

Research Experiences for Teachers (RET Supplement) - for Bio Directorate ; for Engineering
Provides funding for K-12 teachers to work with researchers on the project
Research Opportunity Award Supplement (ROA)

Enables faculty from predominantly undergraduate institutions to pursue research as visiting scientists with NSF-funded investigators.

Facilitation Awards for Scientists and Engineers with Disabilities (FASED)

Awards and supplements to remove barriers to participation in research and training by disabled individuals. See the GPG, page II-20.

Other more narrowly focused supplement are also made available periodically, such as the Research Experiences for Graduates program for graduate students conducting research in cultural anthropology.

PIs interested in pursuing supplemental funding should talk to their program officer for guidance.

Solicited Proposals

Solicitations are issued to announce NSF’s intention to fund particular types of projects and areas of research. Solicitations are usually more focused that Program Announcements and are often tied to a particular agency priority research areas or initiatives, for example, Biocomplexity or Nanoscale Science. Solicitations may be issued only once, may be issued for several years or may be issued on a regular, recurring basis. Formatting requirements may differ from those in the Grant Proposal Guide and are spelled out in the solicitation. In addition, solicitations often have additional review criteria. It is always extremely important to read the solicitation carefully and to make a check list of all requirements and review criteria to ensure that all are addressed in the proposal.

Structure and Format of NSF Proposals

While the structure of a proposal to NSF may vary depending on the requirements of the solicitation, below is a general outline of a typical proposal, following the Grant Proposal Guide, which gives the default guidelines. Deviations from the Grant Proposal Guide must be specified in the solicitation.

Cover Sheet (form filled out on Fastlane)
Project Summary (1 page)

Intellectual merit
Broader impacts

Project Description (15 pages)
References Cited (no page limit)
Biographical Sketches (2 pages each; see GPG for format; include sketch for all senior personnel, definition in GPG)
Current and Pending Support (for all senior personnel; no page limit; required info in GPG; no set format required)
Budget (Fastlane form, filled out in collaboration with Proposal Administrator)
Budget Justification (narrative description and justification of budget items)
Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources (describe directly applicable equipment, etc.; not necessarily required for all proposals)
Special information and Supplementary Documentation

As needed. Examples: letters of collaboration; letters of support; environmental impact statements, required authorizations/permits for field work at specific sites, etc. No page limit.

Important: The Grant Proposal Guide specifies that all margins must be 2.5 cm; the only allowable fonts are:

Arial, Courier new, or Palatino Linotype with a font size of 10 points or larger,
Times New Roman at a font size of 11 points or larger
Computer Modern family of fonts at a font size of 11 points or larger
Smaller font sizes and other fonts (e.g., Symbol, Greek, etc) can be used for formulas, equations, figure captions, etc. but they must be readable.

AND

No more than 6 lines of type can fit into a vertical space of 1 inch (check this with a ruler).

Submission Process

All NSF proposals must be submitted electronically through NSF’s Fastlane website. In order to use Fastlane, investigators must be registered with NSF, which can easily be done by a proposal administrator at Texas A&M. Each section of the proposal is uploaded separately either as a pdf file or as a Word file, which Fastlane will convert to a pdf file. After uploading, applicants should be careful to view the file to make sure nothing has been changed by the conversion process. As the deadline approaches, Fastlane often becomes much slower, so it is always wise to submit proposals before the due date. Help with uploading files is often available through proposal administrators.

Evaluation Criteria

All NSF proposals are judged by certain evaluation criteria, as outlined in the Grant Proposal Guide. They are stated briefly below; each of these criteria are described in more detail in the guide:

What is the intellectual merit of the proposed activity?
What are the broader impacts of the proposed activity? (Examples given here)
How well does the proposed work integrate research and education?
How well does the proposed work integrate diversity into NSF programs, projects and activities?

It should be noted that NSF instructs its reviewers to give intellectual merit and broader impacts equal weight, and that Project Summaries must specifically discuss the intellectual merit and broader impacts of the proposed project in separate statements. If this is not done, NSF’s policy is to return the proposal without review.

The Review Process

Proposals are reviewed by the applicable NSF program. In most cases, the program is designated by the applicant on the cover page. In some cases, a Program Officer may determine that the proposal is more appropriate for a different program and may request that that program review the proposal. However, this may be problematic (for example, the other program may refuse to accept the proposal for review); for this reason, the applicant should work to make sure the proposal is submitted to the most appropriate program, which may require investigating previously funded projects and talking to the Program Officer.

Proposals are reviewed by three to ten external reviewers who are experts in the general fields addressed by the proposal. While these reviewers are highly qualified and well-respected in their fields, it is unlikely that they will all be experts in the particular sub-field addressed by the proposal. Proposal text should therefore be written so that it is understandable to a scientifically knowledgeable reader who may not be an expert in the particular sub-field of the proposal.

Proposals may be reviewed by ad hoc reviewers, meaning a set of reviewers who were selected to review that particular proposal; this is usually done by mail. Alternatively, proposals may be reviewed by a review panel: a group of reviewers who come to Washington DC and jointly review a large number of proposals. Some proposals are subjected to a combination of ad hoc mail reviews and a panel review. This is often the case for CAREER proposals, where ad hoc reviewers review the research plan and a panel then takes those reviews under consideration when reviewing the entire proposal, which includes other program components. Reviewers rate the proposal: Excellent, Very Good, Good, Fair or Poor and include explanations for their ratings Reviewers also submit a Fund/Do Not Fund recommendation. The Program Officer then takes these reviews under consideration when selecting projects to fund.

It is not uncommon for a proposal to get a “Fund if possible” recommendation from the review panel and then not get funded. This happens because after program funds were distributed to other higher ranked proposals, no funds were left. However, this recommendation may be a signal that the applicant should revise the proposal and submit again in the next funding cycle.

It can be very instructive to serve as a reviewer for NSF. Researchers can increase their chances of being selected as a reviewer by contacting the program officer in their research area, sending their c.v. and volunteering their services. Maintaining a good website describing research activities can also increase the chances that a researcher will be invited to be a reviewer for NSF.

Finally, if a proposal is not recommended for funding, the researcher should read the reviews carefully, call the program officer if there are any questions, and evaluate whether to revise and resubmit in the next funding cycle It is very common for proposals to NSF to be funded on second or third submissions. It is important, however, that proposals that are resubmitted address reviewers’ comments and are substantially revised. See Chapter 15 on Revising and Resubmitting Proposals for more information on this topic.