CISE IT | Edgar Huertas: And then we'll get ready to open up the Webinar right now.
Erik Brunvand: I got to stop
Erik Brunvand: putting my mouse over that window because it goes.
It zooms ahead when the mouse is on that window.
Erik Brunvand: So I believe we're alive. But let's give people just a
Erik Brunvand: few minutes to trickle in. I know we have a lot of attendees, so if people don't mind we'll,
Erik Brunvand: we'll let people trickle in before we officially start.
Erik Brunvand: I see our number of participants is topped one hundred and ten, so I think we should go ahead and get started. Um! My name is Eric Brunvon. I'm a program director in the Cns division within size, the Computer and Information Science and Engineering Directorate at the National Science Foundation. Welcome to this webinar on our new
Erik Brunvand: size core large project solicitation that has just been released
Erik Brunvand: before we start. I'll just quickly give you a quick heads up about the agenda,
Erik Brunvand: so we'll start with a welcome from our and Nsf. Assistant Director for science, Dr. Dr. Margaret Marnosi. We'll then have some intro and background to this particular solicitation. Talk about some details, and then house and time for Q. A. And so before anyone asks. Of course we will be recording this this Webinar and the slides will be available on the Webinar page after we finish.
Erik Brunvand: So with that I would like to turn it over to Margaret Martinosi for a quick welcome.
Margaret Martonosi: Uh, thanks very much, Eric, and Good morning and good afternoon, everyone. It's wonderful to be here with all of you. So i'm. Margaret Martinos and I lead the computer and information science and engineering our size directorate here at Nsf. I can look down on the participants list and see a lot of wonderful colleagues out there, as well as new colleagues as well. Um, in my role. It's really a privilege to be able to help you all catalyze. What's next for sized research areas
Margaret Martonosi: Um, and then try to create programs, create solicitations that help you meet those needs meet those opportunities. Uh: So this size, large uh solicitation is one of those. It represents a lot of work and a lot of careful design, thinking in particular, and analyzing our portfolio of awards and seeing where our proposals came in, we recognize that the size for small and mediums for good opportunities, they are valued opportunities.
Margaret Martonosi: But then there was a pretty big gap between that and what's next for size researchers, namely, the expeditions and computing programs, the general opportunity. So we wanted to give you all a chance to think about ideas at that scale that sits between core mediums and expeditions, and we particularly wanted to give you the chance to think about size, core proposals that spanned different topic areas without feeling like you had to sort of silo yourselves within one of our divisions.
Margaret Martonosi: Um! So we know that there are a lot of great opportunities in the field that this solicitation can cover, and we know that you probably have a lot of those great ideas queued up. So we're really looking forward to receiving them.
Margaret Martonosi: I just want to take a moment to thank some folks, namely, Eric Rundon, who shared the working group that led to the solicitation Uh and von Lehman, Hector Munoz, Ofila, Rabbala, Krishnan, Shaqarbasu, Daniela, Jal, and Scott Acton, as well as a lot of the size uh leadership that uh offered a lot of Input and guidance towards this solicitation. Um, we're really excited about being able to offer something at the scale
Margaret Martonosi: and look forward to working with you on what's next? And with that I will hand it back to Eric and the group.
Erik Brunvand: Thank you. That's great. I'm going to share my screen again, so we can see see the slides. So I I just want to repeat
Erik Brunvand: my thanks to the working group and notice note that the working group that developed this solicitation is spread across three divisions within size, the Cns Ccf. And Ais divisions.
Erik Brunvand: So thank you to those program officers working on that solicitation before we talk about the actual solicitation. Our charge as a working group was to consider
Erik Brunvand: what Margaret said, to try and fill this gap between the current core, medium core, small and core medium programs and the larger center and expedition type programs. We were also asked to
Erik Brunvand: in solicitation to the courage, but not require collaboration across different divisions within signs. And So if you have an idea that naturally spans between Ccf and is, for example, this was an opportunity to to be thinking about those
Erik Brunvand: cross-division types of research, and we also wanted to strongly encourage collaboration across different institutions and different types, and scales of institutions. So it's not a requirement but We do want you to think very hard about whether
Erik Brunvand: the large-scale research that you're proposing can naturally fit across r one institutions and r two institutions and minority, serving institutions and community colleges and other types of institutions that may not be
Erik Brunvand: as easy to incorporate in a small or medium project. So that's what our charge was The actual solicitation is Nsf. Twenty-three, d. Five hundred and twenty-four which you can go and find on the Nsf. Website. The solicitation specifically invites proposals on bold new ideas, tackling, ambitious, and fundamental research problems that are well suited to a large scale, integrated, collaborative.
Erik Brunvand: So when you take that sentence apart, What one of the things that this means is that the teams that you're proposing for these large proposals should consist of two or more investigators or other senior personnel with complementary expertise, and the two or more is important.
Erik Brunvand: Um! We'll have some questions answered later on in the presentation, and one of the questions will be, May I submit a sole pi proposal in this program? And the answer is, no. We would like you to be thinking about larger scale projects with at least two and probably more investigators involved in the
project.
Erik Brunvand: We would also like to strongly encourage you to come together within or across disciplines and or institutions. So we would like you to think about whether the larger scale projects that you have in mind naturally span the different divisions at the Nsf. Within the size directorate, and we'd also like you to think about, as I mentioned, whether a a spectrum of different institution types makes sense for this larger scale project that you have
Erik Brunvand: in mind, and then
Erik Brunvand: this phrase will, if you read illustration carefully, this phrase will be sprinkled liberally through the solicitation which is that we would like the impact of the results from your proposed research to exceed the sum of the individual contributions. I'm not sure exactly how we measure this. But it is very important for a large-scale investment from the National Science Foundation to think about these large projects as something that really couldn't be done on a smaller scale.
Erik Brunvand: So the actual results that will come out of this are greater than simply having three or four people working on their own projects. We really want to encourage you to think about how
Erik Brunvand: these large projects must require different people, different institutions, different ideas, different ways of thinking, to come together in a way that just isn't possible in a smaller or a medium proposal.
Erik Brunvand: These proposals are large in respect to the small and medium programs that already exist. These are programs with budgets from three million to five million dollars up to five years duration. Notice that the three million is a lower bound. We Don't really want you to submit something that could be submitted to. For example, a medium program or one point two million. So the the budget is is required to be within that window through
Erik Brunvand: two million to five million, and of course that budget needs to be justified in the proposal as to why that budget is required to do this scale of research,
Erik Brunvand: we expect that we will make approximately four awards in two thousand and twenty three. With the competition for these
Erik Brunvand: core core programs, large projects, proposals coming every other year. So we have the first um. So the first due date this year february, twenty, eighth, two thousand and twenty-three, and then there will be another competition in two thousand and twenty-five, and another in two thousand and twenty-seven
Erik Brunvand: um, with roughly the same amount of funding twenty million dollars for an anticipated four awards between three and five million.
Erik Brunvand: Now, this is part of the size core programs. It's a larger scale, Grant. But it's It's a size-wide director and wide program. And so one question that will come up is what do we mean by the core programs within size. There are a lot of programs in science, but the core programs are the ones listed on this slide from Ccf. Cns and Ias divisions. You'll notice that the Oac
Erik Brunvand: office is not listed here. They're not participating in this round of proposals, So the proposals should align with one of the core programs within Ccf. Cns or Iis.
Erik Brunvand: You'll notice that within those direct within those divisions we've listed specific programs that constitute the core,
Erik Brunvand: And that's important, because some of these divisions have other programs, such as the Saty program, for example, which lives across multiple um divisions, but but has its home in Cns. But that's not considered one of the core programs. And so we we would hope that your proposals align with the with one or more of these core programs listed here on the slide.
Erik Brunvand: There is in this solicitation a limit on the number of proposals you may be involved with
Erik Brunvand: so an individual. P. I may be pi copi or senior personnel in no more than one core programs. Large projects. Proposal submitted to each deadline window so that means that in two thousand and twenty-three you may be involved in only one proposal in this program.
Erik Brunvand: Now, importantly, this limit does not intersect with any of the other limits from other programs. And so, Even if you've reached your limit of proposals in the small and medium core programs, you may still be involved in up to one big core program proposal, and that element is per deadline window. So if you submit a proposal in twenty, twenty, three, you may submit another. You may be involved in another proposal submitted in two thousand and twenty five,
Erik Brunvand: and another proposal in two thousand and twenty-seven. But the limit is one involvement per person per window, and it's unique to this program. It does not count towards other limits that might be in other programs,
Erik Brunvand: the program vision. This is a bit of a restatement, but I think it's important that the core program seeks. The large project seeks to fill a gap between these small and mediums and the larger scale, and the proposals that will succeed in this program will
Erik Brunvand: be very clear about why the research proposed requires a large team of researchers, and and and why the impact of the results will be more than just the individual contributions from each of the
Erik Brunvand: of the collaborating Pis. So it's very important in your proposal to be very clear about why the scale of the research you're proposing requires this kind of support, and why It requires the kind of collaboration across different, perhaps institutions and departments and divisions within the Nsf. To actually succeed about research.
Erik Brunvand: The three specific goals listed in the solicitation are again to be to address groundbreaking research that can only really be successfully addressed in these larger teams
Erik Brunvand: to encourage collaboration across these different kinds of campuses, across different schools and other organizations, and of course, to align with the size, interest in broadening participation, to also foster activities, to broaden participation in research and education.
Erik Brunvand: Now, with that,
Erik Brunvand: I've tried to anticipate some of your questions, and so the rest of the slides will sort of follow this. What we think might be frequently asked questions, and and maybe answer those before before we open it up to your question from the audience. Does my proposal have to be multidisciplinary?
Erik Brunvand: No, it doesn't have to be.
Erik Brunvand: If you have a large project in mind that really is within a single discipline, but that still requires a larger team and a larger scale investment. You may propose that the solicitation says that we're looking for transformative ideas on any single or multidisciplinary topic.
Erik Brunvand: Now, that being said, we sort of expect that many of the proposals coming in will be multidisciplinary, but it's not a requirement.
Erik Brunvand: So, as as I said previously, proposals need to make a convincing case that the collaborative contributions will be greater than the sum of the individual contributions. That's the important part. Not that it necessarily is required to span disciplines.
Erik Brunvand: Does my budget need to be above three million.
Erik Brunvand: Yes, it does. There's a lower bound and an upper bound on the budgets for this program. We specifically want to encourage proposals that must have this level of investment to be successful.
Erik Brunvand: We we We do not want to see programs that are proposals that could have been submitted to the small and medium projects, but just sort of scaled up to hit this magic number. Your budget cannot exceed five million, and the term of the project cannot exceed five years. But yes, you do have to be proposing something that requires an investment between three and five million dollars.
Erik Brunvand: May I submit as a sol of P. I.
Erik Brunvand: No, you may not.
Erik Brunvand: The solicitation requires that teams consist of two or more investigators with complementary skill, sets and a team of students and or post-doc researchers. These large projects are expected, and this is again text from the solicitation. Large projects are expected to serve as nexus points for collaborative efforts, creating a forum through which investigators come together to
Erik Brunvand: combine their creative talents in a transformative way for large-scale research agendas. So we really do expect multiple pis to be involved in these larger scale proposals.
Erik Brunvand: Are there specific requirements in the proposal with respect to this team that you're assembling?
Erik Brunvand: Yes,
Erik Brunvand: a large proposal must define the roles of all members of the team and the synergies amongst them in a management and coordination plan. So this is a required document that is uploaded in addition to your proposal,
Erik Brunvand: it has a three-page limit. It should be submitted as supplementary documentation and the details of what go into that three-page up to three-page document are in the solicitation
Erik Brunvand: importantly.
Erik Brunvand: Note that if a core program's large project proposal is submitted that does not include a separate management and coordination plan that proposal will be returned without review. This is a required element that you talk about how the team is going to work together, and why that team is an important part of what we're doing
Erik Brunvand: who may submit proposals?
Erik Brunvand: Well, institutions of higher education that means two and four-year colleges, including community colleges that are accredited in, and having a campus located in the United States.
Erik Brunvand: This is general sort of general and nsf language for institutions. Of higher education located in the us also non-profit, non-academic organizations, such as independent museums, observatories, research, labs, et cetera, that are associated with research activities are also eligible to submit so it doesn't have to be a column,
Erik Brunvand: but it does have to be non-profit for profit. Entities are not allowed to submit to this program
Erik Brunvand: Again,
Erik Brunvand: very general Nsf guidelines for almost any proposal coming into the Nsf.
Erik Brunvand: In terms of individual personnel. At the time of submission, anypi, copi, or other senior personnel must hold either a tenured or tenure track position, or a primary full time paid appointment in a research or teaching position at a us-based campus
Erik Brunvand: individuals with primary appointments at for product. Non-academic organizations, or at an overseas branch, are not eligible.
Erik Brunvand: Now, typically what this means, is if you are at an institution, whether it's a nonprofit, or whether it's a institution of higher education. Your office of sponsored research will define. Who on that campus is allowed is is
Erik Brunvand: it's?
Erik Brunvand: Can be, can be somebody who can submit proposals. And so the and Nsf. Really says you should hold this appointment, but it's really up to your own sponsored research office to define on your campus, whether your primary, full-time paid appointment in a research research or teaching position is suitable for submitting proposals to the and if your sponsored research office says that you're allowed, Then you're allowed, and the Nsf. Will be happy to take. Your proposal
Erik Brunvand: is broadening participation important?
Erik Brunvand: Yes. Besides core programs, large projects are envisioned to promote organizational collaborations and linkages between campuses and schools,
Erik Brunvand: and to foster activities to broaden participation in research and education. This comes again from the solicitation. So yes, it is important to include broadening participation in computing
Erik Brunvand: their broadening participation in computing plan requirements in your submission. Again,
Erik Brunvand: Yes, each large project must include a broadening participation in computing plan. Read the solicitation carefully in that section where it talks about the five
Erik Brunvand: that you should be able to answer positively in terms of your ab running participation and computing plan. Your plan should have some talk about the goal and context, the intended populations, the strategy for achieving the goals of your Bpc plan, how you're going to measure it, and how the pis for that proposal will be engaged in that plan. One hundred and fifty.
Erik Brunvand: We encourage you to leverage departmental plans as verified by Bpcnet dot org, and just a little bit extra information about what that means. It turns out that you can submit your broadening participation and computing plan, either as a standalone plan or as a connected plan.
Erik Brunvand: A standalone plan does not include a departmental plan. Instead, you have a single document up to three pages which defines all of your Bpc activities that you plan to engage with in your project
Erik Brunvand: a connected plan. It's a lot of words on this slide, but you can go back and read them later, or you can check it out in the solicitation. A connected plan is connected to a verified departmental plan. So more and more departments out there have what are called verified departmental Bpc. Plans that have been vetted and verified
Erik Brunvand: Bpc. Net org. If your department has a verified Bpc plan, you may submit a smaller.
Erik Brunvand: The connected plan in your proposal. You don't have to repeat All the parts of the of the verified plan have already been uploaded to Bbc. Dot org. Instead, you can focus on your particular involvement as a pi, and how you will engage with that plan.
Erik Brunvand: Um. The other important thing about these connected plans or standalone plans is that as you develop your team, perhaps across different institutions. If
Erik Brunvand: every P. I. Is at an institution with a verified plan, you may submit a connected plan. If any of the institutions that you are involved with do not have a verified plan, then you must submit a standalone plan. So if any of the Pis are involved in a with this proposal are at an institution without a verified plan. Even if everybody else does have a verified plan, the proposal must have a standalone plan.
Erik Brunvand: That case
Erik Brunvand: can I include Bpc. Activities in my budget?
Erik Brunvand: Yes, a portion of the budget. This is again right from the solicitation portion of the budget for each large proposal may be used to engage in relevant Bpc expertise to help, plan, organize, coordinate, and execute Bpc activities. And so
Erik Brunvand: absolutely yes, if you if you propose lots of exciting Bpc activities, and you
Erik Brunvand: Don't, include any budget to actually engage in those activities that may actually be looked at with a tiny bit of suspicion. So if you're proposing things that do require some budget, please include some of your budget for those Bpc activities.
Erik Brunvand: May my proposal be longer than fifteen pages. This is looking like a lot of information that i'm trying to put in my large project proposal. And the answer is, yes. The large projects proposals may be up to twenty pages, so this is five more pages than the small and medium proposals, but because these are larger projects with, we assume a larger motivation. For why that large project team is interesting, and why This is a project
Erik Brunvand: that that merits larger funding. We have a larger limit, so you can expand on those details a little bit. So your your project description, maybe, of twenty pages for this program,
Erik Brunvand: are there additional review criteria that the panels will look at when they risk when they review these proposals.
Erik Brunvand: Yes,
Erik Brunvand: these are also listed in the solicitation. These are very important, because when the panels look at these large proposals, they will be specifically asked to comment on these three additional things beyond the
Erik Brunvand: traditional intellectual merits and broader impacts which are always part of a panel review of and Nsf. Proposals. So, in addition to the intellectual merit and broader impact, they'll be asked to comment on the extent to which the project's scope justifies the level investment, and whether the project team is the right
Erik Brunvand: size and consistency for for the proposed research.
Erik Brunvand: They will be asked to comment on whether the management and coordination plan remember that's a required element adequately demonstrates that participating investigators will work synergistically. We have seen in the past larger projects, where the individual investigators seem to go off and do their own thing, and they only they only meet back together at the end of the project to see what they've done.
Erik Brunvand: That is not appropriate for this kind of project. We'd like to see information about how the different participants in the research will work synergistically throughout the project, and how that will be handled, and then they will also be asked to comment on where the Bpc plan meaningfully addresses the five elements of a strong agency plan, and notice that those five elements include not only what you plan to do, but what is the intended population that you hope to
Erik Brunvand: the gauge. What's your strategy? How are you going to measure that? And how are the individual Pis going to engage with that plan? And so those will be additional review criteria that all the panelists will be asked to comment on.
Erik Brunvand: And finally,
Erik Brunvand: my proposal focuses on topic A: Does that fit the solicitation.
Erik Brunvand: Well, it depends. If you have any questions about this, we encourage you to send a project summary to the program directors in the primary division or program that you are applying to note that proposals need to be within the scope of these core programs listed on a previous slide
Erik Brunvand: in particular. And this is not an exhaustive list, but in particular, if your if your proposal is primarily robotics, there's a program, the future of robotics, What's the second are the future of robotics. Research program in is that has a large-scale program that you can apply to. The sat-see program has a larger scale program that you can apply to if your primary results are in cybersecurity, and the same as in cyber physical
Erik Brunvand: systems. If your large-scale project is primarily large because of infrastructure. There are other infrastructure-focused programs, such as the Science Community research infrastructure ccri and the medium research infrastructure mri program that you can apply to and so Really, we're hoping that these large projects being proposed, will fit within the scope of the core programs within the three size
Erik Brunvand: and dissipating divisions. But if you have a question program. Officers are always happy to review a short summary of your project idea and give you some feedback on whether it seems to fit the program,
Erik Brunvand: and with that I think we'll move to A. Q. And A. Session and see what questions you have that maybe I haven't already addressed, so I will stop sharing my screen so that we can see
Erik Brunvand: who's answering the questions, and
Erik Brunvand: what questions have been put in the chat that have not already been answered,
Hector Munoz-Avila: if I may, I would like to answer to two questions. One is the question was, Does it mean that large proposal is not counted, or the limit of two proposal, limiting core size, and Erica really went to the presentation. But to answer it it doesn't count. So if you submit it to a small or medium that doesn't count towards the large.
Hector Munoz-Avila: So it doesn't count, and does a separate competition. The second question is because in this slide we say two thousand and twenty, three, two thousand and twenty, five
Hector Munoz-Avila: and um. And then somebody was pointing out that in the actual specification the submission between September sixteenth two thousand and twenty-four. The September thirtieth two thousand and twenty-four, please. Follow the days of the solicitation. Um! What happened is we were fy twenty We were taking out the fiscal year two thousand and twenty-five, which is why we will be funding the proposal
Hector Munoz-Avila: so so but please follow the the dates as indicated in the solicitation.
Erik Brunvand: Thank you. That's that's extremely important. I had. I had forgotten that subtlety that we have a a spring submission deadline in the first round, and that we're moving it to September in the subsequent two rounds.
Erik Brunvand: So yes, the dates in the solicitation are
Erik Brunvand: are the actual dates, not what I said,
It's a
Erik Brunvand: um. An anonymous attendee has asked with twenty million. We could fund about thirty five small projects. Does Nsf. Have any data or insights on if investing in four large projects, will have an equivalent or greater impact.
Erik Brunvand: That's a very hard thing to evaluate, I think. And yes, there are people within the Nsf. Looking at that question that comes up
Erik Brunvand: pretty much with all of the larger programs. So the Ai Institutes and the center um level awards, and the expeditions awards, and the Satsey frontiers awards. It's a little hard to evaluate exactly how this fits, but there is a feeling within the Nsf. That there is value in these larger projects
Erik Brunvand: to combine the research um synergistically in a way that just isn't possible within the smaller awards. So be assured that people are looking at that question, and the fact that we have a brand new solicitation in this area in this project size means that we think there is some value in this, and we hope to get some really great proposals from you that show us Why, that's true. One hundred and fifty.
Erik Brunvand: Yes, please go ahead
Behrooz Shirazi: that at the end of the three cycles there will be an evaluation of this program also.
Erik Brunvand: Yes, but this point it's not a permanent program.
Erik Brunvand: That's a very good point. This is a program that has a three cycle plan for offering this program in every other year for three submission cycles, and it will be reviewed and reevaluated at that point.
Erik Brunvand: It's.
Erik Brunvand: Do we submit a single Bpc plan for all the institutions or each university collaborator submits a separate one.
Erik Brunvand: Is there anyone here from Ewf? No, I believe the answer is, there's a single Bpc plan for each
Erik Brunvand: proposal that is submitted, and so that means that the Bpc plan.
Erik Brunvand: I believe the answer is that that there is one single Bpc plan submitted with the proposal. But I may not be one hundred percent.
Erik Brunvand: Thank you, you're correct that it's one for all the collaborators.
Erik Brunvand: And then related to that. Of course, um did I understand correctly the stand-alone plan must not include information about department-level activities. No, no, no, that's not what it means. A standalone plan can include information about department level activities.
Erik Brunvand: The issue with a standalone plan is that it must address all five of the questions that are going to be asked of a Bpc plan. Um. The context, the Tedded population, the strategy, the evaluation, and the pi
Erik Brunvand: participation. A connected plan can shortcut that a little bit by not including the
Erik Brunvand: portions of those questions that are already in the departmental plan.
Erik Brunvand: The Um, The Standalone plan
Erik Brunvand: can absolutely include information about department of activities. Um. The hope is that more and more institutions will have a verified plan, so that that information will already be in Bbc net Org. Ah, but please do talk about department level activities. If your department has not yet had a verified plan uploaded.
Erik Brunvand: What is the range for the portion of the proposed Vpc plan in the budget? Not totally up to you, I think you know this? The answer, the answer that I often give my students to almost any question is, it depends so. It depends on on the on the the scale of the Bpc activities that you're proposing, and how those activities relate to the larger project that you're proposing. And so I don't think there's a magic number for that. It really depends on
Erik Brunvand: what you're proposing
Erik Brunvand: is a standalone Bpc. Plan. Two pages total or two pages for each institution. The standalone plan is
Erik Brunvand: beerous. Do you know the answer to this question?
Erik Brunvand: Uh, no, it's two pages total, two pages tall.
Erik Brunvand: Okay, so. And because you remember that you're only answering the question. To one of the five questions the other four are already answered in the No, no, This was a question about the Standalone plan, not the connected plan.
Behrooz Shirazi: But the stand-alone plan is up to three pages,
Behrooz Shirazi: not not two pages.
Erik Brunvand: Okay, very good.
Erik Brunvand: On the Bpc. Plan What is your guidance if you're not all the
Erik Brunvand: he could have press his hand up. I don't know if he wants to comment now or later.
Hector Munoz-Avila: Oh, i'm sorry I didn't see that just to answer some of the questions. There is a question, says The solicitation mentions that they will be solicitation
Hector Munoz-Avila: proposals to identify a computer and information science and Engineering Grant challenge. And the question is, is this a reference to a specific list of grand challenges published by Nsf. And the answer is, No, it's not. It is very specific to that list,
Hector Munoz-Avila: so so you can come up with your own grand challenge. It doesn't have to be one of those posts there. Thank you.
Erik Brunvand: Excellent um!
Erik Brunvand: We have a question that asks if we need to include an explicit, broader impact section in the twenty-page main body of the proposal. Yes, absolutely All Nsf. Proposals to any of the core programs must have a section titled
Erik Brunvand: Intellectual Merit and a section titled broader impacts in the main body of the proposal.
Erik Brunvand: Let's see there are a lot of questions about the Bpc. Plans. This is this:
Erik Brunvand: This is this is interesting. I wish we had somebody from Ewf to answer specifically all these questions. If one participating university has a verified plan, but collaborating University doesn't, what should be done? The solicitation actually has specific language about that. If
Erik Brunvand: if not every participating University University has a verified plan, then you must include a standalone plan in that proposal. The only time you can include a connected plan is if every participating university has a verified plan.
Erik Brunvand: Um,
Erik Brunvand: let's see. Aside from the usual advice to make budget commensurate with the natural scale of the plan work. Is there any advantage to a three million versus five million dollars budget, or vice versa? The only the only, I think the the best answer for that is,
Erik Brunvand: there is a solicitation-specific criterion that the panelists will be asked to evaluate. That says specifically, is the level investment asked for in the proposal, one
Erik Brunvand: appropriate for the level of research being proposed. And so I don't think there's any specific advantage to asking for a smaller or larger amount. But the panelists will be commenting on whether the budget that you're requesting is appropriate for the size of team and the research that you're doing
Erik Brunvand: so. I think the the general answer, with almost any budget is, make sure that the panel understands why that budget is necessary, and not that it has hit some magic number.
Hector Munoz-Avila: I would like to answer another question. Um! The question is, aside from the usual advice to make the Budget commission it to the naturally scale of the plan projects. Is there an advantage of so medium one and three medium versus five medium um, or vice versa? So So the the answer is, Ask for what you need to perform the project.
Hector Munoz-Avila: Um, you know. Obviously within the three medium to five million
Hector Munoz-Avila: don't go short or don't go high, go as a second for what you need to perform the project and the best possible Forum and don't. Try to play that that game because it doesn't it Doesn't work
Erik Brunvand: We have a question. Can proposals request support for a staff programmer? Are there specific considerations or review criteria to be aware of,
Erik Brunvand: I believe. Yes, you may ask for support for a staff program, these larger, So these larger research projects, in fact, probably more often than small and medium proposals will have staff support as part of the organization and the
Erik Brunvand: ah,
Erik Brunvand: the proposed team that will be working on these larger projects. So you
Erik Brunvand: Yes, I don't think there are any specific considerations other than the standards, the standard criteria, that if you have additional staff support of any sort in your budget that needs to be justified, not only in the body of the proposal, but also carefully called out in the budget, justification portion of your budget.
Erik Brunvand: So you've all seen when you submit a budget for a proposal that there is an additional budget justification page attached to that budget which basically talks about the various line items and the specific budget requests and makes a justification for why those budget requests are important.
Erik Brunvand: I would say that that same budget justification would apply. For, for example, equipment requests that are part of the budget, or for subcontractor requests that are part of the budget, or for other
Erik Brunvand: other any other parts of the budget that aren't sort of standard pi and graduate student salaries, which, of course, also need some budget justification for for the for the amounts asked for for P. I support and graduate student support.
Erik Brunvand: Here's an easy one. Will the video record be shared here? Yes, the the video record and slides will be shared on the Webinar page that you originally went to to sign up for the Webinar once everything is finished.
Erik Brunvand: Hahaha!
Hector Munoz-Avila: Has anyone else been sort of tracking these and see any important questions that I haven't been answered, I I would like to for us to discuss the the answer for the following question: somebody asks, Can you speak of the balance between the grammar of the technical details? So the articulation of grand challenges and problem is spaces in a large purpose, and are supposed to
Hector Munoz-Avila: the small and mediums in the slides. It was making the point that really the proposal to really feel like
Hector Munoz-Avila: in this largest code project, but it doesn't really fit a medium of it small, and that requires this synergistic
Sankar Basu: Erez agmoni collaboration between the different personnel. So you have to make your own case in how much is paid to you. But you really need to make that case very clearly one hundred. And
Erik Brunvand: And I think another another important thing that that should, of course, be
Erik Brunvand: be clear if you've submitted other proposals to the and Nsf. Is that your audience for this proposal is the panel, because and Nsf. Is very invested in peer review using the panel system to get peer-review information before that we use when we make our recommendations for funding. And so really one primary audience of the proposal that you're submitting is to the panel that will be reviewing it. And so anything you can do to make it more clear to the panel
Erik Brunvand: what it is you're proposing to do. Why, this team is important to to to doing that research, and why it's an important subject. To be exploring is valuable, because we do take our panel
Erik Brunvand: uh advice very seriously when we make our our funding recommendations. And so anything you can do to make it more clear to the Pam on what it is that you're trying to do, and why it's important will be um will be valuable.
Erik Brunvand: Let's see. I think
Hector Munoz-Avila: we had a couple of questions submitted earlier before the Webinar and I need to go find my email. Hector. Do you want to answer a couple of other questions while i'm searching? Sure. Uh. In the meantime, i'm promoting gil dinner uh as a panelist? I just did, because she chasing both in the Vpc. Since you'll be able to help us out. Um! So I just promoted you, or do you? Um,
Hector Munoz-Avila: Hi, dear, welcome.
Jill Denner: Thank you. I.
Hector Munoz-Avila: A number of questions related to Pc. If you're able to see the questions that are posted,
Jill Denner: I don't see any chat. Questions that were there before I came on.
Hector Munoz-Avila: Oh, these are. These would be in the Q. And A. Not in the chat, if that makes a difference. But I think there's a sort of a
Erik Brunvand: a general sense from the panelists that they don't quite understand the connected plans versus the the standalone plans. The solicitation is clear that if not all institutions have
Erik Brunvand: a verified Bbc plan, that the Standalone plan is what must be used. But there were some lingering questions about whether that three-page Standalone plan was one per proposal or one per institution. And how to think about these
Erik Brunvand: vpc plans when there may be multiple institutions involved in the proposed activities.
Jill Denner: Lots of good questions. So yes, the standalone plan is just one plan for the entire proposal. A three-page Ppc. Plan for the entire proposal. If it's a standalone plan,
Jill Denner: the only separate plans, if they're using connected plans, because each institution would have to have a verified Bdc plan that they are referring to.
Behrooz Shirazi: But But, Jill, they even in that scenario they only submit one Bpc plan for the entire collaboration
Jill Denner: for a stand alone. Yes,
Behrooz Shirazi: no, even for connected. There is really a two-page that covers all the institutions that are participating plus
Behrooz Shirazi: the departmental or institutional ppc plans.
Behrooz Shirazi: Correct him.
Behrooz Shirazi: In other words, not not each institution has to submit the same document over and over and over
Jill Denner: right
Jill Denner: right. Each institution must include their their verify. If they're doing a connected plan. Each institution must have a verified Ppc Plan Department plan, and that must be included in the document. And then, in addition to that, each institution must indicate how they're working on leveraging
Jill Denner: that verified department plan.
Jill Denner: I know it's very confusing. There's very detailed. There's a description in the solicitation, obviously as well as Bpcnet Org
Jill Denner: Um provides very, very specific steps and details and examples for all of these things, and so I know It's It's kind of abstract to think about. But I really recommend, if you are going to do a connected plan, it's fantastic. It means your own departments. All have verified department plans. Um. Go to Ppcnet Org, and they have some really great instructions there for you.
Erik Brunvand: Okay, Two other questions that Julie. Um, Thank you for joining us. This is this: is this is perfect. We have a question on whether a connected Bpc plan can be linked to a school level verified plan, or does it have to be department level Two,
Erik Brunvand: I think the answer is a verified plan is a verified plan.
Jill Denner: So when we say, verify the very specific
Jill Denner: guidelines for verified verified means that the plan was submitted to the folks at Bpcnet dot Org, which I just mentioned, and that they have verified it, using all the criteria that they lay out very clearly in their website. And so those plans are all listed in the
Jill Denner: as examples, and they're listed on their website, so you can see them there, so it has to be verified in that way from Bpc. Now,
Erik Brunvand: but it doesn't necessarily have to be a department if there's a school level verified plan.
Erik Brunvand: The verified is the important part, not the department
Jill Denner: verified as long as it meets whatever criteria of Bpc. Meant, or whatever you want to call it. It has to meet those those criteria on Bpcnet Org. So again go there and see what those criteria are.
Erik Brunvand: Hector, Your hand is up.
Hector Munoz-Avila: Ah, yes, another question for Deal. If one participated in university has a verified Vpc. Repartmental plan, but a collaborating university does not have it. Then what should they do?
Jill Denner: They need to use a standalone plan.
Jill Denner: Um. They can only use a connected plan if all the institutions have a verified department plan. And again, Bpc. Net has a great flowchart. That shows you know. What about this situation? What do I do? What about this situation? What do I do so hopefully? That will answer those questions,
Erik Brunvand: and then we have a question about whether about what to do about a Bpc plan, if you have copies from non-computing departments, so if you have the copi from a department of chemistry, they very likely don't have a broadening participation in computing plan, because they're a chemistry department. I believe the answer is that you are now required to have a standalone plan. Is that true, Jim?
Jill Denner: Yeah. So we are talking to. Can I about the large core program, right? This is. This varies a bit in sub in sub areas. But yes, um! If you're applying to a computing to computing funding, even if you're not in a computing department. You're still expected to do something again. Very modest, probably
running participation in computing.
Wonderful.
Erik Brunvand: Um, i'm gonna switch gears ever so slightly. We had a question submitted prior to the Webinar. We plan to have a number of case studies across diverse application, domains, environmental science, healthcare arts, etc. To facilitate our research efforts on remote collaboration. These diverse application domains might result in the proposal appearing unfocused. What do you recommend? I think the answer is partly contained in what I said earlier, that your
Erik Brunvand: one of your primary audiences for this proposal is the panel,
Erik Brunvand: and so anything you can do to help the panelists understand what you're doing will increase your chances of success. So I think, if you you know standard advice for proposal writing, if you give this proposal to a
Erik Brunvand: a somewhat related colleague, and they can't quite understand what you're up to. Then it probably isn't focused enough. So um, I think the the answer is, if the panel understands what you're doing, they will be more inclined to think highly on it. So spend as much time as you need to make sure that the panelists understand what the proposed research is, and why that seemingly unfocused collaboration is, in fact, key to what you're doing.
Erik Brunvand: Let's see. Do we have any other
Erik Brunvand: questions that look like maybe different than the ones we've answered already.
Erik Brunvand: Um, someone is asking what a verified Bpc plan entails. Um! The answer is Bpcnet dot org is your clearinghouse for all things verified in Pc. And there are tremendous number of interesting resources there on how your department or your college can have their Vpc plan verified.
Hector Munoz-Avila: There is an interesting question for the panel, it says: Could you please elaborate on how the program defines? What a grand challenge is
Hector Munoz-Avila: um! So So they asking us what a grand challenges! Um, let me make a a first take in in this colleagues. You've been one one. So So so it's up to the to the proposal to ref to make the case that this is a difficult warwhile problem
Hector Munoz-Avila: that requires a combination of multiple people to work on that problem. And this is really up to you to make the case in the proposal. So we Don't provide guidance of what the grandchildren will be, and we did it on purpose, we
Hector Munoz-Avila: to open for the community to. They have a problem that is difficult, that is important, and they are welcome to tackle that problem through through this release solicitation.
Erik Brunvand: Hector, I think one of the things you said there was really important, which is we really as of as a working group developing the solicitation. We talked about this, and we made a very unconscious decision not to list grand challenge problems
Erik Brunvand: specifically, because we want you to tell us what the ground challenge problems are in your area. We didn't want to influence the direction that you were going, hoping that you would match our priorities. We really want to hear from you what are the grand challenge problems in your area, and why those problems require a larger scale investment from the Nsf. In order to help make progress on those problems.
Erik Brunvand: Bruce:
Erik Brunvand: Yeah. So it seems like the Ppc plan questions continue
Behrooz Shirazi: uh some ambiguity. So I would like to apply for something with Jill.
Behrooz Shirazi: So, Jill for a stamp. So consider a collaborative proposal of multiple institutions involved
Behrooz Shirazi: for the standalone case. It's clear that there's one document that explains everybody's participation
Behrooz Shirazi: in that bpc effort
Erik Brunvand: now for the connected.
Behrooz Shirazi: There is still some ambiguity is there going to be one two-page document, plus all the departmental
Behrooz Shirazi: plans submitted for the entire three or four or five institutions or does. Each institution must have their own two-page
Behrooz Shirazi: Ppc. Plan, plus their departmental
Behrooz Shirazi: vp supply. Does that make sense?
Jill Denner: Yes, so yes, two pages for the entire group because they're only answering a small piece of all those questions. So two pages should be sufficient, even if there's multiple institutions, because their departmental plans have all the other details.
Jill Denner: You know they have to environmental plans. Those departmental plans are on Bpc. Net org, so those do not have to be resubmitted along with their proposal.
Jill Denner: No, they do.
Erik Brunvand: What about you?
Erik Brunvand: No, never mind. Scratch that.
Erik Brunvand: Erase that part of the recording, please.
Jill Denner: They do, we? We don't expect the reviewers to go to Bbc net and look them up. They're they're listed on Bpc. Net. I mentioned that because it's a resource for those of you who want to see what a verified departmental plan includes. There's plenty to look at there. So two pages describes all the different
Jill Denner: roles at the different institutions, and refers to the plans that are also submitted in supplementary documents.
Erik Brunvand: Wonderful! Thank you, Joe. We have a couple of questions that are not related to Vpc. Um. There are, I think, related questions. One attendee is asking if there will be discipline-specific panels? Or should proposals be written for a broad cs? Audience and then a related question, how, if at all do we indicate that our proposal spreads across multiple divisions, Or will the program manager panel decide on that?
Erik Brunvand: So the answer is that for each of the three solicitation rounds, the first one being this year February the twenty eighth,
Erik Brunvand: one of the three divisions will sort of take charge of sorting and paneling. These proposals as they come in. And so for this first round the Cns division will be taking charge only because it's much easier from our point of view. If one of the divisions is organizing the panels and keeping track of where things are been.
Erik Brunvand: Um. Depending on the number of proposals we receive, we fully expect to have multiple panels with different ah, safe flavors to the panel, and so that will be up to us to try and figure out if you can give us some support by putting strong keywords in your summary, so that we can tell which divisions your research is spanning. That will greatly be greatly appreciated by us as we try and put these proposals into panels that make sense in terms of
Erik Brunvand: the expertise of the panelists, but by the nature of potentially multidisciplinary proposals. In a program like this the panels will sort of naturally be broader than, say, a small um program panel where we can more tightly organize the proposal,
Erik Brunvand: and so I would say that. Yes, we will do our best to combine the proposals into panelists where the panelists do have some expertise. Yes, you should also maybe consider these panels to be a little more general than a small or medium panel, and you may want to spend just a little extra time in your twenty pages, making sure that a panelist who has some expertise in size areas that might not be an expert in exactly this research
Erik Brunvand: can understand the importance of this
proposal area.
Erik Brunvand: Let's see. We've got about four minutes left, Hector. You had your hand up, and then it came down. Were you going to say something?
Hector Munoz-Avila: There was a question on Bpc: But
Jill Denner: yeah. So
Jill Denner: again, if it meets the criteria that's listed for what? A verified, what they're calling departmental plan is, I don't
Jill Denner: whether it's school or department is less important. So look at the criteria, for what is, what what a verified departmental plan needs to meet
Jill Denner: and see if that's consistent.
Erik Brunvand: We have two late- arriving questions that are that are exactly the same is it helpful in this program for the Pis to suggest reviewers, given the breadth of the solicitation, and the answer is absolutely yes. You are always encouraged to submit as part of your larger proposal submission to actually include suggested reviewers. And I think that for a program like this, where we are expecting at least some
Erik Brunvand: multidisciplinary proposals that span different areas than we normally see. It's even more important to get your suggestions for reviewers. I will also say that that you know the the National Science Foundation also takes conflicts of interest very seriously, and so we will be spending quite a bit of time trying to
Erik Brunvand: organize panelists who don't have conflicts with the proposals that are submitted. And so any help we can get to identify
Erik Brunvand: panelists. Ideas of people who have broad areas of expertise would be able to also be greatly appreciated. So yes, please do um fill out the suggested suggested Reviewer's portion of your of your submission,
Hector Munoz-Avila: Hecker. Doing things are really very helpful when when we are trying to decide where to panel a proposal, and one is the keywords. So please put a lot of that in the panel summer deep. The project, the project summary.
Hector Munoz-Avila: Ah! So so we do look into those who try to to classify, and where we've put. So So so those those two things the keywords in the and in Project Somebody, Please put that a lot of attention into that, because um, that will help us try to classify and group the proposal with other proposals on on similar topics.
Erik Brunvand: There's one last question: Um. Should multidisciplinary proposals be explicitly marked as such in the title of a proposal, such as large shf plus Hcc. If you look in the solicitation, there is a section on proposal titles, and that sections doesn't so specifically say that you should include divisions, and so I would say, the answer is, No, Don't muddy up your title with extra division letters.
Erik Brunvand: But please do as Hector said, include keywords that will help us bend these into the appropriate panels. The title should be the words the word Well, the acronym size, cis e. Followed by a colon, followed by large, followed by the title of your project.
Erik Brunvand: So please follow those directions so that everything is
Erik Brunvand: it's
Erik Brunvand: I see we've come up on the on the top of the hour, and I do want to sort of respect all the time of all of our panelists, and thank you all
Erik Brunvand: for participating. I hope that this was helpful. As I mentioned at the beginning, we will be uploading not only the slides, but the recording of this Webinar to the Webinar registration page. That's the page that you went to to register, that we might be up in the next five minutes. But it will be up soon, so that you can review this, and as always, if you have other questions that we didn't answer, or if you have questions that you that come up later. Please don't hesitate to contact any of
Erik Brunvand: those of us who are on this um
Erik Brunvand: On this panel Hector, or Ad, or Ashenka, or Danella, or Jill or myself. We will be happy to answer questions that come up later. So thank you all for attending It's wonderful to see so many people attending the Webinar. So we hope that we get some wonderful proposals submitted to this program. Speaking for myself, I mean, I think we're all very excited to see what kinds of things you're going to propose in this new large projects.
Erik Brunvand: So thank you all. Good luck, happy writing, and and
Erik Brunvand: thank you for attending.