When I kept it recorded
Wendy Nilsen: all right. So Tom and I are gonna switch back and forth and and talk to you a little bit
Wendy Nilsen: um there, as Christina said. Please use the Q and A. Um, and ask questions, But also note we're going to be giving you a lot of information here, so um, I can't promise that you dig up your question. Your question will get answered one way or not.
Wendy Nilsen: Really quick, Wendy, somebody's already asking if the slides would be available after the Webinar. Yes, it would.
Cristina Negoita: Okay.
Wendy Nilsen: So what we're what we're going to talk about today is, we're going to tell you really a little bit about the science foundation? Um, we're going to talk to you about. How do you find funding opportunities? And then we're really going to spend the rest of the time talking about. How do you prepare a successful proposal?
Wendy Nilsen: So um a
Wendy Nilsen: um. Tom and I talked about this earlier, you know. Remember, as you're looking for jobs. If depending on where you are in your career, we know many of you will be out looking for jobs, and we're welcoming you coming into the community for that. Um! But when you're going to talk about jobs, find out what external support, how much you need, what kind of support you're going to need. You know.
Wendy Nilsen: Proposals really support things like research assistance. Here's part of your salary, usually at the two months of summer salary equipment material supply. Yeah, we have funds for cloud. Um. It might be undergraduates and all sorts of things. So
it really helps add on to
Wendy Nilsen: the ability is in your lab, and most universities, or many of them are going to expect you to bring that funding in, so find out whether whether you're going to need that funding early on, because you're going to want to think about that.
Wendy Nilsen: And I remember Nsf. Is really one of several agencies in support for academic research. So um, you know, when you're talking to us, you can also ask questions about who else might be funny.
Wendy Nilsen: So Nsf.
Wendy Nilsen: Is a
Wendy Nilsen: independent funding agency. Now we're not the National Sanitation foundation, which is what comes up in the searches first. Ah, that's not us. We are in the National Science foundation, and we are the country's agency for fundamental science. So we have all of the sciences in one building.
Wendy Nilsen: Um, and we are, and we were. We were established in the nineteen fifty S. After the war as a way to continue the innovation, and we have about three thousand employees. Um. And we have program directors that span the entire branch of the branches of science.
Wendy Nilsen: Um. One thing to note is about forty percent of our staff are rotators like Tom. They come.
Wendy Nilsen: They stay from one to four years. Tom, keep the four years in mind.
Wendy Nilsen: Um, but but then there are permanent funds for me who came to the government and worked here ever since. So um it it. It won't matter as you're talking to people, but you might find out. Oh, somebody from my university was a rotator at Nsf. It's a good person to connect to.
Wendy Nilsen: So our mission is really to promote the progress of science to advance the national health, prosperity, and welfare, and to secure the national defense. So this is Um, this this is from, you know. This is really was our mission in the beginning, and it really has stayed there,
Wendy Nilsen: and we really are pushing the frontiers of science and engineering.
Wendy Nilsen: We also worry about scientific science, societal needs. What the research Does you know? How does it get disseminated? What about education? What about outreach? So those are all important ones for
Wendy Nilsen: um. Again, we find both research and education. And as you're talking to program directors and you're talking about initiatives, make sure you understand that balance.
Wendy Nilsen: Um. But we are talking about basic research In all of our areas of science and engineering. We now have a new translation innovation partnerships director that is doing translational research on it.
Wendy Nilsen: I'm really sticking to the original um director. It's an Nsf: when we're talking here,
which the rest of us are funding basic research and science engineering.
Wendy Nilsen: Oh,
Wendy Nilsen: so all of us are in one agency, obviously, and I remember it. And And so, as in most of the other Federal Research agencies, we do peer review um.
Wendy Nilsen: So they're based on. We have panels, review proposals, program directors manage those panels. They set them up. They manage them um and and many of them again. Our current our former faculty. Um, and they use their scientific judgment to help us set the balances and set our portfolios. Uh, by the way, if somebody comes from a university. I'm. From Virginia Tech.
Wendy Nilsen: I did not touch anything from Virginia to at all. So Don't think that because you are still a university faculty that it impacts your judgment. You actually
Wendy Nilsen: I don't even to get to sit in on a conversation where your university gets mentioned. So um! We do a lot of things to make sure that we're free of conflict.
Wendy Nilsen: So this is in this up by the numbers. You can find this on our website. We, we we do an awful lot of stuff. We're small, but we're mighty um, and we had nine point nine billion last year. Hopefully, we will give us more of this year. We do that. Forty thousand proposals a year and fund about eleven thousand.
Wendy Nilsen: Um. You know we we to fund a lot of institution a lot of students, three hundred and fifty, two thousand people. We support each you um, and we've had two hundred and fifty, eight, Nobel prize winners. So we kind of rock the Nobel world, and we also get Arthur Rad people, and also so
Wendy Nilsen: we really we have an impressive, impressive group of peers.
Wendy Nilsen: So this is the the general organization of the and Nsf: I'm. Not going to go through all of this. But i'm really going to tell you is that the size is one directorate, I'm. In In the Nsf. We have bio. We have size, we have education. We have engineering, Geo.
Wendy Nilsen: Mps, which in math and Physical sciences, social Behavior on Economic Sciences Tip, which, as I mentioned before,
Wendy Nilsen: and then we have the budget and budget, finance and Award and um office of information research management. They are not research divisions. They are support provisions for the rest of the agencies.
Wendy Nilsen: But your proposal, you know, depending on what you're doing can be in any one of these directors.
Wendy Nilsen: Sorry.
Wendy Nilsen: So when we come down to size, if we drop down size has three divisions and one office, so um the offices we had office of advanced cyber infrastructure. It's lovingly called oc um, and the office of advanced cyber infrastructure funds, just as you might
Wendy Nilsen: infrastructure that helps support the sciences across Msf.
Wendy Nilsen: After that we have the three divisions, and these are the research divisions that in size we have Ccf, which is our communication and communication foundations. They are really our software and our hardware and theory people. We have Cnn's, which is our computer network systems
Wendy Nilsen: are our networking people, computer systems, people, and they they like us to a lot of prospects. The final one is us:
Wendy Nilsen: it's a best. But don't tell anybody information and intelligence systems. We we are really where we
data computers and people come together.
Wendy Nilsen: So um, we are. We are the exciting division, and we have lots of cross cuts, too.
Wendy Nilsen: Once you get to Iis we layer up a layer by Mayor Um. Once you get to Iis we have three different clusters. These are three core programs. So now Tom comes from our human center computing program from Do you want to describe? Hcc:
Tom Martin: Yeah. So in a nutshell, Hcc. Is essentially everything where humans and computers come come together. So um, focusing on things like interfaces and our understanding of of how people use computer systems
Wendy Nilsen: and that they can be societal impacts. It can be
sorts of things. Virtual reality, assistive technology,
Wendy Nilsen: information, integration, and informatics does. Does often does science around how how computing works with other other disciplines,
Wendy Nilsen: so they They'll do ai machine learning, but they'll often often do it in an area. I came out of the the house and up dating world
Wendy Nilsen: where most of the things we've built Don't tend to work in those areas
Wendy Nilsen: doing integration of multi-monal systems.
Wendy Nilsen: Those are all in from and informatics are all a part of our integration information. Our information, integration with information, integration, and and robust intelligence, is our more theoretical program. It really looks at
Wendy Nilsen: making smart systems. So we have. We think about Ai machine learning, robotics,
Wendy Nilsen: neuroscience, computational neuroscience in their natural language technologies. So
Wendy Nilsen: if you're looking at these, look at our website. If you really want to look at them, don't you never. You never want to send an email to every program director.
Wendy Nilsen: Um, that's a mistake, because actually it's called the fusion and responsibility in the sciences. It means nobody responds if you send it to everyone. So don't do that.
The website. See who you think
Wendy Nilsen: is closest to what you're doing.
And um, that's where you're going to want to send.
Wendy Nilsen: So
Wendy Nilsen: So I I saw this from foundational research and robotics, which is just one of our which one of our important programs
Wendy Nilsen: is. But you want to look at our web pages. So this This is a great example of
Wendy Nilsen: here's foundational research. This is the kind of things that foundational research and robotics does. So you want to read that synopsis? It's a paragraph or two. You want to read it, and you want to say, is that me? Is that fit
Wendy Nilsen: um? And then you look at from the contacts. So if you notice here, too, most of the time, you will send an email to an address often to an alias like Robotics and Nsf go that make sure somebody sees it, because if the person you send it to isn't around that week,
Wendy Nilsen: or is busy that week,
Wendy Nilsen: we are in the midst of clothes out so like life is crazy right now.
Wendy Nilsen: So if you, if we we have, you, send them to the to these um, alias, so that we make sure that more than one person's eyes are on these, and that we that that way you get a response,
Wendy Nilsen: Tom. Do you want to take over.
Tom Martin: Sure. Thanks, Wendy. Um. So
Tom Martin: really, all that is is the background to help. You understand You're going to have a research project and you're in line, and you're going to be looking for where you might be able to get it funded. And so, understanding that structure of the director insulin divisions within it helps, you understand where it might fit in. But the Nsf. Also has resources to help you find where your research might fit. And so this web page that's here, and let me put this in our chat.
Tom Martin: Um,
Tom Martin: so you can look at it. This web page helps you search for both programs and projects that have have been funded awards that have already been made. Um next slide, Wendy.
Tom Martin: So so if you go to that, award search, and again we're stealing this from the robotics bunch.
Tom Martin: If you search for robotics, it will pull up a list of the awards that have robotics somewhere in the in the description. And there's an advanced search, too, that's available off there, if you want to drill down in particular ways. But and then once you get this list of of
Tom Martin: awards. You can click on the grant and get a description of it. Next slide again, Wendy.
Tom Martin: And so when you click on that particular one, you'll get the abstract for it, and you also have all the information about it. Actually, I think there's some animation on your Wendy. Would you go ahead and return.
Tom Martin: Yeah. So you'll get which program um funded. This award you'll get which program director is responsible for it and for a lot of programs there's multiple
Tom Martin: program directors like on one of the earlier slides. And so each one of us is each award we there's one of us that's primarily responsible for it. And so, as you, The way to use this is to to look for things that are similar to
Tom Martin: the type of research that you're doing, and Then once you get a set of those that will help you narrow down, which program driver would be good to contact next slide. Wendy.
Tom Martin: Um. So once you have an idea of where your research might fit. It's really important to to reach out to a program director and, like Wendy, said Don't Spam, everybody don't send email to a whole bunch of people at the same time. It's best to focus on on one particular program or a small side of them, and if they, if you can't quite tell where your research might be,
Tom Martin: but you should prepare a a one-page summary um and then, and send that out to the the program director that you found um. And what what happens when I get one of these one-page? Some reasons what I think everybody does. Is. We look at it and go. Oh, I know somebody within the program or elsewhere across the the and the Nsf. But this might be a fit with, and then we send it around internally to have folks take a look at at it and and provide feedback. It's also. Um!
Tom Martin: It's totally fine, and expected to request a zoom being with the program director and spend a little time talking with us and asking questions.
Tom Martin: But having that one-page summary helps us um give you more detailed feedback and and direct you in the right in the right direction.
Tom Martin: All right, next slide, Wendy.
Tom Martin: So since this is a a talk for Phd. Students and and postdocs. Um! I want to have a slide on funding opportunities for new factory. So there's the the career ah program which is aimed at Ah, untenured faculty, supposed to at the assistant Professor Level
Tom Martin: and Wendy correct me if i'm wrong, it's still. You only have three opportunities for career. That's right. So you can only submit to it three times.
Tom Martin: Um! There's both sides, and the engineering director. Ah have research. Ah, initiation programs. The The Science research initiation initiative is aimed at faculty who are at Non. Ah R. One top Level research institutions say a primarily undergraduate undergraduate institution, and also at the beginning of their career.
Tom Martin: And then we also have this um
Tom Martin: program called Um. Eager early concept grants for exploratory research that's actually not limited to just new faculty. But um! But I wanted to make you aware of it. That's for when you have an idea that's probably not ready for a full-blown proposal yet, and it's it's you're going to really just work with the program officer to see if they're they're willing to fund it
Tom Martin: in against it. This is aimed at Ph. D. In the Phd. Since and Postdocs. This is an Nsf. But it is related
Tom Martin: wherever you um whatever university you've got to work at, they might have resources to internally support some preliminary work and to help you prepare your proposal. So, as you're interviewing as you get into your new job, you should ask your department to ask for college about those types of resources, because a little bit of internal funding from your institution to help you generate the the preliminary work and get feedback on your proposal before it comes to the Ands.
Tom Martin: That's nice
Wendy Nilsen: before we switch slides, Can I? We just had a question. I type the response,
Tom Martin: but I just want to echo it, because
Wendy Nilsen: right now is a nice time to echo it. Somebody asked. Could we send? Could you send in our project summary in the
Wendy Nilsen: When you have an idea when you have, when you've got this idea, and you're thinking it's good,
Wendy Nilsen: or do you have to wait for preliminary data.
Wendy Nilsen: And so this is not a paper. This is a proposal.
Wendy Nilsen: So you don't need preliminary data at Msf: Send that project some way. Don't send
Wendy Nilsen: Don't just slap ideas in there. That's not going to do you any good.
Wendy Nilsen: Um, take the time. Write an interesting summary
Wendy Nilsen: of what you plan to do.
If you've never done stuff in this area, make sure you highlight
Wendy Nilsen: how this team is going to. Why is this the right team to do this, because sometimes nobody's done this.
Wendy Nilsen: You you got adjacent information, or you
Wendy Nilsen: or skills that are going to make this possible. But
Wendy Nilsen: but asking for preliminary research. When it's not clear you can do this, and it's not clear. You know. You've been working in networking all your life. And now you decided to go to Ai.
Wendy Nilsen: Why? Why? You? Why now?
Wendy Nilsen: So? But yes, you can send a program. You can send a project summary in at any point. Um, send those some reason. Um, and let people give you a feedback.
Tom Martin: So sorry, Tom. No need to apologize. That was a good point. Um, I actually see a few questions coming in. I'm going to hit the last one, because it was a really specific one to the career I wasn't clear You have three chances to apply to the the career solicitation.
Tom Martin: So this you, a particular Bi, can only apply to it three times so.
Tom Martin: And then actually, there's another question there about the career. What's a suitable time to first try for a career at the second year as an assistant professor?
Tom Martin: I mean that that's a really hard one to answer, and it really depends upon your particular situation. So i'm just going to give you a single data point, which is my my particular situation, which is, I spent two years at one institution before switching to Virginia Tech
Tom Martin: um, and it happened to be right around the time. The rules for the career change, and so I only had one more chance to to apply for a career. After I switched to Virginia Tech I waited three or four years to put that last proposal in, and and wrote other types of proposals
Tom Martin: for other people, if depending upon what you're working on, it might make sense to do it your first three years there. So you
Tom Martin: that's really dependent upon your particular situation.
Tom Martin: Um,
Wendy Nilsen: So there's also some questions in here about. When can you start applying for a proposal
that's kind of a broad category here.
Wendy Nilsen: The career is only for ten o'clock about the faculty, So, as a postcard
Wendy Nilsen: as a postdoc. You should talk to your institution and see what they would let you apply for. Um. That is a university distinction, deciding who can apply for what I remember in my University, one of our postdocs applied for a large award and got it
Wendy Nilsen: Um! And then the University had to make them an offer and keep them for the five years of their large project. They were not real happy about that.
Wendy Nilsen: Um! They didn't think about it ahead of time. Most most universities have thought about this, and will tell you whether you're eligible to apply so. Um. But career is for tenure drug faculty,
Tom Martin: and there's a question there as well about starting as an assistant professor next year. And can I start applying for Nsf. Grants before I start next year? Similar sort of answer that that's really going to be dependent upon the institution that you're starting at as an assistant professor.
Tom Martin: So, for instance, when I made the transition to Virginia Tech because there was a deadline that was immediately after when I started, Virginia Tech allowed me to have had me in their system and had me. Ah, ah! Set up with their office and sponsored projects to be able to submit things. But I think that's going to depend on a particular university. So
Tom Martin: to check with your institution.
Tom Martin: Yeah.
Tom Martin: Two.
Tom Martin: Ah, and actually, there's another question about. We are trying generally. And I said first, and then career, What's the difference between these two. Um, That's also one of the things that's very context. Dependent. Um, you'll have to think about of yourself about what makes sense in terms of the best strategy.
Let's see here
Wendy Nilsen: there is a question here about what makes. We'll talk about the project summaries again and again. What makes a big one
Wendy Nilsen: I would ask at your University who's been funded and asked to see their proposals. Um! The best way you can learn to write proposals is to read as many as possible The minute you've got your
Wendy Nilsen: as minute you're in as a postdoc, or you've got started a faculty position you should be sending in your Cv. To and Nsf. Saying, i'd like to sit on the review pin.
Wendy Nilsen: Make yourself available When Tom emails you and says that you'll be on a review panel. It's kind of amazing people will say, I really really want to be in a review panel. Oh, sorry I can't go
Wendy Nilsen: um. So if you really want to learn about review, and you want to read a bunch of proposals. But ask at your university. Ask your chair, ask your Dean. Do you have a repository of.
Wendy Nilsen: Can I see the project summaries?
Tom Martin: So, jumping back this slide, I see several questions coming in, but in the interest of being able to get through things. Let's jump back to the slides,
Tom Martin: Wendy. There's a little animation on this one. So in terms of. So you've been looking for places to to fund your your research. You've talked to a program director. Now back to preparing your proposal. If you go to this slide, if you click on this, hearing your proposal, link, it'll pull up um several different things for you to look at. Find the right opportunity for bearing your proposal, submitting the remote. Next slide, please. Wendy.
Tom Martin: Um, as you're preparing your proposal, there's several essential documents you need to look at um, and the first one is proposal and award policies and procedures guide the Apache um, and the patchy governs everything. Um! It provides all the guidance for preparing your postal, spending at the andsf so it says, Who can submit the proposals? What's allowed in the budget? It has the format, and required documents to go along with the actual part of your proposal.
Tom Martin: It also describes the Merit review process by which Ah, your proposals are going to be reviewed, and we've got a few slides on that later on. Um, and it also provides some reasons why a proposal may be returned without review, which you really really don't want to have happen. So you really need to look at the Apache to start understanding what ah, what it takes to prepare your proposal
Tom Martin: Next slide, please. Wendy.
Tom Martin: Um. The other thing you need to look at is the solicitation for the program you're submitting to. So this one's from the division of environmental biology. Um! And there's some some common pieces here. But it's going to have the deadline and the target day. Some programs actually don't have a deadline about that moment. It's got a synopsis of the program because we'll have a list of the program directors. And so, going back to the earlier conversation about who you should come back, let's say you find a solicitation. It looks like the research might
Tom Martin: ah fit into um. You should look the solicitation for the list of program directors who are on it. Um! It also has things like the eligibility budget limitations. Some uh solicitations require that you actually,
Tom Martin: before you submit a proposal. You have to write a pre-proposal or a letter of intent. Um. And so you really need to know that so that you don't write a proposal for something where you actually earlier had to write a pre-proposal or a letter of intent. So you actually can't submit the proposal.
Tom Martin: Other things are in this solicitation are things like how much money is available? How many awards are meant to be expected to be made,
Tom Martin: and I earlier. I showed you the path G which has proposed the proposal, preparation, instructions, solicitations, can have specific things in addition to the bapt g that are required. So there might be
Tom Martin: supplementary documents. So, for instance, if you some programs require that you have a set of collaborators, you might have a document that describes how that collaboration is going to occur, and so forth. Um, next slide, please, Wendy.
Tom Martin: So. So there are different types of proposals and solicitations. So I just showed you an example of solicitation. So it's a specific funding mechanism. Um, including some that are pretty general on topics. So, for instance, um size has core programs that span the whole directory.
Tom Martin: Um, And in
Tom Martin: the other proposals are spent in response to um, perhaps. G. There's also um something called a dear colleague letter, which usually announced a focus in some specific funding opportunity. Ah! With a specific emphasis.
Tom Martin: And then, like I said earlier, some solicitations have deadlines, some have target dates, others have no deadlines at all. So, for instance, the the size core small program, which is proposals that are less than six hundred thousand
Tom Martin: open all year round with with rolling dates, whereas the mediums in the same core program have a very specific deadline at a certain point in the year, which I think varies from here to here next slide, please.
Tom Martin: So in terms of preparing your proposal. Um, remember that what you're doing with the proposal is, you're repressing resources and usually a lot of resources to conduct research. Um, the and Nsf. Is if we give you an award, we're making an investment, and we'd like to see a return on that investment,
Tom Martin: So that proposal has to say what you're going to do. It has to justify why it's worth doing. It has to explain how you're going to do it, and also has to say, like, How are we going to know that you were successful when you get it done? And so the whole point of your proposal is to convince the reviewers that your project is worth investing in,
Tom Martin: that it that it's worth doing next slide?
Wendy Nilsen: Oh, and I i'm,
Tom Martin: can I? Can I answer a question that relates to this. So you know we really do want you to think about these things, but make sure when you're writing your summary here. These are part of your questions in here. Um! There was a question about making a relationship with your program director.
Wendy Nilsen: Do not send a a a not fully baked idea, you know, don't say I want to do
Wendy Nilsen: Ai, and this
Wendy Nilsen: can I talk to you? Our folks are busy. They are swamped, and they are talking to people that are proposing, and people that are that are not getting funded.
Wendy Nilsen: You really want to talk to them
Wendy Nilsen: when you have a project that you need feedback on,
Wendy Nilsen: because otherwise, if you send them a partially baked idea, it's not going to build a relationship. It's just It's gonna It's it. There. It's going to put a lot of work into a really busy schedule already. Um! And it's not going to help you because it's
Wendy Nilsen: We don't know what you're thinking before we get on the call. Um! We're gonna have to make stuff up in our head when we go um, you know, like when I get a request for it with a question. I very often
Wendy Nilsen: send it over to Tom or somebody else, and say, Tom, take a look at this. This is in my area. Could you talk to this Pi? If you send just a a not full idea? We can't help you that way.
Wendy Nilsen: Sorry next one, Tom.
Tom Martin: Are you ready for that next slide.
Tom Martin: Oh, yeah. And and again the Segue into the next slide is, you're trying to convince people that your proposal is worth funding. So one of the things that you should be really familiar with if you submit to the and Nsf. And this is bully described in Apache is, there's two major aspects of
Tom Martin: review criteria For the Nsf. The first one is the intellectual merit which is the potential to advance knowledge, and then the second one is the broader impact which is the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific desired societal outcomes. Next slide we need.
Tom Martin: And so, when the reviewers are looking at your proposal. They're trying to assess how that proposal fits with with those two two criteria. And there are five elements that they're using and judging your proposal,
Tom Martin: one is Will the work advanced knowledge. That's the intellectual merit beans And will it benefit society? That's the broader impact is the work, creative or potentially transformative.
Tom Martin: Um is the work plan sense. But how will they know if they're successful? Remember what I said earlier about declaring success? Um. The fourth one is is the team qualified, and in the fifth one is, Does the the team have adequate staff support and facility resources to be able to accomplish the work
Tom Martin: next slide we need.
Tom Martin: So
Tom Martin: a good proposal is going to be structured to address those five or you elements. Okay, So it's going to have a compelling introduction and project description that says, You know what's the statement of the intellectual marriage
Tom Martin: You you're going to want to catch the the reader's attention immediately and stay up front. What you want to do? Why, it's exciting and important, and that really gets to research element, one. How is this going to advance science. It's really it's really tough as a reviewer.
Tom Martin: So he to to read a page
Tom Martin: page and a half and two pages, and by the end of two pages you still don't know what the proposal is about.
Tom Martin: Okay, um.
Tom Martin: As I talked to my Phd students, Sorry this is Tom Martin, speaking down at the Nsf. As I talk to my Phd students, I often say more Hemingway, less Hawthor, right like. Get to the point. Say what you're going to do. You really need to to get to that early?
Tom Martin: The second thing is, lay out the specific research questions that that you're going to address. Whatever research, explain the the compelling observations, how you're going to work to how the work's going to develop and test the hypothesis
Tom Martin: and explain why the previous studies have been insufficient to address the question, and how your methods are different
Tom Martin: that gets to the research element, to the is the work creative and transformative.
Tom Martin: And then the third bit is, Explain why your experiment, your model, and your setting, your field site so so forth, was chosen for the study, you know, and that gets it. Um! The work plan. Ah, next slide, please,
Tom Martin: and in continuing with the work plan, you know, have a timeline with tasks. Explain how you're going to analyze your model, and how how your analysis and novels next to the central questions. And I, before I go on to the next one,
Tom Martin: one of the things here is this is research. You haven't done it yet. So
Tom Martin: a really good proposal will say, Well, here's the question we're trying to address. Here's how we plan to go about it, and then also explain some challenges why that approach may not work, and what the fallback plan will be if it if it doesn't work,
Tom Martin: so it's usually good for something that that might be kind of risky and it, and the outcome is unknown. It'll be good to to have a fall back. Plan and alternatives that are considered.
Tom Martin: The next element is, you know, is the team qualified to do this? So if if it's not a single investigator. If you're not just writing by yourself. If you've got a team of people,
Tom Martin: you should explain the specific role of each investigator. If you've worked together before, be sure to say that because it's it looks really good to have a team that's already been working together and and knows how to work together.
Tom Martin: You also need to show that the works feasible within the timeline that you say
Tom Martin: seven,
Tom Martin: and I will say, since we were talking about career earlier.
Tom Martin: Really, I've I've served on career review panels for a number of times, but
Tom Martin: a really common failing is in a career. Ah, proposal is to have too much work to do over years ago. There's not enough time in the day in five years. They're not going to be able to do all this work. They're just too much here. So you really need to to provide evidence. You're going to be able to do the work
Tom Martin: in getting at both the the work plan and the resources is,
Tom Martin: Do you have the right lab and collaborations? Facilities available include letters of collaboration. And actually, there's very specific things about what can go. In a letter of collaboration that's described in Apache Um, and the money in the Budget, it made it. But a really common failing is to say, you're going to do something, and there's nothing in the budget to substantiate that.
Tom Martin: And then one of the pieces that's described in the pap. She is a document, a supplementary document called the Facilities, Equipment, and other Resources section,
Tom Martin: and there you describe the facilities that you have available to you use that very wisely, and point to particular pieces of your proposal that they support.
Tom Martin: Ah, next slide, please.
Tom Martin: Um. So I talked about intellectual merit, which is a dancing knowledge. The other piece is broader impacts, which is how your work is going to benefit society. There's a a wide range of ways that something
Tom Martin: a wide range of ways in which a research term benefits society. It doesn't have to do all of these. This is non-exhaustive list, but you should do some of them well. Um. So some some broad categories are teaching, training and learning undergrad and grad students. Um. K. Through twelve, as well,
Tom Martin: providing participation of underrepresented groups in stem building or enhancing the partnerships internationally, or with other agencies, broad dissemination to enhance our understanding of science and technology,
Tom Martin: um enhancing infrastructure particularly if that infrastructure is not just your infrastructure in your particular little lab, but but elsewhere and in local impacts. And this is policies at state and level level, but it may may affect the economy, and in the local region as well.
Tom Martin: Next slide, please.
Tom Martin: So some advice on broader impacts there's no formula.
Tom Martin: This is advice that I've I've taken from elsewhere. What you should do is something that interest you that has measurable outcomes, and it matches the time that you're willing to devote. Remember what I said earlier about really common failing of career proposals is they're just too much
Tom Martin: too much promise, and not enough time to do it. So make sure you're willing to devote the time to it that it's going to take
Tom Martin: um.
Tom Martin: The other thing is, it should go above and beyond what you're already paid to do. So, as a faculty member, you're going to be paid to teach a class. Um. So look lots of times. You'll see a proposal that has a broader impact. It's like, Well, we're gonna going to add this to a particular course, Right? I'm gonna
Tom Martin: It's just this little bit of a course that i'm going to Tweet. Well, that's not much of a broader impact. You're already teaching that class.
Tom Martin: Um like I said earlier. It's better to have, you know, one or two really strong impacts than a bunch of smaller perfunctory ones. So a few believable impacts is much much better than having promising a wide range of things, and and not being able to do much on any one of those.
Tom Martin: The other thing is, if your broader impact requires money to do it, you should ask for the money
Tom Martin: again. A common failing proposal is to say, you're going to do something in the proposal. But then the budget doesn't back it up. If If you need the money to do something, be sure that it's there, the budget,
Tom Martin: and if you're using an existing infrastructure, you should use an existing infrastructure as appropriate. But make sure that you're contributing to it, as well as as utilizing.
Tom Martin: And a really good example of this is lots of times you'll see broader impacts where it's working with K. Through twelve. Make sure that it's. It's not going to be a burden on on the partner's school. And actually, if you, if your University already has a program where they're partnering with particular K. Through twelve schools,
Tom Martin: take advantage of that. But add to the the existing program.
Tom Martin: Um! Another bit of this is asked for help with assessment. Um! For many, many years I've worked with somebody in engineering education and the educational efforts that we've had, we would find the external evaluator to help with the assessment of what we were doing.
Tom Martin: And There's a a link here in the slides
of these in the
Tom Martin: in the in the chat,
Tom Martin: so the people need to look at it. Um! So next slide, please.
Wendy Nilsen: No, no, let me say something.
Tom Martin: Um, no, Wendy,
Wendy Nilsen: Christina will correct me if i'm wrong, but I believe in such a
Wendy Nilsen: isn't. It errors. There's data,
Wendy Nilsen: Is it? What September office hours, Aren't? We doing?
Cristina Negoita: Oh, yes, that was yes, correct.
Wendy Nilsen: So September, our office hours and high. I asked in September all about broader impacts. So it's really um. We're going to i'm partnering with barris, which is
Wendy Nilsen: a ri f um can't remember what heiress is off the top of my head, but they I will post a link. Oh, perfect um! He has been funded by Nsf to help people develop their broader impact identity.
Wendy Nilsen: So kind of
Wendy Nilsen: help you think about the things that are part of your broader impact that are that really are consistent with who you are and what you want to achieve. So some people are are really into one area and not others. But you really you.
As Tom's noted
Wendy Nilsen: you, you really want to have a few believable impacts, and that's what's important to you. So if you're broadening participation, if you
Wendy Nilsen: doing outreach um, everybody has their own thing that that really excites them. We want you to really be excited by that. But come to this September
Wendy Nilsen: office hours with heiress, and learn more about how to write really great broader impacts.
Tom Martin: Let me go the next slide, Wendy. Let me give one concrete example of what you just said. Um. So my successful career proposal. My background is in electronic textiles. Um. So I put electronics into fabric. Try and turn that in smart clothes.
Tom Martin: At the time I wrote my career proposal I'd actually contacted the last of the big textile mills in Virginia, in South Central Virginia, and I had a letter of collaboration from them that said they would weave my next patch of fabric and work with me, you know, because they saw it as a way to improve their commercial possibilities.
Tom Martin: I did it as soon as it.
Tom Martin: I didn't think it would be that important. But it was one of the things almost every reviewer of my proposal mentioned, and it was a broader impact in terms of it, was a chance to sort of revitalize
Tom Martin: the textile industry in that part of the state. Now it didn't pan out because of the way industry went after that. But but it was. It's not the kind of impact that
Tom Martin: it wasn't a generic broader impact. It was very specific to what my proposal was about.
Tom Martin: Next slide, please.
Tom Martin: So ah! Changing gears a little bit, just trying to get you an idea of what the review process looks like, and I believe this figures from the Apache.
Tom Martin: It's It's certainly up on the Dsf. Website and and close to half G. If it's not in the matching. So there's really three phases to um to to to the lifetime life cycle of a proposal. So the first phase is an opportunity gets announced. The solicitation is published,
Tom Martin: and it's usually ninety days before the deadline. So you work on the proposal. You submit the proposal. You
Tom Martin: You can't submit the proposal directly you have to go through your university, so you'll put all the documents up, and then your University's office has sponsored projects, or whatever they're called, will actually submit it for you. So the proposal we received at the and Nsf.
Tom Martin: And then from the time it's received um. The second phase takes usually takes about six months. It might take a little bit longer, but we try to get reviews done and an answer back to the the investigator within six months. So
Tom Martin: we get a pile of proposals in. We look at what their topics are. We find reviewers who have expertise that cover those topics. Um. Then we set up panels with those reviewers based upon the feedback that we get from the reviewers program. Officers make recommendation to our bosses. So Wendy is is my deputy director, and then we have a director. So I as a program director. I make a recommendation. It goes up to to Wendy and Michael
Tom Martin: that they either go along with my recommendation or turn it down, and so that that's the division direct review,
Tom Martin: and in assuming it gets awarded, then it goes into award processing, where there's a business review and um. Then finally, um! The war gets finalized which might take another month next slide, please, or Wendy, if you want to jump in on anything that I've said there. Um, that's fine, too.
Wendy Nilsen: No, I think the important thing to remember is this is about a six-month process.
Wendy Nilsen: If you you keep an eye on in a research dot of see what's happening. We're trying to get these things out as quickly as we can, but
Wendy Nilsen: it it's just remember. It's a six month process.
Tom Martin: Yeah. And and along the lines what Wendy said earlier, and I said earlier about not spamming. Ah program Directors don't send mail to a program director after two and a half months after You've submitted your proposal because it's going to take that full six months to to get through and review everything so
Tom Martin: slightly more detailed view of the middle part of that
Tom Martin: on this slide, you know you've You've got your idea That's the light bulb there, and your your university submits that to the and Nsf. Through research. Gov: It goes to a particular program.
Tom Martin: There's actually a couple of different ways that it can be reviewed. Um! One is a, and at least in terms of sites. The most common way is setting up a panel. So on A. There'll be a couple of days. We'll bring a bunch of reviewers, together with a bunch of proposals. Um. Each one will be assigned a number of proposals to review. We'll have discussions of them.
Tom Martin: Um! So that's a panel review.
Tom Martin: The other possibility is something called an ad hoc review where each proposal gets a set of of three or more reviewers, but they don't need as a panel, but they still get reviewed.
Tom Martin: The recommendations from from those reviewers come to the program officers and then based on those recommendations. And what's Portfolio? Looks like of what we've been funding. We make a recommendation Um, and that recommendation goes to the division director for their concurrence.
Tom Martin: If it's a decline, then that goes directly to the organization. If it's a recommendation for an award. Then it goes to Dga, the division of transfer awards who does the business processing of it, and then they make the award to the to the organization
Tom Martin: next slide, please.
Tom Martin: Um.
Tom Martin: So you can do this one, since I spent my whole life here.
Tom Martin: What's that?
Tom Martin: There's no
Wendy Nilsen: an idea. So you're going to talk to a program officer
again.
Wendy Nilsen: Um! Talk to the program, officer. Send a project, Summary. Why do we keep? We could say, and send a project Summary
Wendy Nilsen: Tom. Tom is laughing over there, because
Wendy Nilsen: Project Summary is the absolute first thing anybody reviewing your proposal reads and honestly, the
Wendy Nilsen: that's how they get sorted into review panels. You wouldn't believe how many proposals have really poor project summaries. I have no idea what they're doing. The whole project Summary talks about the problem. It doesn't. Talk about the science There it's they're addressing.
Wendy Nilsen: So you know I I I've led the smart health program for a while. So they start with Ehrs are challenging to use, and doctors don't understand them, and
Wendy Nilsen: we're just going to make them more useful.
Wendy Nilsen: Well, that's lots of people done more useful like um useful for you. And how and what are you doing? So you really want to talk about the scientific questions that you,
Wendy Nilsen: you know. What are the things blocking the usefulness, the usability, the explainability. What are the things that you're trying to do?
Wendy Nilsen: But when people don't, write that project summary early when they slam it together the night before that proposal, losing. You know how good it is
Wendy Nilsen: not great. Write it early and revise it often.
Wendy Nilsen: That should be something you do because the program officer is going to give you feedback.
Wendy Nilsen: Are they going to want to talk to you? Do they want to see your slide? That. No, they do want to talk to you, but they don't want to see your slide back. They do not have an hour to talk with you.
Wendy Nilsen: Um. They usually have about fifteen minutes to talk to you about your idea.
Wendy Nilsen: We have your summary. We can read what you wrote.
Wendy Nilsen: That helps us Think about how you write about what you're doing,
Wendy Nilsen: because I often get people on the phone, and then they say, Oh, no, no! What i'm trying to do is this: It helps me to understand how you're finding what your what your problem is. What are you trying to do scientifically? So write that project. Summary. Put that idea into writing. Send it to your program, officer.
Wendy Nilsen: You may.
Wendy Nilsen: You may have ah! May have to. You may need preliminary results, but again, you Don't require preliminary results. So what we require is for you to demonstrate that you and or your team well, you and your team, if you have a team
qualified to do this research. So did you do this project before? No,
but did somebody else did you work in this area before? And you,
Wendy Nilsen: you know you're an expert in this area, but you never worked in this area before. But you got
Wendy Nilsen: on your team that works in that area.
Wendy Nilsen: You don't need preliminary data. What you do is need to convince people. You all have the expertise. So you're going to. You're going to do the submission. It's going to go to Merit Review again. That's about a six month time.
Wendy Nilsen: Sometime in that room you'll either get an email from the program officer saying, i'm interested in potentially funding This
Wendy Nilsen: will ask you questions they will ask you for if you, If you answered the question by the way,
they ever ask you to answer questions.
Wendy Nilsen: Don't get snarky,
have blown awards by not a fully answering those questions. It's kind of an amazing thing.
Wendy Nilsen: I'm sure you're all smarter than that. But I have seen very senior people kind of go. Well, i'm not sure why you didn't understand what that was.
Well, guess what it doesn't get you an award.
Wendy Nilsen: I'm writing a question. Then I have a question.
Wendy Nilsen: I've read your proposal, and I want to know the answer to it. So um answer those. Take the time to answer those questions correctly, and usually
Wendy Nilsen: give you a week, sometimes less, depending on what time of year it is. But take the time and write a good Ah! A good response. If that happens, it will be ah abstract and all sorts of things. Um, if it's a decline,
Wendy Nilsen: your decline. Read all your reviews, read everything, talk to your friends, do not send the email right away. And, by the way, when I process a decline, and you respond to everybody on email. What a jerk they are in Nsf: We know we all get that email.
Wendy Nilsen: Um, I don't care if you think
Wendy Nilsen: that's i'm sorry you're unhappy. It doesn't hurt my feelings.
Wendy Nilsen: I understand. I've been on the the decline side of an award before a proposal before. Um, but I have many, many, many very, very embarrassed people who have to then said, feel like they send an email to say, sorry didn't mean call you a jury? Um. So
Wendy Nilsen: realize that everybody is on that decline. But once you get that decline, take a week or two, talk to others, read it, read it again, let the anger go subside. I know it's It's You've got strong feelings, because this is you um, and then talk to your programming officer again and modify the idea and work from there.
Wendy Nilsen: Remember, if you're getting a project.
Wendy Nilsen: Um, we got it
Wendy Nilsen: panel summary. Sometimes we don't do panel summaries, but often we do. Um. If you get a panel summary use that as the guide for the changes that you're making
Wendy Nilsen: is a panel summary
Wendy Nilsen: highlights. The things people agree on. Remember, reviewers are not are not perfect, and they're not all identical.
Wendy Nilsen: So Tom and I read the same proposal, and Tom says, Oh, I really like this this, and this I don't need the same calls on those. Yeah,
those are interesting, but you know, I think,
is this:
Wendy Nilsen: it doesn't mean that they're not.
Wendy Nilsen: They don't it may be one is more relevant than another. It might be during discussion, but somebody says Wendy, I think you're completely wrong, and this is why, and then I you say, okay,
Wendy Nilsen: and maybe adjust my review. Um. But the thing is that that we're not identical. The Pro the project, the Panel Review.
It really gives you the feel of what everybody was talking about, and where people were
Wendy Nilsen: all right. Here you go.
Tom Martin: And actually, before I jump into this, I want to double down something, Wendy said, which is when I got here in January, I
Tom Martin: I started to realize how important the project summaries were. I had no idea over the years of how they were used, so I can't emphasize enough. Write our Google Project Summary. They get used in so many ways, and if nothing else, they're the first impression that the reviewers did the most.
Tom Martin: Some tips, read the funding announcement
Tom Martin: closely, read it again and again, and again.
Tom Martin: Mark up the Pdf. Print it out and mark it up. Make sure you have everything in there that the funding announcement, the solicitation requires.
Tom Martin: Talk with the the program director find one who's who is, you know, on that particular solicitation. If a whole bunch of them are listed, try to figure out which one seems most closely aligned with your particular research that you're planning to cement contact them like we've said,
Tom Martin: read the pap. She make sure you have everything in there that you need a meaningful attention to broadening participation. Emphasize both the the Nsf. Merit Review criteria, intellectual merit and the broader impacts.
Tom Martin: Um, And actually I often get asked by reviewers like which one's more important intellectual where it or broader impacts. It's like the one's more important than the other That balance is up to the individual proposal and the and the individual reviewer. So if what you're doing has
Tom Martin: is more transformative in terms in terms of broader impact, be sure to emphasize that if it has more potential, be transformative in terms of intellectual merit, be sure to emphasize that.
Tom Martin: Start early work with your your institutions, sponsored Research office to make sure you meet their deadlines. So if an Nsf. So
Tom Martin: using Virginia Tech as an example, I have a series of of deadlines working backwards from the and Nsf. Deadline, where I have to have certain pieces of paperwork in at certain amounts of time before the proposal has to be submitted. If I don't meet those internal deadlines, they may not actually submit my proposal,
Tom Martin: which case you did a whole bunch of work for, and it doesn't do any good
Tom Martin: next slide, please,
Tom Martin: so we only have a couple of minutes left. I just wanted to put that on your radar, and we've got. We've got two slides. So
Tom Martin: um one thing since these, since um the audience is Ph. D. And and Postdocs a really common mistake for new faculty is writing proposals as if they're papers. Papers are about what you've already done.
Tom Martin: Proposals are about what you would like to do. It's a different type of evidence. Okay,
Tom Martin: So you have to convince the research worth doing, and you have to convince the the reviewer that that your proposal is worth ah worth more worth doing in the other proposal. They're being reviewed. Um, and really get some advice for somebody who's outside your lab. Get them to read your proposal before you submit it well in advance of me.
Tom Martin: Next slide, please.
Tom Martin: Last bit of advice. Help the reviewers. Okay. So you're writing reviewers Who are your peers. But this is broadly defined. They're not going to do exactly your little special thing.
Tom Martin: So um make sure that the that what they're looking for is easy to find in terms of particularly in terms of intellectual merit and broader impacts. Don't assume that the reviewers know all your jargon. Again. They may not be in your your very particular sub-special um, and make sure the most important things receive the most face of the contribution, and the plans
Tom Martin: and I can't say it enough. Work on your one-page project. Summary. Spend a lot of time and a lot of care on that, because that's the first impression that your reviewers are going to get so.
Wendy Nilsen: So I do think we have got more questions about eaters which are really common.
Wendy Nilsen: Ah! Eggheads are not easy,
Wendy Nilsen: for whatever reason people feel like eagles are easy,
because they say we fund one hundred percent of our ears. But that's because everybody gets in here. Talk to us before they send them in here
Tom Martin: right, and they got encouraged to submit it either.
And even then I don't think it's A hundred percent
seekers are only high-risk high reward. The
Wendy Nilsen: you shouldn't be able to to be able to do it in another solicitation or another program. So if you say,
Wendy Nilsen: I just want to, I don't want an eager, because you know I haven't done this before. That's not going to get me.
Wendy Nilsen: You know you're in an area that you say this is super high risk, higher award and nothing sets for it. So
Wendy Nilsen: all right we will be. We will be posting if there's a video of this on the website, and I know we are on, maybe over preceded. And i'm sorry, because we originally try to be better than that.
Cristina Negoita: It's okay. I appreciate all the information, and I know there are some questions that didn't get answered hopefully. Some of them were answered through the discussions and the slides that you guys had um, and just to clarify really quickly, this will be under the events where we post the Webinars currently.
Cristina Negoita: Okay,
Cristina Negoita: Yeah. So we'll um for those of you who are asking specifically about that, please. Um, I put some um links in our chat if you want to grab them quickly before we close the Webinar um. But I would uh keep tabs on uh Is's office hours if you just type that in the search engine, and as that it should take you to the right side, and we should have those
Cristina Negoita: slide X and the recording posted up there. I do want to thank our panelists, and of course our attendees in particular for being here today. This is
Cristina Negoita: I certainly personally feel like I could talk for two more hours, but obviously that's not gonna happen. So uh again. Thank you. Everybody for being here. Uh please continue to attend these office hours as much as you can. Sometimes they're not, maybe directly related to this uh topic, but that you might still find uh useful information. So other than that. Thank you so very much. And as I said, we have these monthly, so I mean Thursday every month or Thursday.
Cristina Negoita: So keep an eye on that on those office hours. Thank you once again, and I will see you guys next time
Cristina Negoita: he,
Wendy Nilsen: thanks to Christina for making these things happen.
Tom Martin: Yes, I was gonna say the same thing. Thanks, Christina. Yeah, thank you.