[Island Chris]

I'm in Washington D.C., pretending to be a "big shot", which I am not. I'm on a National Science Foundation (NSF) panel. Proposal are written for research funding, some to NSF, and sent out for review. The reviews are sent back, and then a diverse group of scientists are gathered to determine the value of the proposals from a broader perspective, to make recommendations for funding. The NSF program directors then decide what to fund. The whole process is interesting, at least to me. Whether I post more on this depends on whether anyone is interested.

Your tax money.

Panel members are confidential, but up to individuals whether to be anonymous or not. I choose to tell certain people I am on the panel, but on line, I'll just be "Island Chris"

Chris

[Skywise]

Am I to understand you are involved in the decision making process, then? As to who/what gets funding or not?

If so, what are some of the criteria you are supposed to consider when decided what's worthy or not?

Brian

[Island Chris]

Hi Brian and all,

I'm back on the island. I suppose you would say I was involved in the decision making process, in a similar way to those who are asked to review a proposal are. This is a one time thing for me: I have not done this before and it is not part of my job (but "service" is something we are expected to do). The panel could be considered at a higher level than the reviewers: we read the reviews, we read the proposals, we make our own judgments, and as a group of 3 or 4 for each proposal, we rate the proposal and make constructive comments. The Program Directors are NSF government employees, some permanent and one on a 3 year temporary appointment before going back to her university. They look at budgets and a whole bunch of other issues including diversity and not sending all the $ to one institution or even one state, and make decisions on what to actually fund. So, I was involved in helping the Program Directors decide what was worthy of funding, but I am not involved in the actual decision of whether to fund or not.

The criteria are mainly "intellectual Merit" and "Broader Impacts". However, the budget is important, as is the reputation and productivity of the Principle Investigator(s), timeliness, etc. Intellectual Merit is sort of how exciting and new and solid the science is. Broader Impacts are how the project benefits society=people. This can be an educational component, including funding a graduate student, or bringing undergrads and grad students to sea, "outreach", which could be involving K-12 education, visiting high school, making a web site, or posting here at Earthwaves (although I have not used Earthwaves in a proposal or my CV because of the uneven quality of my posts, and the pseudo science and conflicts that used to be here but are not any more. Broader Impacts for a proposal to understand, for example, subduction zone has a strong Broader Impact of hazards (earthquakes, tsunamis). International collaboration is also an impact.

There is a LOT I learned in a short time that would be useful to scientists, and I intend to make a bunch of posts here the next week or two. There may be limited interest here, but it will be an excuse to get it down in writing so I can communicate what I learned later.

Chris

(11-19-2014, 05:16 AM)Skywise Wrote: Am I to understand you are involved in the decision making process, then? As to who/what gets funding or not?

If so, what are some of the criteria you are supposed to consider when decided what's worthy or not?

Brian

[Skywise]

Thank you for the in depth reply, Chris. Very informative. I look forward to your future postings. It's nice sometimes to get your thoughts written down so you can reference them later even if elsewhere and unrelated to here.

Now, if only we could find out how "silly" and "obvious" projects get funded, you know, the ones where they spend 5 million dollars to find out the effect of getting onion juice in your eye. (made that up, but wouldn't be surprised if it happened)

Brian