Guidance to Reviewers of Ocean Sciences Field Program Proposals

Changes in Procedures for Budgeting Shipboard Technical Support for Seagoing Projects at NSF

The Division of Ocean Sciences (OCE) at NSF has changed procedures for requesting and awarding funds for most shipboard technical services related to NSF-supported research projects. Effective with the February 15, 1999 target date for proposals to OCE, it is no longer necessary to include costs in NSF research proposals for shipboard data acquisition services by institutional Shipboard Technical Support Groups at UNOLS institutions. Previously, costs for such “specialized services”, normally in the form of “user fees,” were included as part of NSF research proposal budgets. Costs of ship time, basic shipboard technical services, and national facility submersible/ROV use were excluded from research budgets, and funded instead via annual proposals from each ship operating institution. The new procedures provide that funds for all data acquisition services of the Shipboard Technical Support Groups of the UNOLS operating institutions will be provided by NSF directly to the ship operators annually. Support will be based on a review of full operating year costs of technical support on each vessel, and will be determined after operating schedules are complete and requirements known, near the beginning of each operating year. Costs of data processing, watch standing, data analysis, software development, and other non-acquisition activities, are not included in the facility support, and should be requested via the research proposal.

The change described here recognizes guidance that NSF OCE has received from its advisory committee and reviewers, as well as PI concerns expressed during the ongoing review of the UNOLS fleet requested by the National Science Board. The new NSF procedures do not affect the manner in which budgets or proposals are prepared for agencies other than NSF. Institutions will continue to maintain rates for use of some specialized shipboard instruments, and the same rate will be charged to all federal sponsors. The source of NSF support will change from the research programs to the OCE Technical Services Program, but costs will be the same as for a non-NSF user of the vessel.

Decisions regarding shipboard instrumentation required to support an NSF-funded research project require the recommendation of the relevant research program at NSF. Hence, it is important that all PIs adequately describe and justify their instrumentation requirements in the research proposals. It is also very important that technical support requirements be clearly indicated to ship operators. This will be necessary for scheduling, and to ensure that needed support is available once a project is scheduled.

Research instrumentation which is not supported through an operating institutions’s Shipboard Technical Support Group does not qualify for facility support as described here. Systems which are “PI-owned” or available at a fee from an individual or group other than an institution’s Shipboard Technical Support Group will normally require funds via the NSF research proposal, and should be included in those budgets. In general, it can be assumed that all instruments which are fixed to a vessel (e.g. single- and multi-beam echosounders, acoustic doppler current profilers, winches), “standard” oceanographic systems provided by the ship operator (e.g. CTD systems, GPS units, most plankton nets), and most other “institutional” systems such as seismic reflection systems (single- or multi-channel), corers, etc., will qualify for facility support and need not be included in a research proposal budget.

If there are questions regarding whether an instrument or service qualifies, please contact Alexander Shor at ashor@nsf.gov for more details. A list of individuals to contact at the operating institutions is available to assist in planning. In addition, information regarding many operators’ available instrumentation and technical support capabilities may be found at the UNOLS RVTEC home page, http://www.gso.uri.edu/unols/rvtec/rvtec.html, under the heading “UNOLS Resources”.