NSF
03 - 034
Dear Colleague Letter
April 10, 2003
ANNOUNCEMENT OF NEW MANDATORY REQUIREMENTS
FOR PROPOSALS TO THE ECS DIVISION
Directorate for Engineering
Division of Electrical and Communications Systems
(ECS)
Dear Colleagues:
In order to ensure both the timely handling of proposals and fairness
in comparing competing
requests for funding, the ECS Division has established (effective July
1, 2003) two Proposal
Submissions windows for all unsolicited proposals submitted to the three
ECS disciplinary
programs. Proposals which do not arrive within these windows, or which
violate the NSF-wide
policy on describing broader impacts, will be returned without review.
The details are as
follows:
-
Dates for submission of unsolicited proposals are now DEADLINES,
not target dates. Proposals must be submitted within an acceptance
window from one month
before each
deadline to the deadline date (by 5 p.m. proposer’s local time
on the deadline date). All
proposals must be submitted through FastLane. Proposals submitted
either before or after
the acceptance window will be returned without review. Funding requests
not subject to these
deadlines are described below in paragraphs 6-8.
-
Effective immediately,
two deadline dates will be used: October 7 and February 7, or the
first federal business day thereafter if the date falls on a weekend
or federal holiday. Federal
Holidays can be found at http://www.opm.gov/fedhol/index.htm.
For fiscal year 2003, the deadline dates fall on October 7, 2003, and
February 9, 2004.
-
This submission policy for ECS also applies to proposals
submitted as requests for
research equipment grants (REG) or proposals submitted through GOALI
(academic liaison
with industry). These are reviewed together with proposals submitted
through disciplinary
programs. One may do a “funding search” at www.nsf.gov for the key words REG and GOALI,
for the most current information on those programs.
-
Proposals must
be prepared in compliance with the NSF Grant Proposal Guide (GPG).
See
http://www.nsf.gov/pubsys/ods/getpub.cfm?gpg.
Failure to follow GPG requirements may
result in the return of a proposal without review.
- Proposals are
reviewed both for their Intellectual Merit and their Broader Impacts.
Both
criteria will be addressed explicitly in the review and in considering
funding
recommendations. Proposals which do not separately address the Broader
Impacts Criterion
in the project summary will be sent back without review. PIs are reminded
to insert a separate
paragraph(s) explicitly entitled “Broader Impacts” in the
project summary. Broader impacts
should not be interpreted as a kind of political correctness filter;
it is not necessary that every
proposal have an impact in all areas, but those which have the potential
for a large impact in
any of the areas covered by that criterion will be given higher priority
for funding. A major goal
here is to encourage more systematic strategic thinking about ways
to improve connections
between one’s area of work and the larger context.
The following types of request are NOT subject to the acceptance
window restrictions
described above:
-
Following discussion and encouragement from a Program
Director in ECS, proposals
submitted to request Small Grants for Exploratory Research (SGER)
or workshops may be
submitted at any time during the year.
-
Principal Investigators
who wish to apply for supplements to existing grants to fund
Research Experiences for Undergraduates (REU) or Research Experiences
for Teachers
(RET) should send requests before March 1 of any year to ensure consideration.
Requests
for REU or RET Supplements to existing grants must be made through
FastLane.
-
Principal Investigators wishing to make any other requests
for supplements should first
discuss their request with their ECS Program Director. Guidelines
for Supplements are given
in the GPG.
-
Questions regarding any type of funding request not
covered above should be referred to
an ECS Program Director.
Vasundara V. Varandan
Director, Division of Electrical and Communication Systems
National Science Foundation
4201 Wilson Boulevard, Suite 675
Arlington, VA 22230
vvaradan@nsf.gov
703-292-8339
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