Applying for Grants

Some resources you should know about:
* NSF funding announcements feed
* Also see others on the SI Research Office Wiki.
* SI Research Office Wiki

In most Universities, you will not find a research office that will do as much for you as SI's research office or UMich in general. In the discussion of SI's services, keep in mind that these are things we'll likely have to do ourselves in the future. But know that the SI Research Office is here to help answer questions and ease the transition even after we graduate.

SI Research Office goal: Make it so the faculty only have to think about the science. They shouldn't have to think about the administrative pieces of the proposal (except, occasionally, the budget - but we'll have to know how to make budgets ourselves at other universities).

Assembling proposals (common questions):

• Cost to pay a student
• NSF Biographical sketches
  

RFPs / RFIs / RFAs
Focus of these notes is NSF, since they fund about 80% of our research.

• NSF rule: at least 90 days notice for funding opportunities. Not everyone has this rule.
• Every time you get one, read it many times. (Ann says "at least five.").
• Revision notes at the top will indicate what has changed.
• Read the description. Does it match what you *want* to do.
• You should contact the program officer. Send a quick note about your project, and ask if it's a good fit.
• Awards: Do some math. Divide anticipated funding amount by anticipated number of awards to get an idea of target budget.
• Some limit number of proposals you can submit (as PI, co-PI, senior personnel) for an award. Sometimes they limit the number of proposals from an organization, and then there will be an internal competition (Check the SI wiki for some internal competition deadlines).
• UMich negotiates its indirect cost rate with the government every 5 years. Right now it is 54.5%. Some organizations, such as many foundations, do not pay indirect costs.
• Pay attention to content & formatting guidelines, etc. Things like your title can shape where your proposal ends up. If you don't follow instructions, your proposal gets rejected.
• Take advantage of the opportunity to recommend reviewers. Don't take advantage of the opportunity to list people not to use as reviewers unless you have a really strong reason.
• Intellectual merit and broader impacts! Contributions to scientific community. Why does your work matter beyond the community? What will you do to communicate it? Program officers and reviewers (in general) really care about this -- this is part of how NSF justifies its funding from Congress. More information and links can be found in the SI research office wiki.
• If you feel that NSF is your biggest chance for funding, go to NSF, meet the program offices. It sounds scary, but they are paid to meet you and help you find your match. It also gets you on their radar screen to go get funding. There is nothing better for junior faculty than to be on a review panel - you get to see how proposals are reviewed.
• Many of the people on the panel may not be experts in your field. You are writing for a somewhat general audience - you want to get them excited about your proposal.
• Get examples of successful and unsuccessful proposals, and their reviews. Reviews are only released to PI, but PI can share them. SI tends to be fairly open about reviews, to help coach people to write better proposals. Ask people to see them. (You can FOIA successful ones, but generally not the best way to go about this.)

• CAREER awards - five years of funding to get your research going. Very helpful. You need a tenure-track position to apply. NSF looks for a strong link between teaching and research. Begin thinking about this basically when you graduate. Maybe a little sooner, maybe a little later.
  

Things do to here and now

• It would probably be helpful to do mock reviews at SI, for students.
• If your adviser is applying, try to be part of that process. You'll learn a lot.
• You can't be a Co-PI if you are a doctoral student. You *can* be named, senior personnel <- possible, but not common. Even if not named, co-writing a grant is still an asset in the job market (and for knowing how to write going forward).
  

Time

• In the proposal process, you don't act as you, you act as the institution applying to the NSF. At UMich, we have DRDA (other places, it might be called SRO/SPO) that is authorized to submit proposals on behalf of the University. They will often have their own internal deadlines - think of it as two weeks before NSF deadline, but this is often relaxed if you are using Fastlane rather than Grants.gov. Fastlane is *much* more reliable.
• Give yourself time to write a proposal! It's hard to imagine many proposals being successful if written in a week or less. It's not just the science that has to happen in that time, it's all the administrative stuff too. At SI, it's only one layer (you --> SI office --> DRDA); at the medical school, it's a huge, paper hierarchy that can take days. At a minimum, give yourself a month to put write a really good proposal.
• If you are going to ask someone to be on your proposal for a specific set of skills, make sure to give them some time to work their expertise into your project. People don't like it when you ask them to be on your proposal and then never talk with them again. Build collaborative teams early.
  

Budgeting

• Think about: Salary, fringe, students, subjects, travel, computers.
• Flexibility to move money around? You need permission from your sponsor to move things into A21 categories. Otherwise, you can move things between research salary, grad students, subjects, travel. Money for computers, paper, postage, phones, admin salaries, clerical salaries (things that people could conceivably argue are overhead) can't be moved around. In writing your justification, when there are research expenses that might look like overhead (telephones, postage, pens, paper), you want to be *very* thorough and *very* specific.
  

NSF Directorates
Notable ones for us:

• CISE
• Cyberinfrastructure
• Social, Behavioral & Economic sciences.
• Integrative activities
• sometimes Education
  

Not health! NSF wouldn't fund anything related to health until recently. As healthcare changes, they fund some, but primarily this is still NIH.