A few quick things in regard to the comments below. 1. DEB did institute a Small Grants Program, see Program Solicitation NSF 13-508 and NSF 14-503. Relevant wording: "Small Grants: The Division welcomes proposals for Small Grants to the core programs via this solicitation. These awards are intended to support full-fledged research projects that simply require total budgets of $150,000 or less. Small Grant proposals follow the same two-stage review process and will be assessed based on the same merit review criteria as all other proposals to this solicitation."
2. NSF has nothing to do with the setting of Indirect Costs. 3. The formal survey that DEB sent to the ecological and evolutionary communities on 17 April 2013 (to over 19,660 individuals) which assessed the communities' satisfaction with aspects of the new proposal process in DEB and IOS has been analyzed. We are in the process of writing that paper for submission to Bioscience by the end of the year. 4. NSF does listen to the scientific community and tries very hard to do what's best for science. Flat budgets and the subsequent sinking success rates are the real problems. _______________ Dr. Leslie J. Rissler Associate Professor Department of Biological Sciences MHB Hall Room 307 University of Alabama Tuscaloosa, AL 35487 205-348-4052 riss...@as.ua.edu<mailto:riss...@as.ua.edu> www.ljrissler.org On Nov 20, 2013, at 10:34 AM, malcolm McCallum <malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org<mailto:malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org>> wrote: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ WARNING: Your email security system has determined the message below may be a potential threat. It may pose as a legitimate company proposing a risk-free transaction, but requests money from the victim to complete a business deal. If you do not know the sender or cannot verify the integrity of the message, please do not respond or click on links in the message. Depending on the security settings, clickable URLs may have been modified to provide additional security. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ ------------ Suspicious threat disclaimer ends here ------------ I agree with you on most of this. Personally, I'ld like them to do one thing differently than you suggest, use pre-proposals all the time, but have two cycles. By doing this, it would allow the initial screening to eliminate the huge pile of generally unfundable submissions. The bad thing for the proposers though is that their feedback would be much less extensive, so future success may be reduced. Currently, or at least I heard that most people get rejected on the first submission. but, the % success on resubmissions is much higher. I think its pretty obvious that the biggest problem is manpower. David Hillis (UT-Austin) has for some time been promoting that it would be more beneficial and productive for NSF (and other agencies) to award more smaller grants than a few giant ones. Apparently, there is research demonstrating that small grants actually give more bang for the buck. Personally, i think this would be an interesting approach, but i'm pretty convinced it would never happen. If NSF just abandoned funding indirect costs, that would make a huge difference. And, frankly most indirect costs are real costs, but I'm not sure that going above 10-20% negotiated rate is valid. Some schools get substantially higher rates which simply eats up money intended for research and dumps it in other areas. Even breaking up indirect costs to eliminate the chaff might be seriously considered. On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 10:13 AM, Thomas J. Givnish <givn...@facstaff.wisc.edu<mailto:givn...@facstaff.wisc.edu>> wrote: Arguably, the changes DEB itself has installed in the NSF review process over the past two years are also likely to damage the American scientific enterprise. In order to relieve pressure on staff and reviewers, DEB has gone to a once-a-year cycle of pre-proposals, with at most two pre-proposals per investigator, and with ca. 30% of submissions allowed to go forward with full proposals. The once-per-year aspect is deadly, in my opinion and that of every senior ecologist and evolutionary biologist I've spoken with. The chances of going for more than two years without support – whether for justifiable cause, or a wacko review or two from a small pool of screeners – are quite substantial. No funding for two or three years = lab death for anyone pursuing high-cost research w/o a start-up or retention package in hand. Lab death can hit both junior and senior investigators; the forced movement to a once-a-year cycle means that the ability to respond quickly to useful reviewer comments and erroneous reviewer claims is halved. The role of random, wacko elements in the review process (and we all know very well those are there), is probably doubled. And the ability to pursue timely ecological research is substantially reduced by doubling the lags in the system. The full proposal for those who are invited effectively increases the proposal-writing workload for many of the best scientists. We have been saddled with a system that is sluggish, slow to adapt, more prone to stochastic factors, and more ensnarling of the top researchers in red tape. We can and must do better. My advice: Return to two review cycles per year, no pre-proposals, and make the full proposals just six pages long. Total review efforts will most likely be reduced over even the current experimental approach, and writing efforts by successful proposers will be greatly reduced. One incidental advantage: by reducing the amount of eye-glazing detail on experimental protocols – which we are not in any case bound to follow if we receive the award – we might reduce the core temptation to which (alas) many reviewers and panel members are prone, of playing gotcha with minor details of protocol while giving short shrift to the innovative or possibly transformational value of the studies being proposed. Thomas J. Givnish Henry Allan Gleason Professor of Botany University of Wisconsin givn...@wisc.edu<mailto:givn...@wisc.edu> http://secure-web.cisco.com/auth=11gZHa535JwsQxbwSEr6k4Z7lhNe_t&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbotany.wisc.edu%2Fgivnish%2FGivnish%2FWelcome.html On 11/20/13, malcolm McCallum wrote: That is false logic. There have been numerous studies demonstrating the remarkable over-all productivity of American scientists. However, that does not mean that the system for funding is the reason. In fact, it is quite possible, and i'ld argue very likely that these same individuals would be remarkably more productive if not devotion time to grantsmanship. A point I should also offer is that this is not coming from someone who has difficulty with grantsmanship. heck, I was a proposal writer for a major not-for-profit and managed their grants program during the entire time. I'm just pointing out what is frank logic. you have a trade-off with time you devote to professional activities. If you are spending time doing data collection, then that same time cannot be used for other things. Likewise, if you are using it to get proposals prepared, you are not collecting, analyzing data or preparing manuscripts aat the same time. You must divide your time among these activities. I've long thought it would be wise for science departmetns to hire a professional grantwriter who specializes in science grants, particularly for non-research funding. A good grantwriter is worth his/her weight in gold because he/she understands the system. I don't think anyone does this though! :) M On Tue, Nov 19, 2013 at 4:14 PM, <mcnee...@cox.net> wrote: Well, politics certainly interferes with the furtherance of science, as do the mechanics you describe. But, hmmm....... . Do European institutions excel relative to the U.S. in scientific progress? Many of them do have funded institutions, with funded laboratories within them. David McNeely ---- malcolm McCallum <malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org> wrote: Well, first they disbanded political science research, and now they are trying to do the first steps to slowing science. The person at NSF who approves funding must justify such. why? that way the congress can go after that person, exert pressure on the scientific process, and turn it into a political instead of a scientific process. http://secure-web.cisco.com/auth=11VhhOSQtKEdEz06TS5c1ffs0_8Nwz&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.sciencemag.org%2Feducation%2F2013%2F11%2Frepublican-plan-guide-nsf-programs-draws-darts-and-befuddlement-research-advocates These developments are interesting to me because when NSF was first being conceived there were those who felt the concept would slow science by turning it into a search for funding rather than a search for facts. More and more, we are becoming important for the money we can bring in rather than our contribution to the greater good. >From the Mark Gable Foundation (A short story in the compendium, The Voices of Dophins, by Leo Szilard) published in ???? (http://secure-web.cisco.com/auth=11wmc9vGN-TkP5mBYTzzUEm7edx8tN&url=http%3A%2F%2Fbooks.google.com%2Fbooks%3Fid%3Dxm2mAAAAIAAJ%26printsec%3Dfrontcover#v=onepage&q&f=false), when Mark Gable asked how to slow science, this was the answer provided: "Well," I said, " I think that shouldn't be very difficult. As a matter of fact, I think it would be quite easy. You could set up a foundation, with an annual endowment of thirty million dollars. Research workers in need of funds could apply for grants, if they could make out a convincing case. Have ten committees, each composed of twelve scientists, appointed to pass on these applications. Take the most active scientists out of the laboratory and make them members of these committees. And, the very best men in the field should be appointed as chairmen at salamries of fifty thousand dollars each. Also have about twenty prizes of one hundred thousand dollars each for hte best scientific papers of the year. This is just about all you would have to do. Your lawyers could easily prepare a charter for the foundation. As a matter of fact, any of the National Science Foundation bills which were introduced in the Seventy-ninth and Eightieth Congresses could perfectly well serve as a model." "I think you had better explain to Mr. Gable why this foundation would in fact retard the progress of science," said a bespectacled young man sitting at the far end of the table, whose name i didn't get at the time of introduction. "It should be obvious," i said. "First of all, the best scientists would be removed from their laboratories and kept busy on committees passing on applications for funds. Secondly, the scientific workers in need of funds would concentrate on problems which were considered promising and were pretty certain to lead to publishable results. For a few years there might be a great increase in scientific output; but by going after the obvious, pretty soon science would dry out. Science woudl become something like a parlor game. Some things would be considered interesting, others not. There would be fashions. Those who followed the fashion would get grants. Those who wouldn't woudl not, and pretty soon they would learn to follow the fashion, too." **** In other words, scientists would not take chances, because that risks getting grants, they would not do long-term research because it is slow to payoff, they would spend most of their time managing grant money, evaluating other people's research, and not doing it themselves. scientists would follow fads whether that is good or not, at the cost of other fields. In a lot of way, this was a prophetic two pages that has in a lot of ways come true. Imagine how much work you could get done if your had a line item budget that covered the costs of your research and you did not have to spend time writing proposals, managing grants. How much money would be saved in research if 10-80% of the funded grand did not go to indirect costs and similar places? Understand, I know we are where we are, and each of us must work in the current system as it exists, and that it isn't changing. However, this story certainly nailed many problems to the wall that arise when you have competitive funding instead of line items. -- Malcolm L. McCallum Department of Environmental Studies University of Illinois at Springfield Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan Nation 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) Wealth w/o work Pleasure w/o conscience Knowledge w/o character Commerce w/o morality Science w/o humanity Worship w/o sacrifice Politics w/o principle Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. -- David McNeely -- Malcolm L. McCallum Department of Environmental Studies University of Illinois at Springfield Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan Nation 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) Wealth w/o work Pleasure w/o conscience Knowledge w/o character Commerce w/o morality Science w/o humanity Worship w/o sacrifice Politics w/o principle Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. If you are not the intended recipient, please contact the sender by reply e-mail and destroy all copies of the original message. -- -- Malcolm L. McCallum Department of Environmental Studies University of Illinois at Springfield Managing Editor, Herpetological Conservation and Biology "Peer pressure is designed to contain anyone with a sense of drive" - Allan Nation 1880's: "There's lots of good fish in the sea" W.S. Gilbert 1990's: Many fish stocks depleted due to overfishing, habitat loss, and pollution. 2000: Marine reserves, ecosystem restoration, and pollution reduction MAY help restore populations. 2022: Soylent Green is People! The Seven Blunders of the World (Mohandas Gandhi) Wealth w/o work Pleasure w/o conscience Knowledge w/o character Commerce w/o morality Science w/o humanity Worship w/o sacrifice Politics w/o principle Confidentiality Notice: This e-mail message, including any attachments, is for the sole use of the intended recipient(s) and may contain confidential and privileged information. Any unauthorized review, use, disclosure or distribution is prohibited. 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