S

NSF CAREER PROPOSAL

Experiential Perspective bySanjukta Bhanja

Presented in NSF CISE Workshop at Arizona State University

Many Resources: www.clarku.edu/offices/research/pdfs/NSFProposalWritingTips.pdf

Google hits: 1,300,000

My Datapoint

Third time Lucky

Between 1st and 2nd trial, significant changes made

2nd and 3rd: Almost no change

During the first trial, I taught 1-1 courses/semesters

During second and third, I taught 2-2 courses/semester

First Proposal: Self Assessment

Cross-layer modeling targeting switching and error

Too close to my PhD work (already funded by NSF)

Too focused on one problem on research

Teaching plans were established

Between First and Second

Meeting with Dr. Basu (my division program director)

His feedback (CAREER proposal needs to focus on multiple problems in a general direction) Needs to launch a career as opposed to solution to

one research problem

Already started working on both CMOS and beyond-CMOS devices

Created better publication record

Second Attempt

Focused on CMOS logic Trade-off between reliability-error and power Used Learning Automata and Bayesian Network Added Thermal errors

Also started working on Quantum Cellular Automata Quantum-aware error-reliability and power models

Found a few external mentors in my area

Third Attempt

Publication records improved beyond second. Almost every component of near-term objectives

preliminary data was published.

Letters from industry and Academia

Two of my peer read the proposal and suggested a few non-technical but critical flow changes Reduce some of the dimensions to cover more depth

in each dimension Pictures became much better

General Guidelines

With large grains of salt (subjective)

Six Blind Men and the Elephant (Illistration from Pawyi Lee, northeastern Thailand)

Research Planning (1)

Develop track-record in multiple research thrusts Publishing some of the preliminary research is important Data made available in the proposal This is key for providing confidence to a panelist not

working exactly in your area

should have potential to launch a career much beyond 5 years

Tasks should be closely coupled

Research Planning (2)

Have balance between a few near term and far term goals

It should not read as condensed version of three/four proposals.

Should have right balance of fundamentals and significance

Has to have a challenging non-trivial component (non-translational)

Balance between risk (ambitious) and reasonability (feasible)

Educational Research (Planning)

Education : program-sensitive

Developing a new course is OK (too common) but Preferable

Integrating research into education Propose and document a successful teaching in

your classes Working on an instrument to measure some of the

well-known techniques might be great Create a portfolio (teaching)

Helpful also for mid-tenure and tenure

Outreach (Planning)

Find local resources available for broadening participation, visiting K-12 teachers classroom in GA teach-in

Get involved if you can with local 4 year college faculties

Participate in SLOAN, McKnight conference

Essentially plan on getting a track-record

Some letters supporting existing work might be helpful

Networking

Target a few conferences where you send papers, attend and network every year.

Find a few external mentors; could be CAREER award winners in your division in recent years

Visit your program manager

Receive Feedback from peer

Writing

Do not let a panelist surf for contribution:

Particularly important for Intellectual merit, research objectives, task sets and educational goals

Clearly state the significance and intellectual merit

Many proposals have preliminary results in research but no track-record towards the educational component and broader impact.

Focus on Scientific Merit

NSF panelists are against any tone that sounds translational

A fundamental scientific theme has to emerge with huge significance.

Clearly differentiate between your proposal and existing state of the art

Enough support from preliminary data (your own work)

Excitement

Writing should capture excitement/ enthusiasm

Avoid a laundry-list of tasks coupled with each other

Make a case as soon as possible

Do not introduce a key excitement at 5th page

5th, 6th, 7th and 8th are in general reserved for fundamental theoretical techniques but the importance of using that amount of rigor needs to be justified in page 1 or 2 and if possible in summary

Support Letters

Getting support letters would be critical

Excitement shown by a peer and willingness to collaborate would help

Chairs letter: An opportunity to get release time for your research (important for those who somehow had less negotiations during hiring)

Some common practices in support letter are extremely obvious to panelists

Breadth vs Depth

Career proposal should launch a career beyond the five years. So

CAREER Proposal would have to be broader than regular proposal.

Depth vs Breadth Tricky due to page budget One of my mentor’s feedback: “You have a very

strong 20 page proposal but an extremely condensed 15 pages”

Pause

After writing the first complete draft, give a break of at least seven days.

Read and edit again

Pause

Read and Edit again

This is particularly true of those of you that gets upset reading their own paper after the paper appeared in print.

Help

Get a technical writer to proof-read

Get a trusted peer to read

Ask if they understood the tremendous significance of your research.

I asked help from my My ex-dean to provide some feedback since he was in NSF earlier.

Untrue Assumptions

All the details would be read and understood

One need to propose 5 innovations (for 5 years) and then 5 more innovations for long term goals If each innovation is discussed in 0.5 page ->this

makes all the innovations look less rigorous

Guidelines are fixed between trials

Detailed guidelines in formatting can be ignored

Final draft

Pay special attention to figures and table captions. Usually first perception is formed after reading the summary and skimming over the proposal looking at figures and tables.

Have a good overview picture and great caption that details generic problem statement.

Large percentage of effort needs to be on the Summary

Get someone to judge the proposal by reading the summary and skimming through the tables and figures

Second and Third time

After each failure, take an appointment with your program officer to capture panel feedback beyond panel summary

Remember that panelists change, so take feedback of one trial with a pinch of salt but address issues that are relevant.

Definitely get feedback from a few colleagues (almost mandatory these days for multiple attempts)

Mentors

Have mentors outside your University

Mentors inside the department are great Can support your case for less teaching and service

load

You need mentors in your own area

These mentors can help as sounding board and can provide important suggestions for the proposal

Participate in a Panel

Effort as a PI and effort as a panelist are not exactly equal

Migration of proposals through HC-C-LC-DNC

This is also an unique opportunity that your competitors are fighting with each other to get you money.

Questions