From Graduate School Through Tenure:  The Funding Life Cycle of an Academic

Leigh M. Smith

Department of Physics

http://www.physics.uc.edu/~smithl

Outline

• Before and After your PhD• Science and Engineering• Discussion

• As a Faculty Member• Where to Look• Mentoring• Discussion

• How To Write• Some simple rules for the Sciences• Discussion

Preparing as a Graduate Student

• Where does your money come from now?• Ask your advisor• srs.uc.edu

• Write-Write-Write-Write-Write• Edit-Edit-Edit-Edit-Edit• Ask to write the first draft of papers• Write URC Summer Fellowship Proposals

• Get Feedback

• Help your advisor

Take English classes?

Searching for a Post-Doc

• Generally your future adviser is responsible for getting the money

• Exceptions• Internal Grants (UC Berkely, Caltech…)• National Academies of Science

www.nationalacademies.org NRC Fellowships at National Labs

• Strongly Linked to the Adviser Office of Health Policy

• Petroleum Research Fund• Competitions

Oak-Ridge National Laboratories (Wigner Fellowship) Argon National Labs (11 named fellowships)

• Search for sources using Community of Science: Community of Science (COS)

So you are a new faculty member?

• Find a mentor you can talk to!!!• See what resources are available to you!

(research office, department, college, or state)

• Start talking to other faculty in other departments!

• Once you have things going:• Invite your friends for talks!

• Ask your colleagues to recommend you for talks locally…

2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 20060

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Fed

eral

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otec

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ogy

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Proposed BillHouse of Rep.

Explosive Growth in Nano and IT Funding

lms

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rem eng astro chem phys dmr nanoitr

1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 20040

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The effect of IT R&D and NNI on one Federal Agency: The National Science Foundation

lms

Federal Agencies for Science and Engineering

• National Science Foundation (NSF)• Department of Energy (DOE)• Office of Naval Research (ONR)• Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR)• Army Research Office (ARO)• Defense Advance Research Projects Agency

(DARPA)• NASA• National Institute of Health (NIH)• Department of Education (DOEd)• National Security Agency (NSA)

Major Private Foundations

• Research Corporation (www.rescorp.org) www.rescorp.org

• For Beginning Faculty• For Changing Directions

• Dreyfus Foundation (chemistry)

• Petroleum Research Fund (ACS)

• Lists of Foundations http://lnp.fdncenter.org/finder.html• http://lnp.fdncenter.org/finder.html

Types of Funding

• Beginning Faculty• NSF Career Grants (5 years/$500k)• Research Corp, Sloan, Petroleum Research Fund…

• Bedrock Grants (single investigator)• NSF, ARO, AFOSR, DOE, ONR

• Small Grants for Exploratory Research• 1 year/$100,000

• New Interdisciplinary Initiatives• Fed Nanotech Initiative (www.nano.gov) http://www.nano.gov• ITR (Computational Funding)• DARPA SPINS Program

Types of Funding (cont’d)

• Equipment Grants • (MRI, OBR, Hayes, DURIP)

• Small Business Administrationm (2.5%!)• SBIR (small business innovative research)• STTR (small business technology transfer)

• New Initiatives (RFPs)• Usually not much time, sometimes inside jobs

Doing Research on the Program

• Who is already funded? For what?

• What is the range of funding?• Low, mean and high levels?

• What do they say they are looking for?

Frequency

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2499

02.25

4988

04.5

7477

06.75

9966

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1245

511.2

5

1494

413.5

1743

315.7

5M

ore

Award Amount (Dollars)

Frequency

MRI grant size at NSF for last three years…

Writing your first proposal

“There is one over-riding principle: You must convince the referees that the project is so far along that it would be a mistake to stop it. Put another way: Every first proposal should read as a renewal proposal. If you keep this firmly in mind, writing the proposal is a breeze. Nevertheless here is a brief discussion of the major sections.”

JWWilkins, 1987 http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~wilkins/onepage/

• Abstract• Introduction• Review of Previous Research• Proposed Research• Summary• Budget

Abstract

An Abstract should be supplied even if the agency does not request one. Write it last. Often this succinct sales pitch for the proposal is the only thing read by the last person with decision power over your grant. Furthermore, sometimes referees will structure their report on the basis of your abstract.

Introduction

The Introduction explains the general relevance of your research in a broader context. This section: (i) shows the granting agency how your research fits in with other areas it funds and (ii) demonstrates that you understand much more physics then you are proposing to do and hence if the opportunity arose could move quickly into developing areas.

• Should be succinct, no more than 2 pages. Bullets which summarize major points of the proposal.

• It should emphasize those things which make the research compelling and why you are the one who should do it!

Review of the Field

The Review of Previous Research persuades the reviewer that you are already a productive member in the area of your proposal. If you are fresh faculty member writing your first proposal, this may seem difficult to do. But if you are really proposing to work in an area in which you have never worked before, it is extremely unlikely you will get funded. While only old farts with a track record of research can get grants in brand new areas, most old farts are not so stupid as to try. The usual procedure is to use another grant to get started in a new area so that those results form Part II of the grant proposal.

This section of the proposal should contain both a review of the field and what you have done in it. The end of section should, if at all possible, leave the reviewer with a clear view of important problems you are already on the way to solving.

Proposed Research

The Proposed Research describes what you plan to do. There is a terrible tendency to put in lots of equations (even if you are an experimentalist). To the contrary, the best proposals contain no equations at all! If you feel the need of a bunch of equations, try making a figure or table that indicates the procedure. Self-explanatory figures demonstrate you know what you are doing. (Any experienced referee recognizes it is hard to construct good figures and nearly impossible to construct good tables.)

Break this section up into subsections (and sometimes unnumbered but labelled sub-subsections). The hardest job for the referee is figuring out what the proposer wants to do. Clarity is a premium. Put the most important part of the proposal first. The referee is most likely to read this. If it is clear, he will forgive less clear subsequent subsections.

Proposed Research (cont’d)

• There is a natural tendency to propose too much. What you want to demonstrate is that you have clearly identified the next problem to do (in a developing field) and that you have a sensible (if not brilliant) way to proceed. Further if possible it is wise to indicate what are the fallback positions if your mainline of attack should fail.

• What you want to avoid is giving the referee a chance to say: `This idea can't work for the following clear reason'. Also to be avoided is proposals that evoke responses such as: `While this scheme might work, it critically depends on the following miracle occurring.'

• Now in the case of experimentalists proposing very audacious projects, this is a hard to avoid. You should clearly indicate that you have a thorough command of the difficulties and, at least in some cases, have thought of alternate strategies -- i.e., that you are a real physicist. Which brings me back to the start of the paragraph: a real physicist, while thinking far in the future, doesn't reveal her preliminary thoughts to a referee.

• The general maxim is: don't expose areas you are not prepared to defend.

Proposed Research (cont’d)

Note well: the proposal, while a natural renewal of the previous research, should not appear as a routine one -- i.e., as just a continuation of old work (or even worse, of one's thesis). The proposal should be new, exciting and novel while not seeming crazy, far-out, or impossible so that the reviewers can exhibit real enthusiasm for it.

A further statement from LMS: Generally the Proposed Research should include three types of work: (i) Research which is a direct extension of your existing work, which has a high probability of working. (ii) Research which is of the nature of a next-next step in your evolution. Some problems here, but not insurmountable. Finally (iii) Research which is high-risk but high-payoff which has a specific discussion of the problems which need to be overcome. This is pie-in-the-sky (exciting!) stuff.

Broader Impacts

• By far the hardest thing to include into a proposal. How to make your research relevant and connected with the academic mission of the University.

• Become involved in the local High Schools• Involve Undergrads, High School Student,

Teachers into research.• Start early to demonstrate you are actually doing

these things…..• Get involved in an REU project if your university

has one.

Summary

The Summary clearly marshals the arguments for your proposal. If you do this well, the referee may just copy some of your sentences. Keep it short and number the points.

Budget

Budget. This is more difficult for the experimentalist, since it must contain a capital budget. In any case you should not be terrible concerned if the budget is too large. The agency will generally not be disturbed by referee complaints that the budget is too large, it is quite prepared to negotiate with you once it is convinced that you can do something it views as appropriate. On the other hand a too small budget is a mistake, since if you don't ask for it, the agency won't give it to you. (Note the one exception to this rule: some granting agencies -- Research Corporation, Petroleum Research Fund-ACS, etc. -- have strict rules on the size of the budget; in those cases overasking can hurt since it indicates you are not smart enough to read the rules.)

An aside: My own opinion on this is that you absolutely need to do research on the range of budgets which are actually funded. You want to be not too far from the mean of this range. (LMS)

 One obvious don't: young investigators can't expect support for postdocs (there is a presumption

that young investigators are not experienced enough to supervise individuals that close in age and experience). The budget should contain requests for: graduate students (no more than two), summer salary, several expendable areas – travel (enough for the relevant APS/Society meeting and one summer conference, plus some funds for at least finishing students to attend a meeting); publications (drafting charges, publications charges and reprints);

Ballooning Budgets!

When you finally get down to working on your budget, you will be amazed how they balloon out of control!

Example 1: To support just one graduate student requires:

Salary: $18,000Fringes (4%): $720Tuition: $8,300

Overhead(53.5%): $10,015

TOTAL: $37,135

Example 2: To support one Post-Doc requires:

Salary: $40,000Fringes (22%): $8,800

Overhead (53.5%): $26,108

TOTAL: $74,908

Final Advice

Signal to Noise. If at all possible, project something unique about yourself and your research. It varies in every case. Perhaps your institution is especially appropriate for your project. Perhaps you have cultivated especially appropriate collaborators elsewhere that will be useful in your research. It does not matter that they won't actually be supported by the contract (although you might put in some funds for them to visit you or you them). Perhaps your earlier research makes your success especially likely. The main point is that you should appear as the ideal person to carry out the research you are proposing and, in fact, are already doing! Remember this is a `renewal' proposal.

Hit The Criteria! Before submitting review the criteria which are listed in the RFP. Are you hitting all of the major points? 

Local Advice. Ask local colleagues who have been funded and who often review similar proposals to read and critique yours. This will frequently remove minor (and major) flaws that may diminish the effectiveness of your proposal.