Jabberwocky Ecology

The NSF Preproposal Process: Pt 2. A promising start.

When last we left our intrepid scientists, they were starting to ponder the changes that might result from the new pre-proposal process. In general, we really like the new system because it helps reviewers focus on the value of big picture thinking and potentially reduces the overall workload of both grant writing and grant reviewing. Of course academics are generally nervous about the major shift in the proposal process (and, let’s face it, change in general). Below we’ll talk about: 1) things we like about the new process; 2) concerns that we’ve heard expressed by colleagues and our thoughts on those issues; and 3) modifications to the system that we think are worth considering.

An emphasis on big picturing thinking.  As discussed in part 1, the 4-page proposal seems to shift the focus of the reader from the details of the project to the overall goals of the study. We are excited by this. The combined pre-proposal/full proposal process – with their different strengths and weaknesses – can potentially generate a strong synergy: the pre-proposal panel assesses which proposals could yield important enough results to warrant further scrutiny and the full-proposal panel assesses whether the research plan is sound enough to yield a reasonable chance of success. In the current reality of limited funding, it seems logical to increase the probability that funds go towards research that is both conceptually important and scientifically sound. Since many of us are more comfortable critiquing work based on specific methodological issues than on ‘general interest’ having a phase in the review that helps focus on the importance of the research seems valuable. However, if reviewers still focus primarily on methodological details (as seemed to be the case on Prof-like substance’s panel) then the new system could end up putting even less emphasis on big ideas, because the 4 pages will be entirely filled up with methods. Based on our experience this wasn’t a major concern, but it is definitely a possibility that NSF needs to be aware of.

Reduced reviewer workload: This was the primary motivation for the new system. We feel like we probably spent about as much time pre-panel reading and reviewing proposals, but we enjoyed it more because it involved more thinking about big questions and looking around in the literature and less slogging through 10 pages of methodological details. More importantly, there were no ad hoc reviewers for the pre-proposals, which greatly reduces the overall reviewer burden. The full-proposals will have ad hocs, but because there are fewer of them we should all end up getting fewer requests from NSF.

Reduced grant writer workload: One common concern about the new system is that people who write a successful pre-proposal will then have to also write a 15-page proposal, thus increasing the workload to 20 pages spread across two separate submissions (pre-proposal + proposal). Folks argue that this results in more time grant writing and less time doing science. Our perspective is that while not perfect, the new system is much better than the old system where many people we knew were putting in 1-2 (or even more) 15-page proposals per deadline (i.e., 2-4 proposals/year) with only a 5-10% funding rate (vs. 20-30% for full proposals under the new system). That’s a lot more wasted effort, especially when you consider that much of the prose from the pre-proposal will presumably be used in the full proposal. As grant writers we also really liked that we didn’t need to generate dozens of pages of time consuming supplemental documents (budgets, postdoc mentoring plans, etc.) until we knew there was at least a reasonable chance of the proposal being funded. The scientific community should definitely have a discussion about how to streamline the process further to optimize the ratio of effort in proposal writing and review to quality of science being funded, but the current system is definitely a step forward in our opinion. If you’re interested in some of the mechanisms for how the PI proposal writing workload could be modified – both Prof-Like Substance and Jack’s posts contain some interesting ideas.

New investigators: Everyone, everyone, everyone is concerned about the untenured people. Given the culture among universities that grants = tenure, untenured faculty don’t have the luxury of time, and the big concern is that only having 1 deadline/year gives untenured people fewer chances to get funding before tenure decisions. Since the number of proposals NSF is funding isn’t changing, this isn’t quite as bad as it seems. However, if it takes a new investigator a couple of rounds to make it past the prepoposal stage then they may not have very many tries to figure out how to write a successful full proposal. The counterarguments are that the once-yearly deadline gives investigators more time to refine ideas, digest feedback, obtain friendly reviews from colleagues and therefore (hopefully) submit stronger proposals as a result. It also (potentially) restricts the amount of time that untenured folks spend writing grants, therefore freeing up more time to focus on scholarly publications, mentoring students, and creating strong learning environments in our classrooms, which (theoretically) also are important for tenure. We love the ideas behind the counterarguments and if things really play out that way it would be to the betterment of science, but we do worry about how this ideal fares against the grants=tenure mentality.

Collaboration: One of our big concerns (and that of others as well ) is the potential impact of the 2 proposal limit on interdisciplinary collaboration. Much of science is now highly interdisciplinary and collaborative and if team size is limited because of proposal limits this will make both justifying and accomplishing major projects more difficult. We have already run into this problem both in having former co-PIs remove themselves from existing proposals and in having to turn down potential collaborations. We have no problem with a limit on the number of lead-PI proposals, in a lot of ways we think it will help improve the balance between proposing science and actually doing it, but the limit on collaboration is a major concern.

In general, we think that the new system is a definite improvement over the old system, but there are clearly still things to be discussed and fine tuned. Possible changes to consider include:

• Find a way to allow full proposals that do well to skip the pre-proposal stage the next year. This will reduce stochasticity and frustration. These proposals could still count towards any limit on the number of proposals.
• Clearly and repeatedly communicate to the pre-proposal panels (let’s face it, faculty don’t tend to listen very well) the desired difference in emphasis between evaluating preliminary proposals and full proposals. This will help maintain the emphasis on interesting ideas and might also help alleviate the angst some panelists felt about what to do about proposals that were missing important details but not obviously flawed.
• Consider making the proposal limit on the number of proposals on which someone will be the lead PI. This still discourages excessive submissions without hurting the collaborative, interdisciplinary approach to science that we’ve all been working hard to foster.

So there it is. Our 2-part opinion piece on the new NSF-process. If you were hoping for a pre-proposal magic template, we’re sorry to disappoint, but hopefully you found a lot to think about here while you were looking for it!

UPDATE: If you were hoping for a pre-proposal magic template, checkout the nice post over at Sociobiology.

The NSF Pre-Proposal Process: Pt 1. Judging Preproposals

Before we start, this post refers to posts already written on this topic. To make sure no one gets lost, please follow the sequence of operations below:

Step 1: Do you know about the new pre-proposal process at NSF?

• If Yes: Continue to Step 2.
• If No: please read one of these posts and then proceed to Step 2.

Step 2: Have you read Jack William’s most excellent post (posted on Jacquelyn Gill’s most excellent blog) about a preproposal panelist’s perspective on the new process?

• If Yes, continue to Step 3.
• If No, go the Contemplative Mammoth, read the post and then return

Step 3: Have you read Prof-like Substance’s post about his experience on a pre-proposal panel? (What? You haven’t read Prof-Like Substance’s blog before?! Go check him out.)

• If Yes, continue to Step 4
• If No, go to The Spandrel Shop and read Prof-like Substance’s post and return.

Step 4: Read our post! Like Jack and Prof-Like Substance, we also have experience with the new pre-proposal panels. The nuts and bolts of our experiences were similar to theirs (i.e., number of proposals read, assigning pre-proposals to one of three categories, etc). The main differences are really in our perceptions of the experience and the implications for the broader field. Please remember, there were a TON of pre-proposal panels this spring in both IOS and DEB. Differences from other panelists may reflect idiosyncratic differences in panels or differences in disciplines or just different takes on the same thing – because of NSF confidentiality rules, we can’t identify anything specific about our experiences – so don’t ask. And, speaking of rules: [start legalese] all opinions expressed within this post (including our comments, but not the comments of others) reflect only the aggregated opinions of Ethan & Morgan – henceforth referred to as Weecology – and do not represent official opinions by any entity other than Morgan & Ethan (even our daughter does not claim affiliation with our opinion…though to be honest, she’s two and she disagrees with everything we say anyway). [end legalese]

1) The Importance of Big Ideas. Our perspective on what made for a successful pre-proposal jives largely with Jack’s. The scope of the question being asked was really important. The panelists had to believe that the research would be a strong and important contribution to the field as a whole – not just to a specific system or taxon. Not only did the question being proposed need to be one that would have broad relevance to the program’s mission, it needed a logical framework for accomplishing that goal. In our experience, disconnects between what you propose to address and what you’re actually doing become glaringly obvious in 4 pages.

2) Judging Methods. The limited space for methods was tricky for both reviewers and writers. Sometimes the methods are just bad – if a design is flawed in 4 pages, it’ll still be flawed in 40 pages. The challenge was how to judge proposals where nothing was obviously wrong, but important details were missing. After reviewing full-proposals where you are trying to decide whether a proposal should be funded as is, this was a rough transition to make because all the details can’t reasonably be fit into 4 pages. While the panel was cognizant of this, it is still hard to jettison old habits. Sometimes proposals were nixed because of those missing details and sometimes not. We honestly don’t have a good feel for why, but it might reflect a complex algorithm involving: a) how cool the idea was, b) the abilities of the research team – i.e. is there a PI with demonstrated experience related to the unclear area, and c) just how important did those missing details really seem to a panelist.

3) Methods vs. Ideas. Our impression is that the 4-page format seems to alter the focus of the reviewer. In 15-pages, so much of the proposal is the methods – the details of questions, designs, data collection, analyses. It’s only natural for the reader to focus on what takes up most of the proposal. In contrast, the structure of the pre-proposal really shifts the focus of the reviewer to the idea. Discussions with our fellow panelists suggest we weren’t the only ones to perceive this though it’s important to note that not everyone feels this way – Prof-Like Substance’s post and comments flesh out an alternative to our experience.

4) Reviewers spend more time thinking about your proposal. This was an interesting and unexpected outcome of the short proposals. We both spent more time reading the literature to better understand the relevance of a pre-proposal for the field, looking up techniques, cited literature, etc. There was also a general feeling that panelists were more likely to reread pre-proposals. In our experience, most panelists felt like they spent about as much time reviewing each preproposal as they would a 15-pager, but more of this time was spent reading the literature and thinking about the proposal.

In general, like Jack, we came away with a positive feeling about the ability of the panel to assess the pre-proposals. A common refrain among panelists is that we were generally surprised how well assessing a 4-page proposal actually worked. However, the differences in how a 4-pager is evaluated could have some interesting implications for the type of science funded – something we will speculate on in our next blog post (yes, this is as close as an academic blog gets to a cliff-hanger….).

NSF Pre-proposal guidelines/instructions

UPDATE: If you’re looking for the information for 2014, checkout the DEBrief post for links.

UPDATE: If you’re looking for the information for 2013, here’s an updated post.

Since I have now spent far too much time on multiple occasions trying to track down the instructions for the new pre-proposals for NSF DEB and IOS grants I’m going to post the link here under the assumptions that other folks will be looking for this information as well (and also finding it difficult to track down).

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2011/nsf11573/nsf11573.htm#prep

Happy post-holiday grant writing to all.

UPDATE 1: Also note that the Biosketches are different for the pre-proposals (changes noted in bold-italics)

Biographical Sketches (2-page limit for each) should be included for each person listed on the Personnel page. It should include the individual’s expertise as related to the proposed research, professional preparation, professional appointments, five relevant publications, five additional publications, and up to five synergistic activities. Advisors, advisees, and collaborators should not be listed on this document, but in a separate table (see below).

UPDATE 2: Though it is not explicitly clear from the link above, Current & Pending Support should NOT be included in pre-proposals (thanks to Alan Tessier for clearing this up).