Re: [ECOLOG-L] new HR bill requires NSF funders to justify funding
Dear Leslie, Agreed on all points. But poor procedures can make the bad situation caused by flat budgets substantially worse. I very much hope that the report on the questionnaire doesn't wind up being a defense of a one-cycle-per-year format. Such a stance would, in my opinion, meet a widespread negative reaction from the DEB scientific community. Cheers, Tom Thomas J. Givnish Henry Allan Gleason Professor of Botany University of Wisconsin givn...@wisc.edu http://botany.wisc.edu/givnish/Givnish/Welcome.html On 11/20/13, Rissler, Leslie wrote: 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.edumailto:riss...@as.ua.edu(javascript:main.compose() www.ljrissler.org On Nov 20, 2013, at 10:34 AM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.orgmailto:malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org(javascript:main.compose() 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.edumailto:givn...@facstaff.wisc.edu(javascript:main.compose() 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
Re: [ECOLOG-L] new HR bill requires NSF funders to justify funding
Yes, and Leslie is right in that NSF does not set the negotiated rates. Current government policy requires them to pay negotiated indirect rates on grants. However, it is possible although very unlikely to happen, for NSF or other grant agencies to go through the system of requests to change that policy in order to save money. It is not unusual for an organization to refuse to pay indirects, salaries, or fringe benefits. This is something that COULD be done, but it is neither easy, nor do I think it is a widespread desire. heck, I like knowing that when my proposals are funded, it also contributed to student salaries and helping fund the school. But, it would be a lot neater to have that extra money to fund more students!!! :) On Wed, Nov 20, 2013 at 5:16 PM, Thomas J. Givnish givn...@facstaff.wisc.edu wrote: Dear Leslie, Agreed on all points. But poor procedures can make the bad situation caused by flat budgets substantially worse. I very much hope that the report on the questionnaire doesn't wind up being a defense of a one-cycle-per-year format. Such a stance would, in my opinion, meet a widespread negative reaction from the DEB scientific community. Cheers, Tom Thomas J. Givnish Henry Allan Gleason Professor of Botany University of Wisconsin givn...@wisc.edu http://botany.wisc.edu/givnish/Givnish/Welcome.html On 11/20/13, Rissler, Leslie wrote: 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.edumailto:riss...@as.ua.edu(javascript:main.compose() www.ljrissler.org On Nov 20, 2013, at 10:34 AM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.orgmailto:malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.org(javascript:main.compose() 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
Re: [ECOLOG-L] new HR bill requires NSF funders to justify funding
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://news.sciencemag.org/education/2013/11/republican-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://books.google.com/books?id=xm2mIAAJprintsec=frontcover#v=onepageqf=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
Re: [ECOLOG-L] new HR bill requires NSF funders to justify funding
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 http://botany.wisc.edu/givnish/Givnish/Welcome.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://news.sciencemag.org/education/2013/11/republican-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
Re: [ECOLOG-L] new HR bill requires NSF funders to justify funding
Excellent proposal Givnish.
MacCallum, I was not intending to disagree with your comments. In fact, I
stated that I agreed. I just thought all related information should be
considered before declaring the grants system a total bust. It does result in
good science, it just interferes with a lot of other good science getting done.
David McNeely
Thomas J. Givnish 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
http://botany.wisc.edu/givnish/Givnish/Welcome.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,
[ECOLOG-L] [SUSPICIOUS MESSAGE] [POTENTIAL JUNK MAIL] Re: [ECOLOG-L] new HR bill requires NSF funders to justify funding
-- 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 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 http://secure-web.cisco.com/auth=11gZHa535JwsQxbwSEr6k4Z7lhNe_turl=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
Re: [ECOLOG-L] new HR bill requires NSF funders to justify funding
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.edumailto:riss...@as.ua.edu www.ljrissler.org On Nov 20, 2013, at 10:34 AM, malcolm McCallum malcolm.mccal...@herpconbio.orgmailto: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.edumailto: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
