Table of Contents

NSF Astronomy

For specific business related to the CAA OIR System Committee, please contact Vern Pankonin (vpankoni@nsf.gov). For specific business related to CORF meetings, contact Tom Gergely (tgergely@nsf.gov) or Glen Langston (glangsto@nsf.gov)

Funding Policies and Philosophy

Policy is to adhere to 6 AAAC principles: Best science, global coordination, open data, open access, opportunity to contribute, reciprocity.

No current limit on number or frequency of proposals, though under active discussion. Featured on AST homepage.

Generally, AST resists cutting highly-ranked proposals; preference is to fund the best science identified, rather than the most people. But the details of each proposal's budget are thoroughly examined and trimmed if appropriate to accomplish the proposed science.

Summary of other NSF division policies from Jim Ulvestad:

  1. From Physics Division, Program Solicitation 14-576: Limit on Number of Proposals per PI or Co-PI: None. However, the Physics Division strongly encourages single proposal submission for possible co-review rather than multiple submissions of proposals with slight differences to several.
  2. From Division of Materials Research, top level web page: DMR discourages the submission across DMR's program of more than one proposal from the same Principal Investigator during the DMR Annual proposal-submission window each fall.
  3. From Division of Chemistry, top level web page: CHE discourages the submission of more than one proposal from the same Principal Investigator during the proposal-submission window. Note that proposals that are a duplicate of, or substantially similar to, a proposal already under consideration by NSF from the same submitter are subject to return without review. This also applies to proposals that were previously reviewed and declined and have not been substantially revised as well as to duplicates of other proposals that were already awarded.
  4. Math also claims to discourage multiple proposals.

RFP and Proposal structure and frequency

Annual:

Selected Questions and Available Data

Data from Jim Ulvestad's June 2014 AAS Town Hall slides

General Data we need (over the last 10 years)

Dan Evans' preliminary notes on availability of data inserted [in square brackets]

Questions on nature of community support [Dan - difficult to evaluate just by looking at AAG data]

Questions on individual support [Dan - difficult to evaluate just by looking at AAG data]

Career questions

Competition Questions [Dan and Jim can provide input on these]​

Questions about Impact on People [Dan - difficult to evaluate just by looking at AAG data]​