NSF CAREER Grant UPDATE Thread

[happy123]

Does anyone have an update on the status of the proposal submitted to CHE (CAT, SYN, CAS)?

[humptydumpty]

In a different program, but I hear that a lot of people in ENG have gotten either rejections or status date changes this week. If your status date is unchanged you're in good shape.

This is what I have seen too. My status and a bunch of other colleagues' in CMMI changed on Dec 22nd. Waiting for the Christmas rejection :-)

[aspiring.academic]

Does anyone have an update on the status of the proposal submitted to CHE (CAT, SYN, CAS)?

CHE has ten publicized awards for this cycle, and several are in CAS and CAT. I didn't bother searching all of them.

[deeply_uncertain]

Has anyone heard from CMMI/HDBE?

[aspiring.academic]

Has anyone heard from CMMI/HDBE?

Thus far there are 17 published awards for CMMI. I don't know how to search for a specific program within the division so you'd have to go through each award to see if any are in HDBE.

[anxiety_rising]

Has anyone heard from EAR?

[deeply_uncertain]

Has anyone heard from CMMI/HDBE?

Thus far there are 17 published awards for CMMI. I don't know how to search for a specific program within the division so you'd have to go through each award to see if any are in HDBE.

Thanks. In case anyone else is following, I checked individual awards. All of them are from either ECI or AM. 

[HunterNC]

As of 12.28, CMMI AM has posted ~10 awards for 2021. Historically, it is ~18 awards per year in AM. Feels like a pending rejection on my end.

[aspiring.academic]

Has anyone heard from EAR?

Nothing public from EAR yet for this cycle.

[anxiety_rising]

Has anyone heard from EAR?

Nothing public from EAR yet for this cycle.

Thanks for letting me know. I checked the website as well and found it strange that no awards have been made (based on timing of awards these past few years). I wonder if all the uncertainty in government funding has caused delays in award announcements. Regardless, best of luck to all and let's hope for a better year.

[aspiring.academic]

Has anyone heard from EAR?

Nothing public from EAR yet for this cycle.

Thanks for letting me know. I checked the website as well and found it strange that no awards have been made (based on timing of awards these past few years). I wonder if all the uncertainty in government funding has caused delays in award announcements. Regardless, best of luck to all and let's hope for a better year.

Unlike previous years the budget was passed as a stopgap and the House bill included a 3% increase for the NSF. The stopgap essentially directed agencies to operate at a level less than or equal to the FY20 budget, which the NSF received an additional 3% to bring its budget up to $8.3 billion. The FY21 budget increases the FY20 amount by another 3%. Basically the NSF can continue to operate at the FY20 budget and at worse, break even and at best have an additional 3%, which allows for continuous operation.

I don't see the budget being a hindrance for this year.

[ocean2428]

yes, budget won't be an issue

https://www.aip.org/fyi/federal-science-budget-tracker

Has anyone heard from EAR?

Nothing public from EAR yet for this cycle.

Thanks for letting me know. I checked the website as well and found it strange that no awards have been made (based on timing of awards these past few years). I wonder if all the uncertainty in government funding has caused delays in award announcements. Regardless, best of luck to all and let's hope for a better year.

[soccer]

even if the NSF receives a 3% increase in funding, it doesn't mean a particular program would maintain the same funding level. Within a funding agency, priorities are constantly changing. New initiatives always emerge and money has to come from somewhere. I am particularly concerned with all the pushes for quantum information science and artificial intelligence. Conventional research programs might suffer as a result. We have seen that the NSF GRFP this year has put emphases on AI/ML related topics, which means students with a proposal that doesn't have a significant AI/ML component would be at disadvantages.

[aspiring.academic]

even if the NSF receives a 3% increase in funding, it doesn't mean a particular program would maintain the same funding level. Within a funding agency, priorities are constantly changing. New initiatives always emerge and money has to come from somewhere. I am particularly concerned with all the pushes for quantum information science and artificial intelligence. Conventional research programs might suffer as a result. We have seen that the NSF GRFP this year has put emphases on AI/ML related topics, which means students with a proposal that doesn't have a significant AI/ML component would be at disadvantages.

The first part of your statement is accurate as a practical matter. It's also true that not every division has the same number of programs, and the funding of those programs varies. Also, when stopgap funding is approved, no new initiatives or major projects can begin. However, we know where the money actually goes. Each year there are charts on the NSF website which show the budget request to congress for each division and directorate in comparison to the appropriation received. It's easy to lookup the budget for CAREER proposals in CNS was $8.91M.

As a previous GRFP recipient, I was concerned about the areas of emphasis. I signed the letters asking that the priority areas be removed. Of course, the NSF did not do so and issued a statement saying other areas would not be dismissed.

As a practical matter and as a GRFP reviewer in computer science, I see that NSF did not prioritize them above any research area. In this year's orientation, the question arose about whether any application with the priority areas should receive special treatment and the PDs emphatically said no.

Of my 16 applications, I don't have a single one with any of those priority research areas. There's no box to check for my review for if the application is aligned with a priority area. Their applications are getting the same thorough review and discussion during the panel that previous high-quality applications would receive.

[soccer]

even if the NSF receives a 3% increase in funding, it doesn't mean a particular program would maintain the same funding level. Within a funding agency, priorities are constantly changing. New initiatives always emerge and money has to come from somewhere. I am particularly concerned with all the pushes for quantum information science and artificial intelligence. Conventional research programs might suffer as a result. We have seen that the NSF GRFP this year has put emphases on AI/ML related topics, which means students with a proposal that doesn't have a significant AI/ML component would be at disadvantages.

The first part of your statement is accurate as a practical matter. It's also true that not every division has the same number of programs, and the funding of those programs varies. Also, when stopgap funding is approved, no new initiatives or major projects can begin. However, we know where the money actually goes. Each year there are charts on the NSF website which show the budget request to congress for each division and directorate in comparison to the appropriation received. It's easy to lookup the budget for CAREER proposals in CNS was $8.91M.

As a previous GRFP recipient, I was concerned about the areas of emphasis. I signed the letters asking that the priority areas be removed. Of course, the NSF did not do so and issued a statement saying other areas would not be dismissed.

As a practical matter and as a GRFP reviewer in computer science, I see that NSF did not prioritize them above any research area. In this year's orientation, the question arose about whether any application with the priority areas should receive special treatment and the PDs emphatically said no.

Of my 16 applications, I don't have a single one with any of those priority research areas. There's no box to check for my review for if the application is aligned with a priority area. Their applications are getting the same thorough review and discussion during the panel that previous high-quality applications would receive.

I am not here to start a debate but i felt i might just inject some skepticism into your comments so that others on this forum do not take them as fact for granted.

first of all, we know the administration's budget request is garbage. congress appropriates money. this outgoing administration has consistently requested significantly less money for funding agencies than what congress eventually appropriated. so I don't think the budget request is indicative of how much money a specific program has now.

second, unless the program or project is a line-item in the budget request (for example, the construction of a major observatory), it would fall in the category of R&R. Only a line-item would be explicitly written in an appropriation act and therefore cannot be altered or adjusted by the funding agency. The agency has the discretion to adjust the amount of money between programs within a broad research direction that is spelled out in the appropriation act. CAREER money is clearly under R&R, and an nsf division has no obligation to stick to the requested number .

third, i don't think it is the standard practice for every nsf program to publish a breakdown of their budget request to the extent that funding levels of CAREER and regular grants are detailed.

regarding the GRFP, the concern in many fields is that within a field it is a lot easier for proposals that analyze experimental data to align with AI/ML priorities than proposals that design, develop, and build experimental apparatus. I'm also a GRFP panelist and our panel has not met yet. I don't know how this would work out in the end, but I have seen the applications and almost every one of them has some sort of machine learning component, which is very different from before.