Transcript Grants and Writing Proposals Ken Crozier Harvard SEAS Professional Development Seminar Series

Grants and Writing Proposals
Ken Crozier
Harvard SEAS
Professional Development Seminar Series
April 6, 2009
The Micawber Principle
Charles Dickens (1858)
Mr Micawber, character
from “David Copperfield”
by Charles Dickens
The Micawber Principle
"Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
nineteen pounds nineteen and six, result happiness.
Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure
twenty pounds ought and six, result misery."
-Mr Micawber, character from “David Copperfield” by
Charles Dickens
Running a research group can be expensive !
Question:
How much does it cost a research group to buy $100
worth of supplies ?
Comments:
-Student and post-doc salaries, faculty summer
salaries, supplies, equipment, travel to conferences,
publication charges … all these (and more) must be
paid for !
A new research group is like a start-up
Challenges:
Personnel
Visibility
Well-established competitors
Funding
Outline
-Discussion of funding sources:
• National Science Foundation (NSF)
• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)
• Companies
-Writing a proposal
-The review process
The National Science Foundation
-Government agency that supports
fundamental research and education
in all the non-medical fields of
science and engineering
-Budget of $6B for 2008
Mission:
“To promote the progress of science; to advance the national
health, prosperity, and welfare; to secure the national defense”
The National Science Foundation
NSF is organized into seven directorates:
1. Biological Sciences
2. Computer and Information Science and Engineering
3. Engineering
4. Geosciences
5. Mathematical and Physical Sciences
6. Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences
7. Education and Human Resources
The National Science Foundation
Funding opportunities listed (almost 1 yr in advance) on NSF’s website
The National Science Foundation
Abstracts and funding for successful proposals listed on NSF’s website
The National Science Foundation
Some features of NSF grants:
-Emphasis on graduate student research & providing opportunities
for undergraduate participation
-Often discouraged to support postdoctoral fellows, or to buy
expensive equipment (unless program is specifically established for
this purpose)
-Principal investigator (PI) has a lot of freedom because there is
little monitoring by the Program Manager at NSF
NSF: review process
•Reviews carried out by panels of scientists selected by NSF with
particular attention to avoiding conflicts of interest.
•Proposing researcher gets to read reviews (but of course does not
know the identities of the reviewers)
•Getting an NSF grant is very competitive !
e.g. success rate in my area (photonics) is only 10-15 %
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
-Agency of Department of Defense
responsible for the development of
new technology for use by the
military
-Established in 1958 (in response to the Soviet launching of
Sputnik in 1957) with the mission of keeping U.S. military
technology ahead of the nation's enemies.
-Annual budget $3.2 billion
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Has five program offices:
-Defense Sciences Office (DSO): develops technologies into important,
radically new military capabilities
-Information Processing Techniques Office (IPTO): networking,
computing & software vital to DoD military superiority
-Microsystems Technology Office (MTO) : microchip-scale integration
of electronics, photonics, & MEMS
-Strategic Technology Office (STO) : "systems" office
-Tactical Technology Office (TTO) : "systems" approach to
aeronautic/space/ land systems & embedded processors & control.
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
Funding opportunities listed (few months in advance) on DARPA website
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
-DARPA is comprised of Program Managers
-These individuals are often professors on leave from their universities
-Program managers conceive ideas for new programs that they feel
would make a revolutionary impact upon current technology
-In order to acquaint themselves with the issues facing an area of
science or technology, Program Managers will frequently hold a
workshop to which they will invite leading experts to speak
-In response to what is revealed by the workshop, the Program
Manager may then decide to issue a call for proposals, know as a
Broad Agency Announcement (BAA)
Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
-BAA will usually outline a challenging and specific set of milestones
that the successful teams would need to accomplish
-Programs are often broken up into phases (e.g. 1 phase per year),
with a stringent set of performance requirements that must be
achieved for continued funding
-Program Managers usually monitor developments in funded
research projects closely
-Funded projects often have to make presentations to DARPA on
their progress several times per year (e.g. quarterly)
-DARPA funding can usually be used for graduate student, postdoc,
and faculty salaries, as well as capital equipment, et.c.
Industry Grants
-Usually need to have personal contact with the company
-Hard to do that if you don’t know the people!
-Most universities have a “technology transfer” office whose goal
Is to facilitate the interaction of researchers & industry
e.g. Harvard’s Office of Technology Development
-This office may help with making industry contacts
-Companies interested in supporting research for different reasons:
•Want to hire students/postdocs
•Need your expertise to help them
•PR of being associated with school such as Harvard
Writing a Winning Proposal
1. A picture is worth a thousand words
2. Make very clear:
The problem you are trying to solve
&
How you will solve it
3. Strike a balance between describing past successes & future plans:
Golden rule: 1/3 published work, 1/3 work you have done & almost
published, 1/3 work you will do
4. Quality of writing: it needs to be exciting and it needs to be clear
The Review Process
National Science Foundation:
-Review panel of “peers” (e.g. other professors)
-Each proposal read & reviewed by 3 individuals and graded
“fair/good/very good/excellent”. Generally need most reviews to
be “excellent” to stand a chance
-Proposals ranked & top ~10-15% funded
-Proposer receives reviews verbatim
DARPA:
-Review panel: Program Manager, advisors, DoD personnel
-Under previous DARPA Director, Program Manager’s decisions for
who funded had to be approved by Director
-Successful proposer receives phone call/email/fax from Program
Manager