DEB Virtual Office Hour: CAREER Solicitation

Virtual Office Hours: CAREER Solicitation 

On Monday, May 13th, 1 – 2pm ET DEB held its latest Virtual Office Hour: CAREER Solicitation. DEB Program Officers discussed the CAREER Solicitation (NSF 22-586). Upcoming DEB Virtual Office Hours are announced ahead of time on DEBrief, so we suggest you also sign up for blog notifications. 

If you couldn't make it to this or any future office hours, don’t worry! Come back to the blog afterwards, as we post recaps and the presentation slides of all office hour sessions. Alternatively, visit our Office Hours homepage for slideshows and recaps of past topics. Slides will also be made available here. 

Virtual Office Hours are on the second Monday of every month from 1 – 2pm ET. 

Upcoming Office Hours and Topics: 

May 13: CAREER Solicitation 

June 10: Merit Review and How to Get Involved with NSF 

Presentation outline

Division of Environmental Biology NSF staff in attendance today: 

• Chris Balakrishnan (host) – Systematics and Biodiversity Science
• Steve Dudgeon - Population and Community Ecology
• Carolyn Ferguson – Systematics and Biodiversity Science

Resources:

• DEB Virtual Office Hour DEB Office Hours: second Monday of each month, 1-2pm Eastern
• DEB Blog posts upcoming topics, registration, and recap posts: https://debblog.nsfbio.com/office-hours/ 
• Sign up for BIO News and Updates
• Volunteer to review DEB: https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/DEBexpertise 
• Find recent BIO funding opportunities

Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) 

NSF 24-1: Effective for proposals submitted or due on or after May 20, 2024. See the PAPPG for more information.

Check out this NSF webinar for summarizing updates to the PAPPG: https://nsfpolicyoutreach.com/2024pappg-webinar/ 

CAREER Proposals: Overview

• Supports early career faculty (e.g., pre-tenure), helps to build a foundation for a lifetime of leadership in research and education 
  • Both research and teaching plans are outlined 
  • Teaching/research integration is vitally important
• Submit to this NSF 22-586, indicate a secondary review directorate and cluster/program
  • Foundation-wide program, but reviewed by topic-specific directorate 
• Full proposal submission deadline: 24 July 2024 
• Only one proposal submitted at each competition, a total of three competitions may be entered by applicant 
  • Must be un-tenured as of the proposal submission deadline 
  • No previous CAREER award

CAREER Proposals: Structure of Your Submission 

• Contain all sections that one would see in a regular proposal: Intellectual Merit, Broader Impacts, reporting on previous support, Data Management Plan, etc. 
  • Safe and Inclusive Fieldwork Environments for off-site research NOT required upon submission 
• Has some unique aspects, such as an elaborated education plan, and a letter of support from a department chair 
  • A letter of support is not a letter of recommendation 
• No Co-PI on the cover page 
  • This does not mean that no collaborators are allowed, refer to them and their letters of collaboration
• Proposals to BIO, minimum request is $500,000

How are CAREER Proposals evaluated? 

Intellectual Merit 

• Potential to advance knowledge within/across fields
• Creative, original, potentially transformative concepts
• Well-reasoned and organized ideas and experiments
• Qualified investigators
• Access to adequate resources

Broader Impacts

• Potential to benefit society
• Promote training and education
• Enhance infrastructure resources
• Engage in outreach to the community
• Broaden participation of underrepresented groups in STEM

Integration of teaching and research plans

CAREER Proposals: Budgets...

1. Personnel salaries and wages: <2 months/yr for PI
2. Fringe benefits
3. Equipment
4. Travel
5. Participant support
   1. No indirect costs applied
   2. What goes in participant support, stays in participant support
6. Other direct costs, including materials and supplies, publications, consultant services, computer services, and subawards
7. Indirect costs are federally negotiated

Essential Documents

• Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 24-1)
• NSF 22-586: Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) Solicitation

Division of Environmental Biology (DEB)

• Ecosystem Science: Ecosystem structure and function across spatial and temporal (including paleo) scales
• Population and Community Ecology: Conceptual understanding of population ecology, species interactions and community dynamics
• Evolutionary Processes: Evolutionary dynamics and their consequences
• Systematics and Biodiversity Science: Diversity, systematics, and evolutionary history of extant/extinct organisms in natural systems

BRC-BIO Building Research Capacity of New Faculty in Biology (NSF 22-500)

• Who: Primary investigators must hold at least a 50% tenure-track (or tenure-track equivalent) position as an assistant professor (or equivalent rank), who are untenured, have both research and teaching components to their appointment, and are within the first three years of their appointment.
• What: Proposed projects should enable the establishment of research programs for new faculty to position them to apply for future grants to sustain their research and should also enrich undergraduate research experiences and thereby grow the STEM workforce.
• Where: Minority-serving institutions (MSIs), predominantly undergraduate institutions (PUIs), and other universities and colleges that are not among the nation’s most research-intensive and resourced institutions.
• When: Proposal windows are May 1 – July 1 2024