NSF Processes, Budgets and Highlights

Allen L. SoysterFebruary 2, 2010

Outline• PI Environment• New Initiatives/Existing Programs• “Coin of the Realm”• EEC Highlights/New Website• Major Issue• New EEC 2009 Policy• Partnerships

Outline

Major Theme

NSF Principal Investigator

Partnerships

Post Award Culture and Constituents for NSF PIs

• Department/College• Journal Editors• Graduate Students• Professional Societies• Teachers/School Districts• NSF

(Where does NSF rank here?)

NSF Budgeting and Planning

• Budgets are planned two years ahead (2012)• Revenues and Costs (?)• EEC Budget – 125 million (2010)• Organization of EEC

CentersHuman ResourcesEducation

• How Do Changes Happen?

Observations1) Engineering is one of Several Directorates

2) NSF submits one overall Budget(facilitated by OMB)

3) Important Leaders NSF Director Eng AD EEC Division Director Program Officers

4) Factors Contemporary Priorities (Nation) Special Studies (Organizations) Proposal pressure (PI Community) Successes (PI Community)

CA

TX

EEC Web-Site Under Construction

REU Site: Safe PassagesMontana State University, PI Jerry Stephens

• The Safe Passages REU program hosted by the Western Transportation Institute at Montana State University researched the complex issue of simultaneously providing for safe passage of humans, wildlife, and aquatic organisms through rural transportation corridors that follows pristine mountain waterways and traverses part of Yellowstone National Park.

Priority Number 1

CA

TX

NUE: K-14 Nanoscale Outreach at North Carolina A&T

North Carolina A&T, PI Devdas Pai• NCAT enjoys the distinction of being the nation's leading producer of

African-American engineers.

• The NUE Team at North Carolina is introducing nanoscience and engineering concepts to a broad base of engineering students with an eye to their practical applications in systems and devices in order to help meet the demands of the future.

TX

iGEM Jamboree Grows Rapidly as SynBERC Home Teams Win Medals

University of California-Berkeley Synthetic Biology ERC PI Jay Keasling

• The International Genetically Modified Machines (iGEM) competition is an experiential learning program that brings together teams of high school, undergraduate, and graduate students from around the world to learn over the course of a summer how to build biological systems from standard, interchangeable parts.

• At the end of the summer each team travels to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to interact with other teams and share their results in a juried competition at the iGEM Jamboree. The NSF-funded Synthetic Biology Engineering Research Center (SynBERC), based at the University of California at Berkeley (UC Berkeley), is a key supporter of the iGEM Jamboree financially, and in terms of leadership and assessment of the program. (The director of iGEM, MIT professor Randy Rettberg, is a SynBERC researcher.)

TX

RET: Chicago Science Teacher Research ProgramUniversity of Illinois at Chicago, PI Andreas Linninger

• The Chicago Science Teacher Research (CSTR) program is an initiative by the faculty at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) in a strategic partnership with the Chicago Public School authorities and industrial interest groups to immerse in-service teachers in emerging technologies and cutting edge research in the areas of bioengineering and nanotechnology, as well as chemistry and the environment.

• The project's focus was on the teaching philosophy of learning by doing. The immersion of teachers in the laboratory with undergraduates was aimed at enriching the teacher's personal experience by participating in the research lab routine to better equip teachers with the kind of attitudes and memories necessary for training students for math and science applications

TX

Design SquadWGBH Educational Foundation, PI Kate Taylor

• Design Squad is a PBS reality competition series-with an accompanying outreach campaign and Web site designed to inspire a new generation of engineers.

• Over 10 weeks, six high school and college-aged kids learn to think smart, build fast, and contend with a wild array of engineering challenges-all for real-life clients. Targeted to 9- to 12-year-olds, and fun for people of all ages, this fast-paced TV series is the fuel behind a national, multimedia initiative designed to attract kids to engineering.

Leah and Kim put the final touches on kayaks for King Island Alaskan Aleutian Natives.

EEC and Your Career

Visibility for your project with

NSF

(Complementary to your Publications and Outreach)

Business Side of EEC

(1) How many 2009 Proposals418 518 618 718 818

(2) How many active awards in EEC?277 377 477 577 677

(3) How many 2009/2010 Highlights in EEC?61 91 121 151 181

Participation

13%

EEC Award Letters (2009 and Forward)

To assist NSF in evaluating the Engineering Education and Centers (EEC) Division programs and meeting the reporting requirements of the Government Performance and Results Act of 1993, the PI must also respond annually to the request for information about projects outcomes. These include research results, characteristics of students and educators that have been affected by the projects, the project’s impact on workforce needs, awards and other measures of the quality of the project’s products and activities, including project “highlights.” NSF will provide guidelines for the collection and reporting of data and project information.

EEC Follow-up Policy

• EEC will maintain database on Compliance

• Non-compliance letter will be sent to institution

• But, we are really on your side….

NSF and EEC PIs