What NOT to do on your proposal!

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published an amusing but informative article, written by seven experienced review panelists, entitled, "How to Fail at Grant Writing". Some examples:

"Don't explicitly state any goals, objectives, or hypotheses in your grant proposal. A good panelist will be able to figure out your questions from the methods."

"Make it obvious that you have cut and pasted sections from your other grants into this new proposal. Don't worry if the formatting does not match or there are sentences and sections from the old proposals that have no bearing on this one. Reviewers are impressed by people who are too busy to proofread."

NSF adds data management plan requirement

Any proposal to the National Science Foundation that is due on or after January 18, 2011, must include a supplementary document entitled, "Data Management Plan," which will demonstrate how the proposal will conform to the NSF's policy on dissemination and sharing of research results. For more information, see this section of the Grant Proposal Guidelines.

NIH may form new institute for addiction research

The National Institutes of Health has made a recommendation to Dr. Francis Collins, the Director, that all substance use, abuse and addiction research be concentrated under one, new institution, rather than spread out among the National Institutes of Drug Abuse, of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and various other programs within additional institutions under the NIH. A task force has been put together to look into this possibility; in the meantime all substance research will continue as is.

Vannevar Bush Award

The National Science Board invites nominations for the 2011 Vannevar Bush Award, which honors "lifelong leaders in science and technology who have made substantial contributions to the welfare of the Nation." Vannevar Bush was responsible for the creation of the National Science Foundation in 1950.

Details of the award's eligibility requirements and instructions for nominations, due November 3rd at midnight, can be found here.

Judge halts expansion of federal stem cell research with court order

On Monday, August 23, Chief Judge Royce C. Lamberth of Federal District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that President Obama’s 2009 executive order expanding embryonic stem cell research violates a ban on federal money being used to destroy embryos. The National Institutes of Health issued this notice: "NIH is not accepting submissions of information about human embryonic stem cell lines for NIH review. All review of human embryonic stem cell lines under the NIH Guidelines is suspended. The February 23, 2010, proposal to revise the Guidelines is also suspended." Stem cell research can still be carried out using private funds.

For more information, visit the New York Times for the full article.

NSF requests white papers for future research topic ideas

The National Science Foundation's Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences directorate is requesting white papers from the NSF community "outlining grand challenge questions that are both foundational and transformative" to help guide the directorate's future research direction. White papers are limited to 2,000 words and must arrive by September 30. Please see the full Dear Colleague letter here: NSF 10-069.

NIH to eliminate error correction windows

The National Institutes of Health, starting on January 25, 2011, will no longer allow for error correction after the due date once the application has successfully entered the eRA Commons system. The error correction window was instituted in 2005 when the Grants.gov system was new, to facilitate the transition from paper to electronic application procedures. The elimination of the correction window will bring the NIH in line with other sponsors such as the National Science Foundation and other federal agencies. For more information, please visit Notice OD-10-23.