Experiment shows eliminating deadlines dramatically reduces submissions

" [Alex Isern, the head of the surface Earth processes section] eliminated the twice-a-year deadlines for four of her grant programs, in geobiology and low-temperature geochemistry, geomorphology and land-use dynamics, hydrological sciences, and sedimentary geology and paleobiology. NSF sent out a notice about the change at the beginning of 2015, and after a 3-month proposal hiatus, the no-deadline approach began in April 2015.

The number of proposals plummeted, from 804 in 2014 to just 327 in the 11 months from April 2015 to March... So far, she says, there have been no effects on the demographics of who is applying, such as the age of the principal investigator or the type of university they are applying from. Because of a lag in decisions, she hasn’t yet measured the expected rise in success rates."

Read the full story in Science.