Preliminary Proposal Requirement
All programs in ESIE (except Presidential Awards for Excellence in Mathematics and Science Teaching) require submission of a preliminary proposal. Preliminary proposals give NSF staff the opportunity to comment on a proposal’s responsiveness to program goals and priorities and its potential to compete successfully with other proposals in the merit review process. See the Preliminary Proposal section on page 70 for the general and program-specific submission requirements. Preliminary proposals must be postmarked on or before listed target dates for a full proposal to be eligible for submission to the next competition. PI’s should submit preliminary proposals as early as possible to ensure adequate time to consider staff reviews.
Requirements for proposal submission in response to these Guidelines are detailed in the section, ‘‘Preparation and Submission of Proposals.’’ Unless otherwise specified in this publication, proposals should follow requirements set forth in the Grant Proposal Guide (GPG) (NSF 98-2). Single copies of the GPG are available at no cost from the Forms and Publications Unit, via electronic mail at pubs@nsf.gov, or can be read and downloaded from the World Wide Web at //www.nsf.gov.
*Proposals must be postmarked on or before these dates. If a date falls on a weekend or legal holiday,
the following workday will be the effective date.
A PI may submit only one full proposal to each program per closing date. Requests for exceptions must be made directly to the program. PI’s may, however, submit multiple preliminary proposals to an individual program.
Eligible Fields and Disciplines: Proposals may be submitted for projects in any field of science, mathematics, engineering, and technology typically supported by NSF. Projects involving fundamental concepts within technical, professional, or pre-professional programs are eligible. Multi-disciplinary and interdisciplinary proposals are encouraged.
NSF does not support projects that address clinical fields such as medicine, nursing, clinical psychology, and physical education, and those that primarily involve social work, home economics, business, the arts, and the humanities. Innovative projects that link scientific and technical study with the humanities are permissible. For further information, please consult the GPG (NSF 98-2).
Eligible Institutions and Departments: Organizations with a scientific or educational mission are eligible to submit proposals. These include: colleges and universities, state and local education agencies, school districts, professional societies, museums, research laboratories, media producers, private foundations, private industry, publishers, and other public and private organizations whether for profit or not-for-profit. Proposers are strongly encouraged to involve participation from other sectors. See program descriptions for specific requirements.
Coordination with NSF Systemic Initiatives
To the extent possible, the EHR Directorate seeks coordination of program activities in the field to ensure that projects reinforce and complement each other whenever possible. Of particular interest is coordination of projects with large-scale systemic reform efforts, including, Local Systemic Change (LSC) projects [TE Program, ESIE]; Statewide Systemic Initiatives (SSI), Urban Systemic Initiatives (USI), Rural Systemic Initiatives (RSI) [Division of Educational System Reform (ESR)]; Collaboratives for Excellence in Teacher Preparation (CETP) [Division of Undergraduate Education (DUE)], and Comprehensive Partnerships for Mathematics and Science Achievement (CPMSA) [Division of Human Resource Development (HRD)]. Prior to proposal submission, prospective PI’s must consult with PI’s of relevant systemic projects if they intend to operate in the same geographic area. Proposals should ensure that this contact has been made and describe the character of anticipated interaction between the projects. If applicants feel that interaction with systemic projects is not appropriate, they must provide an explanation to that effect in their proposal. (A list of systemic initiatives is provided on page 107 of the Appendix.)