Alright. Hello, everyone, and welcome to our webinar about Pip, 2 centers. Today we are going to be talking about the solicitation and a little bit an overview of some of the main points in the solicitation and talking about the themes that we've described in the solicitation and also about some tips on how to create a strong proposal based on the review criteria.
My name is Rebecca Farrell. I'm a program director in the social behavioral and economic Sciences directorate, where I run the Biological Anthropology program.
And I'm also a member of the Pip working group, and I think I'd like to have my colleagues just very briefly introduce themselves to, because we have representation from a lot of different parts of the Nsf so Joanna.
Hi! I'm Joanna Shisler. I'm in the Biological Sciences directorate, and I run the program on symbiosis.
Infection and immunity.
Thanks. Sheila!
Hi, I'm Julian Fang. I'm program director in the mathematical biology program, in the division of mathematical Sciences.
Thanks, Mamadou!
I'm I'm from the directorate of Engineering, and I am in the division of chemical bioengineering, environmental transport system.
And I manage the environmental engineering program. And I'm a member of the working group.
Thank you, and Goie.
Hi, everyone! I'm Goliamini. I'm an associate. Pd.
In the computer and information science and engineering size directorate and division of information and intelligence systems. I lead a program called Smart Health and participate in Pip on a sustainability program as well in size.
Thank you. So, as you all can see, we have really strong representation on the Pip working group. From many parts of Nsf.
And I think that that goes hand in hand with the goals that Pip, 2 centers has of multidisciplinary research.
This is just an informational slide. You can use the to send in questions during the webinar, and my colleagues will be looking at the and monitoring that we'll have hopefully some time for questions after I go through the slides.
If you have additional questions, or if you have something that you feel like, is a very specific question to your particular proposal, you're also free to send questions to Pip at Nsf.
Dot gov you can send them to individuals' here, but we would prefer that you use the pip at Nsf.
Dot gov alias, so that all of our inquiries are going to the same place. You can see here.
There's a list of I'm sorry a link, for if you would like to have captioning, and then we've also provided the link to the pit to Nsf.
Web, page.
Alright. So, as I mentioned earlier, we are talking today primarily about the pip to solicitation, and that solicitation has a number.
Nsf, 2, 3, 608. So if you're looking for it, you can Google this, and it should pop up as one of the first results. We're gonna start off talking about the solicitation and the themes and then some of the specific review criteria.
Alright. So this is really just a an overarching slide to give you a little bit of context, for where we are with Pip 2, the broader goal of Pip came out of the pandemic, though it is not limited to studies of covid by any means, nsf really wanted to focus some energy and efforts and and get input and research projects.
From the research communities to tackle challenges related to the prediction and prevention prevention of pandemics, and not just individual research projects, but bigger cross-disciplinary, collaborative projects that are focusing on fundamental research that we would hope could be generalizable to multiple different applications we had a phase one competition.
Where we made something around 30 planning grant awards in 2022. And now we are going on to phase 2, which is the center level competition.
That's what we're talking about today. It's important to note that you do not have to be a phase, one award recipient in order to submit something to phase 2 so you don't have to have a planning grant if you did have a planning grant you are of course welcome. To submit.
Something to phase 2. The important date here is December eighth. That's when the full proposals will be due.
It is a deadline. That means not a target date. There's no wiggle room on that.
It needs to be in by, I believe, 5 Pm. Local time on December eighth, and then, as we start through the review process of these proposals, there will be a reverse site visit level of review, and then ultimately we anticipate making somewhere between 4 and 7, awards.
Next summer, and you can see here we're looking at a 7 year award cooperative agreement award, and each one would be 15 to 18 million.
That's total costs, both direct and indirect. Across all 7 years.
Alright! Just a little bit more background on some of the main ideas that we envisioned for tiptoe and some more specific things that we wanna see included.
So again, this is about transing society's ability to forecast pandemic scale events in an effort to detect them early and hopefully prevent and or mitigate the effects of pandemics and epidemics.
These are center scales. So we really are looking for large multidisciplinary groups, teams as well as bridging that these teams are going to be bridging scientific, disciplinary geographic organizational divides and again, we're looking for innovative foundational pandemic research that's really gonna move things forward and advanced knowledge about pandemics and
how to prevent them.
We'll talk more about the themes later. But here you can note that the teams can be working across multiple organisms.
And that's especially important. Given that most epidemics and pandemics are not limited to one particular organism, and you will be needing to choose a theme again, we'll talk about that in a few slides and those 4 very briefly are pre emergence focus on data and design post pathogen dynamics and then the fourth, one is human systems.
Alright. We are also very interested in supporting diversity and education as part of these centers, and so we want to see that these centers will be building the next generation of challenge in this research area.
And we want to see true collaboration ideally beyond the members of the Center and the researchers in the center to other organizations and collaborators.
Because if you do the research, and then you don't actually connect with people who can use it, it's not going to be as effective in pandemic prevention.
Alright, so eligibility! And we've gotten a lot of questions about these at the Pip email address.
And in some of our previous webinars one proposal may come from a particular organization that may mean that there's some sort of internal discussion at your institution about who's going to get to submit that proposal.
Now, because we have the letter of intent, it means that that decision has probably already been made at your institution, and you are the person who got to submit the letter of intent.
So no one else from your institution should be submitting a full proposal. Number one because there's a limit of one per organization and number 2, because if you didn't submit 11 over 10 you're not eligible to submit the full proposal we are definitely encouraging minority.
Serving institutions, organizations in upscore states to submit proposals as the lead organization.
You don't have to be one of those, but we're encouraging we're organizations that fall into those categories to submit proposals, and we are encouraging all lead organizations to be considering how they can be including other types of organizations, including federal agencies, and other types of external stakeholders, we'll talk a little bit more about that in in
another slide about the ways that they can be involved.
The second limit of one is on the number of proposals of particular individual can be a pi or copi on.
So if you are listed as a a pi or a coppi on the cover sheet of one of these proposals, you cannot be listed on the cover sheet as a pi or coppi on any other proposals.
You can be included as a non-lead senior personnel. So if you look in the G, the Grants Guide for Nsf.
There are definitions of different categories of people that can be included in proposals, and there is a category for essentially other senior personnel who are not pis.
So you can be listed in that capacity on more than one proposal. Please note that the leadp needs to be a faculty member or equivalent at the lead organization.
Okay, so now, I'm just gonna go through some of the main pieces that are described in solicitation.
Just highlighting important points when you get to section 3 A and 3 B. And you're talking about project description and in particular intellectual merit, you need to be considering 2 main areas.
One is why this center? Why have you picked the center? Theme that you have chosen? Why have you picked the particular topic?
The grand challenge, that you have chosen to focus on. Now, if you are a phase one already, you may already have those pretty ironed out.
If you are coming in this without a phase, one award, you may have to think a little bit more about what that's going to look like, and how you're going to explain it.
But that's important. We'd like to see that kind of front and center. Because if you imagine you're a reviewer reading through this, you wanna you wanna hook them early.
And sell your ideas so that they wanna keep reading and then, of course, the description of the research plan, what exactly are you going to be doing in the center?
How is this going to advance foundational research? How are you going to be integrating across different research areas?
And how are people from different research areas going to be working together?
Okay. Secondly, the broader impact section. Now, if you go to the path, G, the grand sky for Nsf, and you look at the section that describes broader impacts.
It says that these are things that advance the benefit society, and the things that we've listed here are ones that we wanted to highlight related to the pip to center proposals.
But there are other things that you could include as broader impacts that go beyond these 3 areas so don't feel like these are the only things that you can talk about in that section that said we are very interested in education and workforce development.
As we said earlier, what's what's the center going to be doing to support a next generation of scientific and engineering talent?
What are your overall plans for increasing diversity to include the participation in the full spectrum of the first talent and stem?
And what are your plans for collaboration and knowledge? Transfer? Again, doing the research and publishing it in academic journals is important.
And one thing, but it's another to make sure that you're connecting with other stakeholders as part of the center activities.
Okay, key personnel. So of course, you need to talk about who the members of your team are. Why you have selected them.
What they bring to the table as part of your center. You need to have a center director identified. And earlier, there was some questions about the solicitation and whether the center director can be the yes, the center director can be the same person as the leadpi.
There is also a required project manager or associate director who's going to Oops. I'm sorry.
My finger touched the pad. There's also a required project, manager or associate director who's going to be responsible for logistics and day-to-day management of the center.
Again. We're not prescribing exactly how a particular research group should structure their center beyond having these 2 required points so you're gonna need to justify is a system lower.
Why, you've chosen the structure that you have, and why you chosen the people that you have you'll also wanna talk about any other key positions that are important for your center.
And about an external advisory committee. Again, one pi, and up to 4 copies. You may have additional senior personnel who are not listed as those 5 on the cover page.
There have been other questions, you know, people saying, Hey, I put this list to people in the letter of intent.
Can I change anything? Or am I stuck with what I said in the letter intent? It is not binding.
You are not stuck with what you put in the letter of intent. Ideally, you're not coming in with something that looks absolutely different from what you said in your letter of intent. But we understand that between the Loi and the full proposal deadline there may be quite a few changes in how you're structuring your center and who's involved.
Alright! So again, this is coming in from one lead institution, and the way that you can be, including some of those other stakeholders and collaborators, is through subawards consultant arrangements and letters of collaboration.
All of those different relationships are outlined in the Apache. The grand sky for Nsf.
And if there are specific questions about that, I am sure that you will ask them.
It's important to remember to work with your particular institution, because there's a lot of things that Nsf.
Delegates to institutions, including, during the proposal submission phase, so follow the grand skies.
Talk with your research office. Make sure that you know things like who can be a we don't actually tell institutions who can be a coppi?
We have more general language in the Apache. Your institution may allow a postdoc to be a coppi.
Another institution? Might not your institution may allow people who aren't affiliated with your university to be a coppi?
Other institutions may not, so those are the kinds of things where you're gonna need to check with your particular institution.
And then just a heads up. Of course this is in the solicitation. I did it again. Senior Personnel List.
S. So we are asking, as part of the solicitation for everyone to submit a separate personnel. This spreadsheet to the pip@anicef.gov email address, why do we need this?
You're you know you're already sending us your budget lines and justification that's got people in it.
Your facilities, has people in it, your cover sheet has people in it. Your collaborators list all of that.
There's people everywhere. That's exactly why we want to have all of the people that are involved in the proposal.
In one list in one place, because if we don't have that, somebody is gonna be mentioned on page 24, and you know, one line, and if we miss it, it could mean that we've created a conflict of interest problem for the review process, so we just really want you all to be attentive to making sure that you list, everybody of course if you don't know who somebody is yet you can't list them, like
to be announced Postdoc, if you know who they are, please include them, and that's really gonna help us.
As we start the review process.
Okay, I mentioned this earlier. The budget is going to be a 7 year budget, and the target total is going to be 15 to 18 million.
Again, that is, total costs that is not just direct costs, that is, that is direct plus the indirect rate that your institution charges and that's across all 7 years being submitted by a single single lead organization with subawards.
So this is not a lead non lead collaborative. We do have that mechanism in Nsf, it's not for this particular competition and just to note these will be cooperative agreements.
What that means is that Nsf is making an award to an organization. But Nsf also has a little bit more to do with the post-award activities of the center.
More oversight than of Standard grant.
Alright, and then again, of course, it's in the solicitation, but this is a list of other documents that you will be required to provide, or that you can provide as part of the supplementary documents mentioned.
The senior personnel spreadsheet. Already you may have one page in a supplementary document to list the results of prior Nsf.
Support for pis and copies. Normally, this is a deviation. So this is a deviation from the patch d.
Normally you would put this as part of your project description, but we wanted to give you as many of the 25 pages as possible for you to describe your center, and so we're letting you put some of this prior support information as a supplementary document there is a required one-page ethics.
Plan that would address things such as intellectual property and responsible and ethical conducted research data management plan, post.
Doc, mentoring plan. Those are required for all proposals as applicable for postdocs, letters of collaboration.
Please note the patchy has boilerplate language that your letters, that your collaborators should be using to provide, that they cannot be laudatory as much as you would love to have somebody say we're so happy that so and so is doing the center.
And we can't wait and and they're awesome. And it's gonna be the best science ever.
You can't let them use that load of auditory language. So our suggestion is, provide the template language that's in the path. G.
For letters of collaboration. Provide that to your collaborators just have them use that language. And then and they sign it, and then you include that as a supplementary document.
If you want to go into detail, and we would hope that you would about why those people are involved. Because the letters don't actually tell you.
They just say they will be if it's funded. Consider that you can include that information both in the project description and to some extent, if they're unfunded collaborators in the facilities and resources document.
Okay. You also have to have a letter of commitment from your dean or equivalent. That is a letter that says, yes, we know that this group is putting in this proposal.
Yes, we plan to provide support to them in terms of institutional resources that is required. Supplementary document.
And then there also needs to be an intellectual contribution and credit plan. So you know, one of the big challenges for team science is making sure that everybody has the same expectations about 100 credit and sharing and publications.
And so we're hoping to help that process by requiring that upfront.
Great shouldn't keep going, or do we wanna keep going? Okay. So we're I'm gonna keep going, and then we'll get to questions as soon as I'm done.
And I'm just taking a quick look at my watch. So we're gonna move now to talking about the 4 theme areas that are described in the solicitation.
Alright! So here they are! We're going to talk more about them in the next slides.
But just very quickly. We've got pre emergence. We have the one focusing on data AI and design.
We have universities, and we have human systems. You have to pick one of these for your proposal, Jones.
Does that mean that they're not gonna overlap with some of the other themes? Not necessarily. But you have to pick a primary theme for your proposal.
Okay. So a few disclaimers and notes before we get to talking in more detail about each theme.
The first thing is the solicitation provides some of the samples we talked a lot when we were writing this solicitation about whether and how, and if so, how many examples to include because we know that research communities solutions very carefully, at least these conceptual parts of the solicitations, they read very carefully and they sometimes think that whatever is in a solicitation is what they
have to focus on. So again, we did not include all topics, because there's no way. And also we haven't come up with everything that's possible for you.
Also come up with you. Have the creativity. You are the experts. You're welcome to focus on something that's mentioned in the solicitation.
As an example, but you can also come up with your own ideas as long as they connect to the theme that you choose.
Okay. They're broad themes that allow for multidisciplinary research. And again, yes, there will be.
There will be connections between all of the themes, even in the 4 slides that you're about to see, you'll notice that there's mention of some of the other themes on each slide.
Okay, pick one and justify why you have chosen that theme as the best center of gravity for your proposal.
Great. So now I'm going to hand it over for one slide to mama, do. And mom, and just gonna talk about pre emergence.
So thanks for your backup. So the team of Pm. Engine is estimates that you focus on on the event that if we can predict them, show us that indeed, a partition or a pandemic is pre-emerging.
So Pm, margins means really looking up really rare events in complex and dynamical system so those systems tend to be dynamic, stochastic, nonlinear multi scale.
So here, how do you really understand those systems and detect this rare event that could lead to a pandemic?
So you will need to develop AI base and machine learning computational operations that analyze multiple biological data using mathematical model, you'll have to integrate molecular environmental scale social scale.
You'll have to really look at those rare events. So that's the team of the motion.
Thank you. Rebecca.
Okay, thank you, Mamadou. And Scene 2. I'm gonna turn things over to Goie.
So for them to. It's obviously with the interdisciplinary nature of the work.
It's sort of a continuation of what Mammal was saying in a sense that what we are looking for are in areas of our areas of computing, sensing and technology and innovation.
We are looking for, as mentioned here in new ideas, to develop methods and devices for essentially data, collection and integration.
In!
Essentially grounded in advances, in wireless technologies and sensors, areas of computer software and hardware.
And then the second sort of area that is very important. And Ashma do said is the predictive area.
So we are looking for new algorithms and frameworks that basically enable data monitoring acquisition and prediction.
The newer novel prediction models. So most of the a lot of the frameworks and models are in human systems, and we want to see advancements in that area.
But also that it we envision that the information gained on changes in animal behavior and physiology will help that predictive aspect of identifying those rare events.
Now for computer in the computational algorithms of frameworks, we, you know, it obviously includes processing, analyzing and modeling data, but not just.
Integrating and collecting, but also connecting measurable with difficult or unmeasurable, which we call it information to for the purpose of forecasting and identifying pre emergence we allude to a few of these areas here, but I also want to highlight monitoring systems and sensing advancements there that will be required and and other big area would be integration and data
sharing which can be a major roadblock in developing a lot of this technology. So just to kind of sum it up, the developments and strengthen the computational methods and processes that will be important are gonna be in data collection analysis new hardware and software new algorithms but some of the challenges for the scale of this work is going to be in storage sharing curation and sort of
making sense and bringing to the table that predictive element.
Alright, thank you, Goalie. And moving on to theme 3. Joanna is gonna summarize here.
Yeah, hi, everybody. So the point of theme 3 was really to think about. You know what internal that controls.
There may be, if you think about a host organism. So some of the things that we're in the solicitation are, for example, identifying host pathogen tipping points.
So what might make a host or a pathogen what may make a host permissive in some cases, but not in others, for example, and that can be anywhere from working on a subcellular to it, to a tissue level to an organismal level, there were other ideas, that we're talking about understanding mechanisms that take the outcome of host pathogen
interactions, including disease outbreaks and we put the aspects of of molecular all the way to physiological saying that this could be something that's that's scalable from a subcellular to a whole organismal level another idea that was suggested was developing remote sensors that could track and report on pathogens or on their
hosts over time and space, and that could be, you know, things that include, for example, the presence of a pathogen in a new environment or the presence of a microbe in a host that has become pathogenic.
There was also discussion about genome sequencing that accurately predicts hosts for new pathogens, or can detect transmission and amplification.
So is there a way that we can use just the sequence to identify when a situation is going to become a pandemic or not?
And then synthesizing. Really the host response to infection that goes all the way from subcellular to organismal using mathematical and computational math models to predict infection outcomes from these events.
So once again, it's thinking more about the biology of infection.
Thanks, Joanna, alright! And finally, Team 4 is human systems. So it's very abroad, descriptor here.
Human systems, the role of human behavior activities in an environment and disease and emergence transmission response and mitigation.
So, as we knew in Pip one, and as people who do epidemic and pandemic research understand human behavior.
And human systems is intertwined with all of the other themes, and all of the other research areas.
If you're picking theme for it's probably because the human system aspect is really front and center in the questions that you're asking, perhaps, in the that you're engaging with but it certainly doesn't mean that you're limited just to the human systems and you can't look at how that's interacting with other processes such as those listed in previous slides so as it says it will need
to be interdisciplinary, and look at human cognition, behavior, I would say, or attitudes, or socio-cultural and socio-economical drivers related to disease, transmission and mitigation, really broad theme again, we just really want folks to be clear and specific about why they've chosen the particular theme that they have and and justify that in their in
their Proposal.
Okay. And then the last section. Then we'll have time for Q&A, and looks like we've got a robust set of questions already.
The review criteria. So we actually already talked in an earlier slide about intellectual, narrative and broader impacts.
Those are the standard review criteria for Nsf. Intellectual merit is really focused on advancing knowledge in a particular research area and broader impacts is about the benefit of that research.
To society. So we talked earlier about specifically how you might be writing those sections of your project description.
What we wanted to talk more about here are additional solicitation, specific criteria.
Okay. So when we have the panels and we are asking them to discuss each proposal. And they are talking about and evaluating those proposals for intellectual merit and broader impacts as part of that we are also asking them to consider is this foundational research about a grand challenge in Pip.
And is it something where there would be an advancement in theory, methods independent of a particular domain of applications?
So, in other words, if you are coming up with a center that has a super applied single goal, we wanna create this exact sensor for this particular place in the world.
For this particular disease process, unless you have contextualized that in a much broader and more generalizable way, that's probably not what we're looking for.
We are looking for center scale projects foundational research that's going to be generalizable to multiple applications.
That said, we also want to see some of those potential examples of use inspired solution, oriented outcomes.
So again, it may seem confusing, but we're basically saying it needs to be both. We need to see those.
The foundational research, the engagement with Theory Generalizable development of theory and methods and advanced knowledge.
But then, again, are there components where you're going to show how you would apply that research?
And then we're also hoping for you to talk about strategic impacts, about the next generation of talent.
So how are you supporting research and education? And how are you bringing all of the different organizations together so that it goes beyond just the people that are participants in your center?
Sorry. I'm having a little mouse problem. Okay?
So what makes the competitive proposal? The high level view of the center talked about that in an earlier slide?
If you can have a visual, a figure, something that shows, you know, arrows pointing to different things, to show connections and relationships super.
You want to hook your reader and show them. Give them a sense of what the center is going to look like.
What's the mean idea? So that they they have that contest moving forward as they read about more specific aspects of the center.
Secondly, that focus on foundational research innovation that crosses scientific and engineering fields and use inspired insights.
So just like the last slide, we want you to look at foundational research. We also want you to think about use inspired examples for that foundational research.
Okay. I'm pretty sure. Yup, this is the last slide. More characteristics for key characteristics of competitive proposals.
So already said this one. Actually, I think it's important to emphasize again, we really do want to see multidisciplinary and multi organizational teams.
So!
Does that mean that you have to have every director of Nsf. Represented in your project? No, it doesn't necessarily mean that.
But we definitely wanna see that you have gone beyond your comfort zone and really tried to identify potential collaborators and team team members and other researchers who were going to bring in additional expertise to make it a truly interdisciplinary center in addition we want to see a clear management plan that I can't stress that enough I mean panelists ultimately, get very pragmatic if you've never been
a panelist. Think about reviewing a paper and thinking about whether something is feasible or not. If a panelist is thinking about is something feasible, how are they going to know that without a very clear and compelling research and management plan so make sure that you've given the reader what they need to understand that not only have you have you thought about how to organize your center but you've already
sort of outlined it enough to be able to describe it in the proposal. Alright, and with that we are going to move on to a section, and because my voice is failing me today, I am going to pass things back over to Joanna tomorrow.
Thank you.
Yeah, thank you. There were, I noticed, that there were a couple of questions on the budget, and so I'd like everybody to just be aware that things are a little different with this budget.
And that's on page 15 of the funding announcement, if you look at Budget and budget justification, there's a couple things I want you to be aware of.
First we're asking you for budgets that are going for 7 years, and the longest that you can do in our normal Nsf system is 5 years.
So what you'll need to do. It has instructions for basically, what you'll have to do is submit your proposal and then use the proposal.
File update feature to enter the proposal budget for the sixth and seventh year. So this brings up a point that I wanted.
This raises a point that I wanna make which is, please submit your proposals, at least a week before the deadline, because there will be these little things like the budget and budget justification for years 6 and 7.
That will need to be tweaked, and it's a little different from a normal proposal.
The other thing for the budget is is that we're asking you to think about handling and managing your budget and making your budget into 3 different phases.
What we call an acceleration phase a steady state phase, and then a wrap-up phase.
And we're asking you to kind of allocate your budgets according to those as well. So please take a look at that.
And the reason for this acceleration, steady state, and then ramp up is that as you're wrapping up in your 6 and 7 for Nsf.
Funding, we're fully expecting that you will have funding from other sources coming on board, perhaps through collaborations with industry or other types of grant opportunities that you've gotten that even though the Nsf funding is starting to taper down you'll have other funds that taper up so I hope that helped answer some of the questions that we had about the
budget. Please also note that funding for phase 2. That steady state, level or phase, 3.
That ramping down level is contingent upon a successful site visit during years 2 and 5. So just keep that in mind as well.
Is there anybody? So I think we wanted? We had a couple of other questions as well that I'm gonna see if any of the program directors feel comfortable asking, or are there any that you anything that the program directors wanna go ahead and ask?
Or answer that they they feel comfortable answering right now.
Oh, John, there was a question. First question about how does Nsf divine define large team? We don't specify the size of the team. You have to demonstrate that you have a center with all the different component to achieve your goal and that itself will define the size of your team and then how you allocate your resources.
Okay. Thank you. The question on that. The next question after that is, are there limits on the size of Subaawards, and not to my knowledge?
You need to follow the pappg.
There's another question. Can you expand on the level or percentage of research versus other center scale activities, such as education or outreach?
That is expected.
And I mean I'll put in my own 2 cents first, which is, there is no magic number here but what we're looking for is because this is Nsf.
We will. You know your proposal will be reviewed both, for intellectual merit and for broader impacts and for solicitation.
Specific criteria. And so you need to make sure that you really address those and that you have a rationale for those, and that your time and your budget is commitment and matches up with the matches up with what you're proposing to do is anybody else wanna have any other comments other than that.
Yeah, just make sure that, like you wanna say you address all of that. There is no intellectual merit.
Paths. You cannot just say I'm gonna focus on the intellectual merit. You have to address everything.
Yeah, yeah, a couple of people have asked, how many Lois we've received, and I'm not sure we're really allowed to tell you that that's confidential.
So sorry. There's a question about. Do we have any methods for encouraging larger group formation out of individual teams?
Nsf does not what I'd like to say is that there is an entire group of researchers who think deeply about the science of team science and team building.
And so I would encourage you to do some reading and do some outreach to talk to those people.
There was a few questions about international collaborators and funding, and all of that, and I know that we've been getting a lot of questions in our inbox about that as well.
And we have them in our I just wanted to highlight that international collaborations are allowed.
And if it's like with an institute or an academic setting, it would have to be well justified.
But I really wanted to kind of give opportunity to other Pds to to kind of add more context to this and stuff cause we keep seeing it pop up.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean, I just add, add to what Goalie said is about justifying. So Nsf generally doesn't support non-us institutions.
However the does describe situations where, if you have an international collaborator, an organization, or an individual where there's something unique about their expertise, their connection to resources, something else that is necessary for your project, then you can include them and you can talk about that does that mean that you will get everything that you ask for should your proposal, move forward, not necessarily but you can certainly ask for support.
Of even international sub words. If they are justified as being truly necessary. The project couldn't happen without them.
Okay. Alright!
Along those lines. There was a question about a Federal collaborator eligible to receive stop award funds.
Do you wanna take that Joanna or Rebecca?
Right, I wasn't looking at that one so hold on, let me find it up. It says Federal agencies and federally funded Research and development centers can only participate as subawardees.
Is that? What is that? The language that you are looking for?
Yeah. And are they edible to receive funds?
Yes, they can participate as subaorties.
Speaking of subaward use, there's a confusion that I think is not unique to pip about.
Limitations on pis and copies, and then senior personnel. And then how many subawardees there can be?
So I think over here. We don't have a limit for senior personnel, either, and I think the fact that we have a limit.
No, I'm so sorry the limit that we have for cops and Ps. Doesn't mean that limits our subaward is to 4.
Does it?
No, I don't think so. Yeah.
No right. That's what I wanted to just make sure we clarify that it's not just those main institutes that come in that can get subawards.
Yes. Yes. Yeah. Yep.
But the institutes of the some of the senior personnel can also guess other words, so did not that yet?
Hong. I know that you had a question about Cloud Bank, and I'm not familiar with that. So Hong, could you please email pip@nsf.com, and we will get to answering your question about that.
Okay, sorry about that. There's another question asking, are you expecting the research plan to be organized into research thrust and used cases?
There's no expectation for how a proposal must be organized by Nsf. The only important things are that you wanna look at how we are, how we, how we value intellectual merit.
Broader impacts and solicitation specific criteria for this funding opportunity. And you wanna make sure that your proposal has that.
Boy! There's a lot of. There's some detailed questions here where I'm trying to get through them to see what we can answer.
There was a couple of there are a couple of comments around voluntary committed cost. Sharing is not allowed, so that is something that's not allowed.
So I'm not sure what exactly you are asking for that. So if you want to put in a follow-up question, we can try to address it.
Joanna. I see a question about. Should the letters of commitment use the same template as the letters of collaboration we didn't cover that, did we?
We did not you wanna slack him?
I didn't miss it. Yeah, no, these are not the same thing. So the letters of collaboration are for people that may or may not receive any funding off of the center.
They may be unfended or funded. Collaborators, and they're providing this template language.
That's in the pad. G, specifically for collaborators. The letter of commitment is being written by your Dean or other person like your Dean to say yes. As the lead organization, we are supportive and will continue to be supportive of the center should it be ordered.
I'm really glad that you said that, so that people understand the difference between the letter of a commitment versus letter of collaboration.
So that was a great question, and I'm glad you brought that up.
And you just answer one of the question that's saying that, can the letter of commitment come from someone higher down?
The Dean, such as the University of Vice President for research. So the answer is, yes.
Hey? I'm gonna get rid of those questions real quick. Then.
Joanna, can we go back?
So maybe you're Duran, do you wanna take? They're asking us, do we have a definition of foundational research versus use inspired research?
That's a good question. I don't think Nsf has. I mean, I think there's somebody want to help me out here, because I just think I think you're thinking too deeply about this.
I think of use, inspired research as a definition that's used not only by Nsf.
But by other 100 agencies and organizations. So I'm not sure that there is an Nsf-specific definition, and I'm not sure if that's what you're looking for.
You know I mean, I don't think days. Nsf. Definition for it, but in many Nsf.
Solicitation, you get a description of, like the use inired research is like you wanna address a fundamental problem and then build the research around it.
And then sometime curiosity. You know they use the word curiosity. Driven research versus use inspire right?
Yeah.
So then, in driven research, you just look up a fundamental research question. And then sometime, that fundamental question can lead to use inspired.
But the foundational piece is could be related to box. So use inspired research is, we expect it to be foundational.
You understand? We don't expect application right? We don't fund really quote unquote applications. So anybody else wanna comment.
Yeah, I have a good example for this, because, as I mentioned the program that I'm on is smart health, which is a use inspired research program.
And the way we kind of try to. And that's a computer science based program. But it applies here as well because of the sort of basic research aspect of it where we tried the way we tried to explain it is if Louis Pasteur was a computer scientist, if you were trying to answer health questions with computer science what advancement in computer science would you make to answer those questions.
So they're used inspired. There are sort of the broader impact is pandemics or health or solving societal problem. But the advancement itself isn't basic research. So it's used inspired.
But the advancement they !
That's well put, Rebecca. I noticed that there's a question about the human systems themes where I'm hoping that you can take it says, I know there seems to be some nuances around the human systems theme specifically, could you expand a bit more on the challenges or considerations associated with this theme I ask so that we can better frame our approach so just that make any.
Okay.
I'm not really sure what nuances. Maybe the maybe the person could clarify that question.
Okay. Alright!
Okay.
I think by what I said was that it's a broad theme that was really what I was trying to get at, and that whereas if you're if you're doing host pathogen is the main thing, and you're focused in on the non-human system, that maybe human systems isn't gonna be the main thing that you're talking, about, whereas.
Human systems as the theme should really be focused in on human behavior. The human parts of the system. No, that doesn't probably help.
Yeah.
If that person wants to put more clarifying questions, please do.
Okay.
So there is the standard question about the 2 month limit, regular salary that might not apply to.
You know all the institutions. What's the I'm sure?
I thought, let me find that I saw that and it was a good one, so you know, traditionally, Nsf says it a 2 month limit, because we think about researchers who have 9 month appointments.
But that's that's but we know that there are exceptions to the rules. So we know there are people who are on 12 month appointments.
We know there are people who are soft money. And so if you need more funding for what you're doing for your salary than 2 months, because you're doing much more than just 2 months worth 2 summer salary months worth of effort, then that's fine just you need to be sure that you putting the rationale for that in the budget justification.
There was a question about. Would it be possible to have more guidance and details on the request for applicants to expand the geographic scope of the proposals globally across the Us.
Any geographic area of priority. So you know, we're we're hoping that that will have centers that have diversity built into them.
And that means not only diversity of scientific topics, but that also means diversity in terms of geographic area.
And in terms of types of institutions. So you know, like we don't want a situation where we have all our awardees be at, you know, 1 one state, for example.
So I hope that helps give some. Give some insights into how we're thinking.
There's a question about if the focus on health care settings is fair game, if otherwise, in line with the program directive objectives.
And the answer is, if you can put in a rationale or justification for how using healthcare settings or facilities are important for understanding that transition from infection to outbreak, to you know epidemic to pandemic then of course, you can do that the other thing I wanna say is that we're interested in pandemics writ large that
doesn't necessarily mean that it even has to be a human pathogen. If there are pathogens for plants or for other animals than those are fair game. What we want to hear about is a system that can really help us about the principles of predicting pandemics.
There's a question about cause supplementer, or essentially additional support or complementary support for the centers.
So, if people are being funded for the center, can they get institutional support or other support to supplement this?
Is that allowed or not? And I wanted to see if we wanna talk anything about this if you wanted to talk about the sustainability of these centers and sort of how envision we envisioned the funding.
That may be helpful, for for questions like this.
Okay, did you wanna go ahead and say a little bit more.
Oh, the conversation we've had before, and correct me if I kind of drop the ball anywhere. Is that what we envision these centers to be is a live and active and productive way beyond the lifetime of the work.
So what we wanna see is essentially these centers to be stood up to be managed? Well, to be built, to last for a long time and contribute overall to the problem of pandemics and all these different areas for a long long time.
And for that it's gonna the number of years is limited for the Nsf funding and the way that it's being out, the funding is being out transferred to the centers.
So we env complementary, supplementary other awards, other grants or resources for funding will come in, especially as the projects start picking up as the centers are picking up to kind of guarantee.
The longevity of it. So that's a very long way of saying yes.
There's a question about. Do you recommend engaging in external evaluator? And if you go look in the solicitation, there is actually hold on.
Let me find it here.
3, e. External advisory Committee described plans for an external advisory committee, including the range of expertise and responsibilities necessary for its efficient and effective function.
So you don't need to list the name of any potential members. Just description of how the Center willing engage with this external advisory committee so I'm not sure if you're talking about when you say external evaluator, if you're talking about somebody to read your grant before you submit it which is always a good idea.
Or this external Advisory Committee, which is something that is definitely within the solicitation that you'll need to write about.
Good. I go back to the voluntary committed cost, sharing questions.
So there's there's a question there about how can the Dean be providing a letter of commitment that says we're gonna support the center. And how is that?
Not voluntary committed cost, sharing. So it's there. There is voluntary, uncommitted cost sharing, which is essentially you can talk about other sources of support that you have that are not contingent on this proposal in this case.
I think this is a little bit of an exception, because the Dean is saying, listen, here's what we're putting in as what we're asking for from Nsf.
We you know the faculty, have put in this number of calendar months of effort, and you know, there's gonna be a postdoc here, and I think what it's really just asking for is that the Dean is gonna honor those time commitments that are going to be supported by nsf so it's not really cost sharing because still gonna be something that's asked for from
nsf and supported by Msf it's really just to make sure that that the institution doesn't change things around in a way that's going to compromise the functioning of the center, either through taking people off and not having enough you know employee time on it or some other types of resources that are no longer available in general what voluntary committed cost sharing means would be like
a letter that says, you know I'm so and so at the university, and if the pis get this proposal, then we're going to give them a hundred $1,000 toward the project.
You can't. You can't have a contingent statement like that. But if, as part of your facilities and resources, page, you say also, we have existing support for some of the things in this project from you know, XY or Z and they're already in place, and that support is there whether or not this proposal happens that's not volunteering committed cost sharing.
Okay.
Hopefully. That's helpful. You should really, work with your sponsored research offices on what those definitions are, and if they don't know, they can ask us.
And if we don't know, we can ask division of grants and agreements to help us with that.
We are at 301 I just noticed.
Yeah.
We still have some questions here.
Let's see, we can get through these.
Okay, so there's a question about international collaborators. Are there any budget restrictions? And there's another similar one about.
I think the only thing I'll say with budget restrictions is that Nsf usually does not want to pay for the salary of somebody who's working at another institution for another country.
Is that fair? Is that a good way of putting it?
And there's another question about, is it okay for the center to use money to support international visiting scholars Sabbatical faculty, postdoc or graduate students for short term visit and collaborative work in the center.
I think we're gonna have to go back and look at the Ppg. For that. I know that.
Nsf. Will support the travel of Us. Citizens or Us. Awardees to other countries.
But I'm not sure that same is true. Vice versa. So please email us. And we can find out the answer for you on that.
So along those lines there was a question saying that our all collaborators expected to be subordinates. The answer not necessarily.
You can have what's called unfunded collaborators, and those whatever they are providing. You can describe it, you know, in the project description as well as in the facilities, and they also have to have that standard letter of collaboration that was mentioned using the language from the.
Thanks. There's a question from Denise Wright on what page of the solicitation can I find?
The 4 Copi limit. I'm not sure that is specifically spelled out in the solicitation.
But if you go to the cover, page for the Nsf. Grant proposal, you'll see that there are only 4 spaces for copies.
And so that's where we came up with that number. So you'll see 5 spaces, one for the pi, and 4 for the copis.
I might have had to, I might not have. Yeah, sorry about that. Does Nsf have a salary cap?
I do not know this email. us@atnsf.gov.
How can we demonstrate the case? That supplementary and complementary funding will be coming in, especially in the later years?
I don't think you're going to be able to demonstrate that when you're just writing this proposal so but what you you know, if it were me, what I would do is give examples of the types of funding opportunities that we might go after in years 5 6 and 7 knowing what the current granting landscape is now that's the best way.
You can handle it.
Yeah, I mean, some of the existing teams are already, you know, submitting reports, and we are already, even in some of those reports we are starting to see sort of like where this can go, and who are some of the future partners, and where funding.
Could so like. Joanna said I would agree like right now you could just say where you think you could come from similar to some of the things we've seen so far.
Yeah, just to add in product, this is part of your overall systemability plan. You might want to show the review of that.
After Nsf funding, you build an organization that actually can survive. So that's you know, that's sometime the best place to actually bring those in.
We only have a few questions. What could the role be? Roles of subawardies be if they are not copi?
So an example might be is if you, if you need a certain technology that that a pi has at another institution and they don't really get to the level of Coppi, because you only need them to do one small thing that could be an example of a subordy where you want to be able to give them funds to support the certain type, of technology, that you need for example.
Even season senior personnel can receive salary, because they can only pull the 4 copi there right?
You have a more institutions involved. You may have people in the senior as a senior personnel.
Yeah.
I realize it's 305. Would you all like to finish answering these questions, or would it be better to tell everybody if they have any other questions to email us?
At pip@nsf.gov. And to remember that we also emailed them some times for additional virtual office hours.
That will be coming up where they can come and continue to interact with us.
I would personally prefer to kind of wrap things up, because some people that may not have but only been available up to 3 may not get the answer to the questions, so I'm supporting that.
Okay.
And then, of course, they can email us and see us more, one on one in the office hours.
Thank you.
Okay, well, we thank everybody for coming and keep your emails coming to us at Pip at Nsf. Dot.
Gov. We try to answer them. Within 3 business days we'll have a couple of virtual office hours in October, and thanks everyone, and we'll see you soon.
Thank you. Everyone.
Bye!