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NSF Geosciences Directorate Support for Postdoctoral Appointees
and Graduate Students: Guidelines for Principal Investigators
This document has been archived.
NSF 06-038
August 2, 2006
Dear Colleague,
The Directorate for Geosciences (GEO) seeks to highlight the importance
of providing professional development and mentoring for postdoctoral
appointees, and to remind PIs to include descriptions of these
efforts in the Broader Impacts activities of proposals. The geosciences
community recognizes that the postdoctoral experience is an important
time to develop and refine the professional skills that will maximize
the potential for postdoctoral appointees to succeed in their fields.
In recognition of these shared values and their benefits for our
community, provision of quality mentoring (or access to the appropriate
mentors) and advisement on a continuing basis to all postdocs and
to graduate students supported by NSF awards should be documented
and highlighted as “Broader Impacts” outcomes in annual
and final project reports.
GEO recognizes that many PIs and their institutions already provide
professional development opportunities for their postdocs, and
encourages all awardees – particularly those with no prior
experience as a postdoctoral supervisor - to explore the full range
of activities that contribute to a meaningful postdoctoral experience.
Several recent workshop reports, listed below, have identified
positive ways for PIs and their institutions to prepare postdocs
for their careers. These reports highlight the need to provide
formal training and structured oversight of postdoctoral career
development activities, and include resources on topics such as
broadening access, facilitating transitions into and out of the
postdoctorate, and how to enhance the development and choices of
careers.
GEO encourages all awardees, project managers, and their institutions
to provide their postdocs with access to professional activities
that provide formal or informal training in (for example): proposal
preparation; lab and project management; research ethics; verbal
and written communication; teaching; education and public outreach;
negotiating; and time management. In addition, efforts to reach
out and recruit members of underrepresented groups into postdoctoral
positions are specifically encouraged.
PIs may propose these activities to fulfill NSF’s Broader
Impacts criterion, and should document these activities in Annual
and Final Reports for the project. Measures of success include,
in addition to publications and research results, documentation
of specific activities related to professional career development
and how these activities contributed to the progress of individuals
capable of functioning as independent professionals. PIs may also
find it useful to track the career pathways of postdocs after the
appointment, in order to document successes that may have resulted
from their professional development efforts. Reports on highly
effective or innovative ways that PIs have contributed to the professional
development of postdocs are of particular interest to NSF.
Parallel efforts that foster the professional development of graduate
students, so that they may become successful future scientists,
fulfill the “Broader Impacts” criterion and also should
be documented in reports and proposals to NSF. Traditionally, PIs
have provided the names and thesis titles of graduate students
involved in their research projects in the “Results from
Prior Research Support” section of proposals, and in Annual
and Final Project Reports. Professional development activities
provided to graduate students during projects may be included in
these reports.
Explicit professional support provided to new PhDs and to graduate
students leads to professional satisfaction, productive careers,
and benefits the entire geosciences community. GEO shares these
values and greatly appreciates the contributions of our community
in working to achieve these goals.
Margaret Leinen
Assistant Director
Directorate for Geosciences
WORKSHOP REPORTS
Postdoctoral Appointments: Policies and Practices, NSF Workshop
Report (March 2005, http://www.MerrimackLLC.com/2004/postdoc-workshop.html).
Doctors Without Orders: May-June 2005 Special
Supplement to American Scientist, and Professionalizing the Postdoctoral
Experience (a
Forum, 2006) both by Geoff Davis, http://postdoc.sigmaxi.org
Recommendations for Postdoctoral Policies
and Practices. One document,
among other resources available from the National Postdoctoral
Association (http://www.nationalpostdoc.org).
OTHER RESOURCES
Enhancing the Postdoctoral Experience for Scientists and Engineers,
Committee on Science, Engineering, and Public Policy, National
Academy Press (http://www.nationalacademies.org/postdocs)
On the Cutting Edge, professional development for geoscience faculty
(http://serc.carleton.edu/NAGTWorkshops/)
DIALOG and DISCCRS Resources for early-career development (http://marcus.whitman.edu/~weilercs/resources/)
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