[Asis-l] NSF Information & Data Management program and Information Technol ogy Research initiative: proposals submission

[Zemankova, Maria]

Please note that the deadlines for submitting proposals to the Information
and Data Management Program (IDM)
http://www.interact.nsf.gov/cise/descriptions.nsf/30ff6e7ea7d05a0d8525665900
4c0237/14c06f094f16e1c1852565d900590e4e?OpenDocument and other programs in
the Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) Division
http://www.cise.nsf.gov/iis, 
and
Information Technology Research (ITR) initiative http://www.itr.nsf.gov/
are quickly approaching:

IDM/IIS deadlines:
November 16, 2002
March 1, 2003

ITR deadlines:
PRE-PROPOSALS: 
November 18, 2002: Large projects (<$15M)
        (After NSF review of pre-proposals, only PIs who are invited may
submit full proposals for Large projects. 
         NSF will return feedback to pre-proposal PIs by the week of January
27, 2003.)

PROPOSALS: 
December 12, 2002: Small projects (<$500K)
February 12, 2003: Medium projects  (<$4M)
March 24, 2003: Large projects (<$15M): Pre-proposals are mandatory and are
due by November 18, 2002.

IDM proposals will be handled by Maria Zemankova <mzemanko at nsf.gov> and the
ITR proposals in the area of "Information Management", i.e., proposals
relevant to the IDM program and other relevant programs in the IIS Division
will be handled by Bhavani Thuraisingham <bthurais at nsf.gov>.  Both of us
will also be involved in handling ITR proposals in "Scientific and
Engineering Informatics", especially bioinformatics and geoinformatics (GIS,
etc.).
Both of us can be reached at the phone number 703-292-8930.

The ITR areas "Information Management" (IM) and "Scientific and Engineering
Informatics" (SEI) are NOT defined. However, we use the term IM to describe
proposals that address more fundamental/core issues in information
technology, whereas SEI refers to proposals where the information technology
research is driven by a scientific or engineering application. The SEI
proposals very often have interdisciplinary co-PIs.

We would like to encourage you to submit innovative proposals, addressing
important and timely research problems, where the results will have broad
impacts. 
(Note that your proposal will be reviewed by the two NSF review criteria,
intellectual merit and broader impact, so make sure to address both of them
in your proposal.)

Many PIs would like to know where to submit their proposals, what the
chances are in the IDM program vs. ITR initiative, what types of proposals
are better suited for IDM or ITR. Although we cannot predict your chances of
success, we believe this would be a good strategy:

Smaller-scale (<<$500K) projects should be aimed to the IDM program.
The IDM budget is rather tight, hence it will be extremely difficult to make
awards much larger than $300K for 3 years. Projects that may require
individual attention (e.g., very interdisciplinary, hence will need to be
reviewed by a diverse body of reviewers, possibly considered by several NSF
programs, etc.) should also be directed to the IDM program, although the
budget may be higher. Any proposal will be happily accepted in the IDM
program, and hopefully 15% or more of proposals may receive an award.

Small-scale (<$500K) projects that address broader "Information Management"
or "Scientific and Engineering Informatics" should be submitted as ITR
proposals (NSF 02-168), directed to the Information and Data Management
(IDM) Program. We HOPE to receive many (100 - 200) ITR small proposals, so
that we can have several IDM-related proposal review panels and thus improve
chances of IDM-related proposals. We also hope the success rate of the
ITR-small IDM-related proposals can be around 15% or better.

Medium (<$4M) projects and Large (<$15M) projects that address broader
"Information Management" or "Scientific and Engineering Informatics" should
be submitted as ITR proposals (NSF 02-168), directed to the Information and
Intelligent Systems (IIS) Division. After selecting IIS as the primary CISE
division, you are encouraged to select the Information and Data Management
Program as the secondary organizational unit as well as other relevant
program(s) (scroll down the screen to the "Show All NSF Units" button, and
select the most appropriate program(s)). Again, we hope to have a strong
showing of IDM-related proposals, so that we have a strong presence in the
proposal review panels.

Small, Medium and Large ITR awards are an excellent chance for the IDM
community to receive support for visionary, larger-scale, often
interdisciplinary proposals. We strongly encourage you to take the advantage
of the ITR funding opportunity.

Furthermore, both the IDM and ITR projects with international collaboration
are also encouraged. However, please note that the non-US collaborators
cannot be supported by NSF, hence must have or should plan on receiving
support from their home funding agencies.

Sorry if you receive this message several times, as we are trying to use
several mailing lists in order to reach as many potential IDM and ITR PIs.
Please forward this message to other researchers in the IDM community and
pass our encouragement to submit ITR and IDM proposals.

Best wishes,

                 Maria Zemankova and Bhavani Thuraisingham
****************************************************************************

Maria Zemankova, Ph.D. <mzemanko at nsf.gov>
Program Director, Information and Data Management (IDM) 
         and
Bhavani Thuraisingham, Ph.D. <bthurais at nsf.gov>
Program Director, Data and Applications Security (DAS)
Information Technology Research (ITR)

Division of Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) 
National Science Foundation 
4201 Wilson Blvd., Room 1115 
Arlington, VA 22230 
Phone: 703-292-8930       Fax:  703-292-9073 
URL: http://www.cise.nsf.gov/iis/ 
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