Tuesday, January 30, 2007
Resilience Project White Paper
(Response to note from The
Speaker’s Office [376] )
(Response ŕ to [376] )
Starting the Discussion with the National Science Foundation
About the proposed Resilience Project
Hi, Folks!
As I look over the reply from IIS/NSF, which you posted, and your
reply to the reply...
I have the impression that there has been a bit of
misunderstanding. Please forgive if I make a crude effort to say it in plain
English, in my personal unofficial view.
I do like to believe I understand NSF-speak better than most.
Hirsh's letter to you looks very positive and supportive in
intent. I am worried that your reply was unnecessarily defensive, and may have
weakened whatever degree of opportunity was there.
Hirsh is a DD, a Division Director. I would guess we have about 50
DDs at NSF. The DDs do have a right of
veto over any award we recommend, and they have been choosing to exercise that
right more than they did five years ago, on the whole, so far as I can tell. In
any case, when the PDs go to him, it is not a case of micromanagement. Accusing
him of that does not help.
You did use the word "proposal" in your email. It is
entirely natural that an NSF PD or DD, seeing someone write here about a
"proposal," would ask whether you have an interest in funding. Looking
at your original letter to him, and considering my own experience, it is not at
all unreasonable that he was trying to respond to your possible interest. When he
proposes to set up a meeting to discuss what you would like to be funded for,
that's about as positive and as welcoming as it gets. Did you really mean to
reject such an offer?
If so... a better response might have been... "Golly, thanks
much for offering to discuss funding us, but I didn't mean to be so
presumptuous... it's awfully nice of you, but all we really would like is a bit
of your PDs time, to have a joint discussion which we would like to arrange on
the larger picture... at the substantive technical level..."
But hosting a big meeting does take money from someone, and you
are more likely to get buy-in if the
relevant NSF people have at least some stake in it.
--------------
Actually, I do not know the exact rules on workshop support in
CISE (where IIS is) these days. Historically, some directorates have required
external review and competition for all workshop proposals (which subjects them
to the usual 85% declination rate!), and others have not. There are new NSF-wide
rules prohibiting ANY Directorate from funding workshops at $50,000 or above
without peer review, but I believe that policies still vary below that, and so
on.
Of course, where peer review is not required, support is still far
from automatic. There is almost always
some discussion involved before any workshop proposal is supported, and an
invitation to discussion before the entire division is an important milestone.
------------------
Best of luck,
Paul W.
P.S. Unofficial, tentative, preliminary views -- and I did not
discuss any of this with anyone else at NSF, let alone CISE. No one should infer from this that I have any
kind of position for or against the funding of the workshop you may set up. I
just think that things work better if people understand each other better.
Note sent January 29th ŕ [382]
January 30th reply from NSF ŕ [383]