research opportunities update dr. max bernstein smd lead for research
TRANSCRIPT
Research Opportunities update
Dr. Max Bernstein SMD Lead for Research
ROSES-2015
Agenda
• What’s new in ROSES-2015• Especially Data Management Plans• But also other things• Including ruminations on relevance• What’s new in the guidebook for proposers
Part 1: What’s New in ROSES-2015• The NASA Plan for increasing access to results of
Federally funded research tells us that we must collect "Data Management Plans" with most proposals.
• Table 1 has changed from being a repetition of the goals and objectives in the science plan (which is now merely referenced, but not included) to a checklist for proposers.
• There were a few places in the summary of solicitation where we removed redundancy and revised the text a bit. For example: in what is now I(g) Successor, Resubmitted, and Duplicate Proposals", VI Evaluation Criteria (especially relevance), and V suborbital.
This is all on the web at http://sara.nasa.gov, click on FAQs
What’s new Pt.1: Data Management Plans (DMP)• For context, NASA’s response to OSTP on increasing
access to results of federal research is two fold: data and publications. Today I will focus on data.
• With just a few exceptions (e.g., for instrument calls), all proposers must provide a data management plan or explain why one is not needed given the nature of the work proposed.
• We will collect 8000 character limited data management plans in the NSPIRES cover pages in boxes like the ones used for the Summary.
• A.36, A.37, B.7, & C.7 supersede this by asking for more in the body of the proposal.
• http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/faqs/dmp-faq-roses/
What’s new Pt. 1: DMP Basics• No personal, proprietary or ITAR data is included. We
are simply seeking plans for making available the data that underlie the results and findings in peer‐reviewed publications, like data from charts and figures.
• Proposers may include costs for data management but no extra funding has been provided to the research program to support this.
• Evaluation of the DMP is left up to the division, which may leave it up to the program, with these limitations:
• No proposal will be rejected because of an inadequate DMP. However, we may withhold the start of a new award, for lack of an adequate DMP.
• In the future I suspect that we will address enforcement as we do with publication.
What’s new Pt. 1: What’s in the DMPsThe ideal DMP would comprise the following elements:1. What: Data types, volume, formats, and (where relevant) standards.2. Where: The intended repositories and mechanisms for public access.3. When and how long: The schedule for when data will archived and how long the data will be preserved.*5. Who: Roles and responsibilities those archiving the data. (If funds are required for data management activities, these should be covered in the normal budget and budget justification sections of the proposal.)
* Data that backs up figures in publications must be released along with or shortly after publication, that cannot wait till the end of the award.
What’s new Pt. 1: Easy Example DMPs• This is a technology development effort that will not
generate data so I don’t have a DMP• The D.3 APRA program element says that proposals
in the Detector Development or Supporting Technology category that will not generate data do not need to provide a DMP
• The proposed project will generate limited data and this data will be shared at the time of publication via supplementary material associated with publications.
• In addition to (above) this [data set/higher order data product] will be uploaded into [NASA archive e.g., PDS] by the end of the award. I have experience with this archive, as shown by A,B,C and I have consulted with the POC regarding formatting etc.
What’s new Pt. 1: Hard Example DMPs• The examples above should cover the majority of
cases but the remaining fraction will result in most of the questions to us.
• Datasets that are too big for supplementary material but not worthy of our archives may be made available on web pages.
• I told the SMD program officers "Especially this first year we should let proposers use their judgment, we should use ours, and consult our community."
• ROSES SoS II (a), Funding and Award Policies, says "Awards may depend on acceptable revised versions of budgets, statements of work, data management plans, or other elements of proposals described in ROSES or in the NASA Guidebook for Proposers."
What’s New in ROSES-2015: Part 2• Table 1 is no longer a repetition of the goals and
objectives in the science plan, its now a checklist for proposers
What’s New in ROSES-2015: Table 1
What’s New in ROSES-2015: Table 1
What’s New in ROSES-2015: Table 1
Other new things in ROSES-2015
What was Section II(b) "Successor Proposals and Resubmissions" in prior ROSES has been moved to I(g), clarified, and renamed "Successor, Resubmitted, Multiple and Duplicate Proposals". This section includes restrictions on submissions. In this new version I more clearly explain the restrictions in Appendix B vs. multiple proposals and in Appendix C vs. duplicate proposals.
What was Section IV(e) "Proposal Requirements for Relevance" in prior ROSES has been deleted and what was there that was not redundant has been moved to an expanded and clarified Section VI. "Proposal Review Information". This was driven by a particular relevance issue in Appendix C.
Section VI. "Proposal Review Information"
ROSES proposals may be scored by peer reviewers for all three criteria (Merit, Cost and Relevance), or may be scored for only merit (e.g., this is common in Astro), with comments provided for relevance and cost, or the peer review panel may not be asked to comment on relevance and cost at all.
Because NASA may return a proposal without peer review if it is not relevant, and there are some minority views among PSD program officers about how to handle relevance I made this explicit in the calls this year and I want to talk about Relevance a bit more.
Relevance
C.3-C.5 and C.10* require an explicit relevance statement, which will be collected in a mandatory (4000-character) text box on the cover pages via the NSPIRES web interface.
Unless otherwise stated in the call, relevance of the proposed work is judged based on whether the work proposed is deemed to be relevant, independent of whether or not it includes an overt, clear and direct statement of relevance. That is, unless otherwise stated in the call, no proposal will be returned as noncompliant for lack of a relevance section or statement, but inclusion of a relevance section or statement is no guarantee that the proposal will be judged relevant. A few program elements in Appendix C do require an explicit relevance section.
*Read your individual program elements carefully. This list may be out of date when you read it later in 2015.
RelevanceC.5 EXOBIOLOGY NOTICE: This Program Element requires an explicit statement of relevance, which will be collected in a mandatory (4000-character) text box on the cover pages via the NSPIRES web interface. See Section 2.1, below.
…the omission of this section is sufficient reason for a proposal to be returned without review. The relevance discussion must explicitly refer to this program element and the section of the solicitation to which the proposal is responsive. If the proposed work is close in scope to research covered by any other program element, this discussion must also justify why it is more relevant to this program element than that other program element. This discussion may not be used to address the proposal’s intrinsic merit, budget justification, or any other factor that remains in the 15-page main body, or any other section, of the proposal.
Other new things in ROSES-2015
Finally, Section V, SUBORBITAL-CLASS INVESTIGATIONS has been reorganized and redundancy has been removed by David Pierce.
The China rules are the same as in recent years, refer all who ask questions to our FAQ on this subject:http://science.nasa.gov/researchers/sara/faqs/prc-faq-roses/
Change to the Guidebook for Proposers
The big change is that the summary table of work effort has been moved out of the budget section and into its own section. This, along with a little statement I got from NSF, should allow universities to be more honest about the time that the proposer actually intends to devote to the effort. There have been a number of complaints about this in past review panels.
"...any time commitment included that is not funded by NASA is not considered cost sharing, as defined in 2 CFR § 215.23. This table of work effort, which is not in either the page limited technical/scientific section nor in the budget, is merely a reporting of all of the planned work commitment, funded by NASA or not. This is distinct from the page limited technical/scientific proposal, which should describe what work each team member will be doing."
OMB uniform guidance and Handbook
OMB put out new government wide rules regarding grants and cooperative agreements. Mostly, these will not change the way that we do business. However, NASA used the occasion to revise our very out of date internal guidance the NASA Grant and Cooperative Agreement Manual.
ROSES programs excluded from DMP
A.40 Instrument Incubator Program, A.41 Advanced Component Technology, and A.42 In-Space Validation of Earth Science TechnologiesC.12 Planetary Instrument Concepts for the Advancement of Solar System Observations,C.13 Maturation of Instruments for Solar System Exploration, and C.17 Planetary Major EquipmentD.8 Strategic Astrophysics Technology and D.9 Nancy Grace Roman Technology Fellowships E.2 Topical Workshops, Symposia, and Conferences
Read your individual program elements carefully. This information maybe out of date when you read it later in 2015.
Publication side of the increasing access
That same NASA memo that discusses data management plan also talks about increasing access to as accepted (i.e., post peer-review) manuscript versions of your papers that come from our awards. Our approach is to follow the NIH PubMed precedent.
• As accepted (i.e., post peer-review) manuscripts• This only applies to peer reviewed documents• 12 months after publication• Grantees will be responsible • Some journals insert them automatically• I don’t know yet if there is data archived in PMC with
the manuscripts. That would be nice.