Well as expected and promised, last week was a little sparse in the posting arena. I may have to forgo these easy to do recap posts in the next coming weeks because there won’t be enough to recap!

In any event, here is a recap of last week’s posts:

DG2010 – T minus 3 weeks is basically a time marker post reminding everyone about the nearness of the NSERC Discovery grant deadline. It also speaks a little bit about the average “total input time” invested per grant submission. Then it leads into the next post on CVs by talking about the amount of time invested in a research project and how that might be annotated (and perceived) in the CV module.

DG2010 – CV Tips & Tricks is a mashup of all the tips that I can think of relating to the NSERC CV module, also known as Form 100. The notes in this post are non-specific to the Discovery grant competition, since this form is used for all NSERC applications.

And that was all I wrote! Hope this week is a little less crazy!

When preparing or updating your Form 100 (NSERC’s CV module) be sure to follow the instructions! There are many different aspects to the form portion of the document, however, most of the errors and issues seem to occur in the free form attachment portion of the module also called “Contributions”.

NSERC is pretty particular about requiring that you follow their heading format, which is listed in the instructions. There is even a specific order for segregating the research contributions and practical applications section (read = publications, etc.).

General comments:

• proof your forms!! I cannot stress this enough!
• make sure that you aren’t committing to too many hours per month in research activity (for example, it is pretty hard to commit to 160 hours of research per month if you also have a teaching load)
• start your page numbering for the free form section with page number 5 (to follow the forms page numbering convention)
• be sure to follow formatting guidelines
• the research support portion of the forms is for the past four (4) years
• the research contributions for the attachment are for the past six (6) years. Now, technically this would be November 1, 2003 to November 1, 2009, HOWEVER, in practice NSERC allows contributions from January 1, 2003 to November 1, 2009.
• you only have five (5) pages for the free form section, so be selective about how you present information
• be sure to preview your forms to proof them as it is quite easy to insert/miss errors during data entry

Tips for each specific section in the ‘Contributions’ portion of the CV:

1. Most Significant Contributions to Research and/or Practical Applications

• focus on the top five clusters of contributions that have occurred in the past 6 years. If there are contributions that were made earlier, but they have become significant in the past 6 years, speak to them too.
• don’t list the citations, describe the research and the impact of the research in point or narrative form (you will list the citations in the following section

2. Research Contributions and Practical Applications

• This is where the detailed list order comes into play from the instructions
• use a consistent bibliographic method
• ensure that student’s names are bolded within the author lists (i.e. use a reference style that includes the names of all authors)
• list the sources of funding for each contribution with parenthetical emphasis on the primary source
• clarify your role in multi-authored papers
• the research contributions in the attachment are for the past six (6) years. Now, technically this would be November, 1 2003 to November, 1 2009, HOWEVER, in practice NSERC allows contributions from January 1, 2003 to November 1, 2009.
• it is useful if you use a numerical format for your references to demonstrate your total publication record (i.e. start your numbering with 30, if you already have 30 publications under your belt that fall outside of the contributions reporting period)

3. Other Evidence of Impact and Contributions

• list any other activities as indicated in NSERC’s instructions (awards, editorships, consulting, public service, etc.)

4. Delays in Research Activity

• Describe any delays in research activity including dates (“parental leave, bereavement, single parent situations, illness, extraordinary administrative duties or other circumstances”); include a statement even if it is “No delays in research activity.”
• It is not necessary to go into significant detail, unless the circumstances require exceptional explanation

5. Contributions to the Training of Highly Qualified Personnel (HQP)

• Include any aggregate data on HQP including “discussion of training in particularly important or challenging areas of research, specialized methodologies and techniques, interdisciplinary or industrial collaborations, as well as your role in co-supervision of some of your HQP, the lack of recent contribution to training, etc.”
• This is the area where you describe PAST training! Use your research proposal to describe FUTURE training
• Be sure to also list any past/current/future participation in outreach activities to engage students in natural sciences and engineering, especially PromoScience, CRYSTAL and CWSE

A few last words . . .

• Be sure that you obtain and MAINTAIN completed consent forms relevant to your HQP data forms. It is also ideal if you can update your student’s present position.
• It is somewhat more favorable if you can obtain consent from your students as it can be perceived that you maintain a positive relationship with former trainees once they leave the lab, thus nurturing a strong network of students, but don’t get too hung up about it. Sometimes it is just not possible to track down your former students (or maintain a good relationship with them).

Happy CV updating!

We’re getting down to the wire and I can bet that there are quite a few people that are just starting to get organized to write their proposals. If you are a regular reader, you know that I encourage an early start to ensure that adequate preparation goes into the proposal. That said, surveys of academics in North America suggest that the average researcher spends about two weeks on grant preparation*. So, if within the next three weeks, you can find ‘80 hours’ to commit to proposal preparation get out of those starting blocks!

I put ‘80 hours’ in quotes because I don’t know one person in academic research (or in many professions) where a work week equals 40 hours. More like 80 hours per week, although theoretically you could work over 100 hours a week, if you needed little sleep and had no other life to speak of. I am not sure that I could sustain the mental energy to do that on a regular basis, but I have been known to have short bursts of insanity occasionally.

In any event, if you are on a more moderate schedule, it would probably be a good idea to pull out your CV, review and update it, if you haven’t done so already. I’ll be posting a few CV related tidbits tomorrow.

*I can’t find the darn reference – but when I do, I’ll update the post. If I am being honest, don’t expect it until after fall granting season, i.e. December.

The next few weeks are going to be dicey, so I am not going to commit to posting regularly. Boy, this sounds just like the intro to last week’s recap . . .

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Here is a recap of last week’s posts:

DG2010 – Programs versus projects talks a little bit about how important it is to ensure that your NSERC discovery proposal describes a program of research. An excerpt from the peer review manual was added to the post on Friday.

Views on proposal writing is a mashup of blog posts from academic bloggers espousing their views on grant proposals.

DG2010 – References covers a few tips and tricks to think about when you are writing and proofing your reference list for your NSERC discovery grant application. These tips are also relevant for other documents that include reference lists . . .(read: journal submissions)! I belong to the Council of Science Editors and you wouldn’t believe the amount of editorial research that is done on reference error analysis. A scintillating topic, I know, but an interesting factoid nonetheless.

TOOLS: TERMIUM Plus® is now free and available online. Best of all, you can access a searchable version of The Canadian Style through Termium.

DG2010 – Relative cost of research is my long-promised post on the cost of research evaluation indicator. There are also links to the Peer Review Manual and other FAQ files on the revised review process.

I have had a bit of difficulty getting clarifications on my questions about the binning process and in fact was not able to vet my interpretation through NSERC as I had hoped. But rather than wait for official clarification, I would like to post my opinion and interpretation of official documents already available on the web. My resources for this activity included:

• The Peer Review Manual, updated on September 28, 2009, specifically Chapter 6;

• The GSC Structure Review FAQ;
• as well as various informal conversations.

My initial challenge was understanding how the NSERC Evaluation Groups (EGs) will bin the proposals and assign an evaluation indicator of ‘high’, ‘normal’ or ‘low’ to the relative cost of research. The definitions of these terms are:

- High: Majority of justified expenses represent costs higher than the norm for the research area
- Normal: Majority of justified expenses are within the norm for the research area
- Low: Majority of justified expenses are lower than the norm for the research area

Initially, I took this to mean that if the budget was higher than the norm for the area of research, then it would be scored as high and that would have a detrimental impact on the overall scoring of the proposal. I also inferred that there would be a similar effect for a low scoring. From various unofficial conversations and feedback from my colleagues, my understanding now is that this step will rate the application based on the relative cost of research and this separate qualification will not impact the overall ranking of the application.

The take home here is: make sure to ask for what you need in your budget and be clear in your justification why and how these expenses are required in the context of the normal costs of research in your field. (For example, if no one in your field asks for a technician and you are – then be sure to justify why this higher cost activity is necessary.)

Once the application is ranked based on ‘Excellence of the Researcher’, ‘Merit of the Proposal’ and ‘Training of HQP’, the relative cost of research rank (or bin) will qualify the proposal for an increment adjustment to the normal cost of research for the relative discipline. To clarify this further, if the normal cost of research in a given field is $30,000 and a proposal is qualified with a high cost of research, it would qualify for an increment adjustment of $7,000, netting that particular applicant an award of $37,000 per year. (These numbers are generated by me and do not reflect any practical examples.) This step alone is probably responsible for the DG2009 researchers that found themselves adjusted sharply downwards. I am aware of at least one researcher whose grant amount was decreased to 51% of the previous award, in a field that typically has a much lower average cost of research. From what I understand so far, I suspect this system does not have a mechanism to take into account those individuals whose cost of research is significantly higher than the norm or even the adjusted high cost of research amount (e.g. CRCs or other high profile researchers). Somehow this just seems counterintuitive to the S&T strategy to fund everyone in a particular field at the same level – academic research isn’t preschool where everyone needs to be treated equally.

The ranking of proposals step is effectively the same as it was before, except now EG members are being given this matrix to help them with their analysis. The addition of the relative cost of research qualifier to the decision making process is the major change. It should also be noted that the step of ranking the proposal and qualifying the cost of research is completed by the specific EGs, but the step of actually assigning a funding level will be undertaken by the Executive Committee of the EGs (consisting of the Section Chairs and Group Chairs).

So then the question becomes, how does NSERC set the normal cost of research for individual disciplines? From the FAQ:

NSERC already uses studies of research costs to earmark funding for First-Time Applicants in each GSC. The intent is to broaden the approach to set the budgets for GSCs in the future. Currently, NSERC is using information from various sources including Statistics Canada and grant recipient expenditure data, and is comparing this with data from the United States. The new methodology, when ready, will be validated by the Committee on Grants and Scholarships (COGS), the standing committee of NSERC that oversees the Discovery Grants program.

The rationale for taking the applicant’s previous grant award level out of the funding picture, from the FAQ:

An applicant’s funding history plays too much of a role in the awarding of a new grant. Funding is often incremental and new grants within a few thousand dollars of the previous grant. This has resulted in a level of inertia that is too high in the program overall. The new model preserves stability and continuity of funding for researchers who maintain a strong record of contributions to research and training, but it also permits a rapid ramp up of funding for applicants with exceptional contributions, no matter their history in the program.

I can’t help but think that this will just result in a future level of inertia if NSERC is constantly setting the bar for the “normal cost of research” funding amount and the increments for adding to “high proposals” or subtracting from “low proposals”. This is just an observation since I don’t really have a solution to the inertia challenge either. I know that this will help NSERC stabilize annual budget requests, but I don’t really see how it can respond dynamically to the needs of our innovation economy.

Ruminations aside, from the peer review manual, for your reference:

6.8.4. Relative Cost of Research
In addition to the selection criteria discussed previously, applications may be assessed with regard to the relative cost of research. The “Cost of Research” relates to individual circumstances, but in the context of an area of research. Evaluation Groups will collectively determine the parameters for considering the cost of research. Members will be asked to first gauge the budget in terms of justification, and then to rate the relative cost of the proposed research program (High, Normal, Low) as compared to the norm for the research areas represented in the applications considered by the Evaluation Group(s).

[snip]

Using the indicators: The evaluation indicators suggest statements for a High, Normal and Low cost of research factor. The relevance of these will vary by field. Members’ understanding of the norms for the research areas represented in the applications considered by the Evaluation Group is an important complement to the indicators. A well-justified budget that outlines the need to do field work in the Arctic may be rated as having a cost of research higher than the norm.

6.8.4.1.1. Points of Reflection

Appropriateness of, and justification for, the budget – The justification for the funding requested is considered within the Cost of Research. In the instructions, applicants for a Discovery Grant are asked to prepare a realistic budget. An Evaluation Group member may determine that the amount requested is higher than what is justified by the research proposal. If a budget is deemed to be inflated, members are asked to assess the relative cost of research in consideration of what is felt to be a more realistic budget. Applicants are not to be penalized for providing what is perceived as an inflated budget (i.e., they should not automatically receive an assessment of the relative cost as Low). However, applicants should consider that presenting an inflated budget makes it difficult for members to respect any claims for particularly high costs associated with the proposed research.

Relationship to Other Sources of Funding – A Discovery Grant may not represent a researcher’s only, or even major, source of support. The availability of other sources of support should not systematically result in an assessment of the relative cost as Low. As long as the contributions to the NSE field described in the research proposal are commensurate with the funds requested, the availability of other sources of funding should be viewed positively. Evaluation Groups may want to consider the research plan and budget justification relative to the applicant’s capacity to undertake the planned program given other commitments (including research funded through other sources, or in the context of a large research operation), and this can be reflected in the cost of research rating, where appropriate. The applicant should demonstrate sufficient time and resources to commit to the proposed research program.