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Understand the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts criteria for NSF proposals to advance knowledge and benefit society, with key tips for successful proposal writing.
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NSF Review Criteria: Intellectual Merit and Broader ImpactsSC INBRE/SC EPSCoR Academic Leadership and Career Development Workshop Goutam Koley Clemson University Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering
NSF Intellectual Merit Review Criteria • Intellectual Merit: The Intellectual Merit criterion encompasses the potential to advance knowledge; and • Broader Impacts: The Broader Impacts criterion encompasses the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes. • The following elements should be considered in the review for both criteria: • 1. What is the potential for the proposed activity to: • a. Advance knowledge and understanding within its own field or across different fields (Intellectual Merit); and • b. Benefit society or advance desired societal outcomes (Broader Impacts)? • 2. To what extent do the proposed activities suggest and explore creative, original, or potentially transformative concepts? • 3. Is the plan for carrying out the proposed activities well-reasoned, well-organized, and based on a sound rationale? Does the plan incorporate a mechanism to assess success? • 4. How well qualified is the individual, team, or organization to conduct the proposed activities? • 5. Are there adequate resources available to the PI (either at the home organization or through collaborations) to carry out the proposed activities?
Intellectual merit – some tips for good proposal writing • Preliminary results are not absolutely necessary but are important, as they establish feasibility • Writing a clear and well organized proposal makes it easy to understand the job of the reviewer easier. Write it so as to create some sense of anticipation… they should want to read more • The proposal cannot be too hard to understand technically, in most cases they are reviewed by one real expert and a few who are not direct experts in that area • Make a convincing case for the main idea, which means you need to be convinced first • Support the idea as much as possible with previous references, theoretical modeling, logical deductions from previous work. Too much formulas distract reviewers. • Repeat key goals of the proposals multiple times • The best proposal ideas are the ones that make the reviewer feel, how did they miss out on this great idea, they should have proposed it • NSF loves High risk – High rewardtype proposal. Don’t be shy to put forward bold ideas that are feasible, but not yet done. Incremental advancement over past research is a big no-no. • Have timeline for research, and discuss potential pitfalls and how to mitigate them. Include plans to evaluate progress/success when possible • Good collaborations/support letters can be important if the PI does not have all the expertise to carry out the project
Broader Impacts – some tips for good proposal writing • It is unofficial… but broader impact section should be no more than 2.5 pages or so. • Discuss both the technological broader impact as well as Education and Outreach plans • It is ok to include past experience in broader impact section (to demonstrate feasibility), but make sure to propose activities that relate to the present proposal. This should take bulk of the discussion space • Describe the plans well to make sure the reviewers are convinced that they are feasible • It is not necessary to include too many broader impacts activities. There should be some routine items like UG involvement and graduate course enhancement, but include more unique ones i.e. collaboration with a museum etc., which stands out • Make sure to include some plans to evaluate the impact of the activities proposed • Broader impact section is important, but the intellectual merit section really “makes or breaks” it. So plan accordingly.
