STR Program: Past, Present, and Future

1. STR Program: Past, Present, and Future ILIA I. Roussev iroussev@nsf.gov Program Director, STR Program Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences SHINE Workshop Jul 6, 2015

2. Synopsis of the Program The Solar-Terrestrial Research (STR) Program supports research on the processes by which energy in diverse forms is generated by the Sun, transported to the Earth, and ultimately deposited in the terrestrial environment. Major topics include space weather impacts, helioseismology, the solar dynamo, the solar activity cycle, magnetic flux emergence, solar flares and eruptive activity, coronal mass ejections, solar wind heating, solar energetic particles, interactions with cosmic rays, and solar wind/magnetosphere boundary problems.

3. STR Program Main Components: • Core STR Research ~$3.25M/year • Solar, Heliospheric, and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE) ~$3M/year Related Programs • Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) ~$0.7M/year • Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships (AGS-PRF) ~$0.2M/year • NSF/DOE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering ~$0.2M/year • Research in Support of the National Space Weather Program (NSWP) $0/year

4. Basic Research Supported by STR Program – I STR program has been supporting research projects which deal with improving present understanding of: • Fundamental physical processes that govern solar and space plasmas out to 1AU (e.g., magnetic reconnection, turbulence, etc.), and • Physical drivers of Space Weather, namely flares, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), and related phenomena (e.g., SEP events) The transport of magnetic flux, helicity, mass, and energy from the solar convection zone through the inner heliosphere is a fundamental area of research funded by the STR program!

5. Basic Research Supported by STR Program – II STR program has been supportingresearch projects dealing with detailed understanding of physical processes governing the Sun-Earth system • This requires extensive observations of the Sun and the solar wind, both remote sensing and in‐situ, as well as complementary numerical modeling efforts that incorporate (or assimilate) these observations STR program has been supporting research and EPO activities in various ground‐based facilities (BBSO, IfA, HAO, NSO, etc.), academic institutions (NJIT, MSU, etc.), and non-profit organizations (PSI, Helioresearch, etc.) • The supported ground-based facilities have been providing state‐of‐the‐art observations needed to drive those computational models (e.g., at CCMC)

6. STR in NSF News Sun Experiences Seasonal Changes (Apr 7, 2015) http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=134822&org=NSF&from=news (Scott McIntosh, High Altitude Observatory) Solving Sunspot Mysteries (Jun 3, 2014) http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=131706&org=AGS&from=news (Phil Goode, Big Bear Solar Observatory) It Is Hot... Super Hot (Nov 12, 2013) http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=129547&org=AGS&from=news (Daniel Savin, Columbia University) Voyager 1 Has Left the Solar System (Aug 15, 2013) http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=128861&org=AGS&from=news (Marc Swisdak, Univ. Maryland, & Merav Opher, Boston University – 2007 CAREER & 2007 PECASE Awardee)

7. SHINE Workshop http://shinecon.org

8. STR Budget Detail $M

9. FY13-15 SHINE Competitions SHINE community in USA has grown steadily over the past decade • Total participation at the SHINE Workshop hit its peak (215 attendees) in 2012 • Graduate student involvement in SHINE increased more than 10 fold in 10 years! SHINE program at AGS/STR has been very successful since its inspection in 2002 • In FY2013, 46 unique projects (52 proposals total) were submitted, and 9 awards were made • Total SHINE expenditures in FY2013: $2.56M, of which $597K for new awards • In FY2014, 72 unique projects (78 proposals total) were submitted, and 13 awards were made • Total SHINE expenditures in FY2014: $2.96M, of which $1.257M for new awards • In FY2015, 45 unique projects (55 proposals total) were submitted, and 13 awards were made • Total SHINE expenditures in FY2015: $2.99M, of which $962K for new awards

10. FY15 SHINE Winners Susan Lepri (Univ. Michigan) Maher Al-Dayeh (SWRI) *Harald Kucharek (Univ. New Hampshire) Daniel Verscharen (Univ. New Hampshire) Peter Gary (Space Science Inst.) Michael Hahn (Columbia Univ.) Yi-Min Huang (Princeton Univ.) Jiong Qiu (Montana State Univ.) *Paul Cassak (West Virginia Univ.) Jie Zhang (George Mason Univ.) *Kathy Reeves (Center for Astroph.) *Bart van der Holst (Univ. Michigan) *Noé Lugaz (Univ. New Hampshire) Congratulations to all!

11. STR Funding Rate (by PI) Number of proposal submissions to the STR program has steadily increased over the last 6 years Number of collaborative projects submitted to STR program has also increased over same time period Funding rate in STR program has dropped substantially over the past three years, with FY14 being the extreme (17%); in FY15 the funding rate is23%!

12. Other SHINE Items of Interest SHINE web site provides guidance to the solar community concerning the distinction between topics chosen for the SHINE workshop sessions and topics suitable for submission to the NSF as SHINE proposals – the two concepts are not identical! There is no longer a separate SHINE Postdoc program – it has been subsumed under the AGS Division’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (AGS-PRF) program (web address below). Note that all AGS-PRF applicants must be US citizens or ‘green card’ holders because they will receive funding directly, without any institution as an intermediary. http://www.shinecon.org http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14509/nsf14509.pdf http://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=6201

13. INSPIRE Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education • Requires authorization from two “intellectually distinct programs” to apply • 30 new up-to-$1M awards (5-year in duration) • Bold interdisciplinary projects • FY2015 funds: $28 million (Foundation-wide) http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14106/nsf14106.jsp

14. EarthCube • NSF places significant emphasis on computational and data-rich science and engineering, with the goal of providing a sustainable, community-based and open cyberinfrastructure for researchers and learners. • This goal is a major challenge because the number and volume of data sets have grown to proportions well beyond the range of applicability of traditional data handling tools. • The vision of EarthCube is to transform the conduct of research by supporting the development of community-guided CI to integrate data  and information for knowledge management across the Geosciences. http://www.nsf.gov/geo/earthcube/

15. Important Info for All Proposers The latest NSF “Users Manual” can be found at this website: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf15001/nsf15_1.pdf Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide NSF 15-1

16. Awardee’s Reports to the NSF • In addition to your Final Report to the NSF, you must now submit Project Outcomes online for the public, at http://www.research.gov • Your Annual Report become due 90 days before your award anniversary date, and are overdue on “anniversary date + 1 day” • Your funding increment – and that of anyof your current Co-PIs on any NSF grant – is delayed until your annual report is approved! • Please submit a No Cost Extension if you cannot expend your annual budget due to unforeseen circumstances – do not just delay the submission of your annual report …

17. Review Requests Unless you have been informed that your review is for a special competition, or a specific NSF panel, your review is for a proposal submitted to my core STR program (fund code 1523). I need to obtain a minimum of 3 written reviews within 6 months. Your help is greatly appreciated!!! Solicited NSF competitions (such as SHINE) have deadlines (Aug 19, 2015) and are reviewed by panels. However, reviews for unsolicited STR proposals are strictly mail-in, and do not have hard deadlines (other than the NSF’s6 month rule). I would prefer to receive a delayed review than none at all!!!

18. Questions? Thank you!