Supporting International Collaborations for U.S. researchers at the National Science Foundation

1. Supporting International Collaborations for U.S. researchers at the National Science Foundation South Carolina Universities Workshop, Clemson University April 20, 2007 Wayne Patterson Program Manager for Developing Countries Office of International Science and Engineering National Science Foundation

2. Outline • Introduction to NSF • International Collaboration at NSF • Support for Faculty • Programs for Postdoctoral researchers • Programs for students

3. Outline • Introduction to NSF • International Collaboration at NSF • Support for Faculty • Programs for Postdoctoral researchers • Programs for students

4. Independent USG Agency Funds basic research & education Uses peer-reviewed grant mechanism Low overhead; highly automated grant management processes Discipline-based structure Bottom-up proposal driven Cross-disciplinary mechanisms Use of Rotators/IPAs National Science Board NSF in a Nutshell

5. NSF Role in Research and Development Fiscal Year 2004 Total U.S. National R&D - $312B Total Federal R&D Obligations $101B Other 6% NSF 4% Other Industry 96% Federal 64% 30% Total Federal Basic Research $27B Total Federal Academic Basic Research - $14B NSF NSF 21% Other Other 13% 79% 87% Latest complete data currently available

6. FY06 Budget: 95% awards, 5% administration • Each year NSF receives over 41,000 proposals and about 10,000 new awards are made (23% funding rate) • The average annual research grant is 3 years at $140,000/year. • Awards are made to over 2,000 US colleges, universities and other research institutions. NSF Funding

7. NSF Support for Basic Research at Academic Institutions Share of Total Federal Support - FY 2004 Preliminary

8. NSF funding for South Carolina Universities • Survey of South Carolina NSF-funded universities • 17 universities, 4 technical colleges, 10 other awardees • Total of 320 active NSF awards • Total value of these: $217,679,626 • 44 (13.8%) involving international collaboration • Only 6 (1.9%) in the Office of International Science and Engineering

9. Numbers of Awards in SC

10. Value of Awards in SC

11. Antartica Argentina Armenia Belarus Belgium Brazil Bulgaria Central America China Colombia Domenica East Asia and Pacific Ecuador France Germany Hungary India Italy Japan Korea Kyrgyzstan Mexico Mongolia Nepal Peru Russia South Africa Spain Switzerland Turkey United Kingdom Venezuela Where in the World is South Carolina?

12. Or …

13. What happens to your proposal when it arrives at NSF…?

14. Proposal Review Criterion Intellectual Merit • Potential to advance knowledge within and across fields • Qualifications of investigators • Creativity and originality • Conceptualization and organization • Access to resources

15. Proposal Review CriterionBroader Impacts • Promoting of teaching, training and learning • Participation of underrepresented groups • (race, gender, geographic distribution, type of institution …) • Enhancement of infrastructure for research and education • Dissemination of results • Benefits to society • International collaboration

16. Grantsmanship • Know yourself: Know your area of expertise, what are your strengths and what are your weaknesses; PUT YOUR BEST FOOT FORWARD; LITERATURE RESEARCH • Know the program from which you seek support. • Read the program announcement: specific goals and specific requirements

17. Grantsmanship (cont) • Formulate an appropriate research objective - a methodical process of building upon previous knowledge to derive or discover new knowledge • Develop a viable research plan doable within a reasonable budget and in a reasonable time • State your research objective clearly in your proposal • Frame your project around the work of others • Grammar and spelling check

18. Grantsmanship (cont) • Format and brevity are important; page limit • Know the review process: Proposals - by panels must be written to a broader audience • Proofread your proposal before it is sent: Many proposals are sent out with idiotic mistakes, omissions, and errors of all sorts. • Submit your proposal on time – DON’T WAIT UNTIL THE LAST MINUTE • Send proposals to other sources; build your team • Volunteer to be a panelist

19. References for grant writing • www.nsf.gov – study programs, active awards, initiatives, etc • TWELVE STEPS TO A WINNING RESEARCH PROPOSAL, George A. Hazelrigg, NSF – see: http://xsrv.mm.cs.sunysb.edu/300/lectures/proposal.pdf

20. Outline • Introduction to NSF • International Collaboration at NSF • Support for Faculty • Programs for Postdoctoral researchers • Programs for students

21. International collaboration is commonplace • About 20% of the world’s scientific and technical articles in 2003 had authors from two or more countries, compared with 8% in 1988 • One-quarter of articles with U.S. authors have one or more international coauthors, which is similar to the percentages for Japan, China, and the Asia-8. International Collaboration

22. Discovery is a global enterprise. For the U.S. to remain in the forefront of world science and technology, it needs scientists and engineers from all disciplines who can operate and lead international teams and track international discoveries in some of the most challenging research areas. • Arden L. Bement, Jr. • NSF Director • 2004

23. “Domestic and international collaborations are expanding in response to the complexities of new scientific fields, the growing scale and scope of scientific initiatives, new capabilities provided by advances in information and communications technologies, professional ties established during study or work abroad, and explicit government policies and incentives.” Source: National Science Board, Science and Engineering Indicators-2004

24. A MEANS for advancing FRONTIER RESEARCH • Provide ACCESS to sites, facilities, people, ideas • Prepare a GLOBALLY ENGAGED U.S. S&E workforce • Build and strengthen effective collaborations and institutional partnerships to address problems of a global/regional scale • [NSF does NOT have a foreign affairs or foreign assistance mission] NSF International Objectives…

25. Outline • Introduction to NSF • International Collaboration at NSF • Support for Faculty • Programs for Postdoctoral researchers • Programs for students

26. Support for International Activities • Supplements to existing NSF grants • Part of new proposals to NSF disciplinary programs • New proposals to Office of International Science and Engineering

27. International activities embedded in disciplinary grants • Facility Improvements and New Equipment for the Archbold Tropical Research and Education Center (ATREC), Dominica, Lesser Antilles • Ickes, Kalan, Clemson University • ATREC, located on the island of Dominica, the only non-marine field research station in the Lesser Antilles, and is composed of almost 20,000 ft2 of building space and 92 hectares of secondary forest. • Wide variety of habitat types: lowland and montane rain forest, elfin forest, tropical dry forest, littoral forest, volcanic fumaroles and their associated highly specialized vegetation, beaches with nesting sea turtles, two freshwater lakes, one boiling lake, over a hundred rivers, and coral reefs. • The Morne Trois Pitons National Park, a United Nations World Heritage site, is within walking distance. • Field courses from seven U.S. universities have been based at ATREC, most returning year after year. • Funds provided will address • renovating the plumbing and roofing for the entire field station, • creating a secure collections facility and wet lab within existing the existing structures, and • updating existing classrooms and kitchen. • The island of Dominica is one of the poorest countries in the Caribbean, but has unparalleled biological resources. • ATREC provides tremendous opportunities for collaboration with the Dominica branch of the University of the West Indies and Dominica State College.

28. International activities embedded in disciplinary grants • Materials World Network: Design of Responsive Materials via Mixed Polymer Brush Approach • Luzinov, Igor, Clemson University • The focus of this work is on chemical design and characterization of novel responsive nanostructured materials, namely ultrathin films made of mixed polymer brushes, with controlled and variable hydrophilic/hydrophobic/ steric/inonic interactions. • To accomplish the objectives of the project a US-German team of specialists possessing complementary expertise in the area has been assembled. • The team includes: I. Luzinov (Clemson University, synthesis of (mixed) polymer brushes); S. Minko (Clarkson University, properties/applications of mixed polymer brushes); M. Stamm (Dresden Technical University and Leibniz-Institute for Polymer Research Dresden, protein adsorption onto the mixed polymer brushes); M. Mller (University of Gttingen, theoretical modeling of the mixed brushes); K. Hinrichs/N. Esser and K.-J. Eichhorn (Institute for Analytical Sciences in Berlin, study of the brushes with spectroscopic ellipsometry).

29. International activities embedded in disciplinary grants • Collaborative Research: Iron and Light Effects on Phaeocystis antarctica Isolates from the Ross Sea • DiTullio, Giacomo, College of Charleston • “The colonial prymnesiophyte Phaeocystis antarctica is a major bloom-forming alga in Antarctic shelf waters; where, alongside diatoms, it is considered a keystone species in its impact on regional biogeochemical cycling and ecosystem structure. Iron levels in these waters fall to values as low as ~0.1 nM during the mid to late summer, concentrations that are likely to limit the growth of phytoplankton, including P. antarctica. • “In this project, P. antarctica will be collected from the southern Ross Sea and grown in semi-continuous batch cultures for use in experiments at the University of Charleston to investigate the effects of iron availability and irradiance on the growth rate, cellular iron quota, buoyancy, biogenic sulfur production, pigment content, redox-protein expression, and photosynthetic efficiency of P. antarctica. • “This species may have also played a central role in the inferred basin- scale changes in biogeochemical cycles linked to glacial-interglacial climatic change.”

30. Office of International Scienceand Engineering (OISE)

31. Proposals to OISE • Planning Visits ($20,000 max) • Workshops ($25-60,000) • PASI ($65-100,000) • Partnerships for International Research and Education ($2.5 million) http://www.nsf.gov/oise/

32. Planning Visits • Short trips by US researchers in promising new areas • Fully assess foreign expertise, facilities, equipment, data, experimental protocols, etc. • Detailed preparation for collaborative research • Used more often for countries where access is harder

33. Example of Planning visit – Lawrence Pratt, Fisk • This award supports a planning visit to enable Professor Lawrence Pratt of Fisk University in Nashville, Tennessee to meet with Professor Bui Manh Nhi at Ho Chi Minh City University of Pedagogy in Vietnam. • The visit will include workshops consisting of lectures and laboratory exercises on computational chemistry applied to organolithium compounds that will train investigators and students in Vietnam. This will then lead to collaborative research projects between the Vietnamese, the PI and his graduate students at Fisk University in which the students will have the opportunity to visit the Ho Chi Minh City University. In turn some of the Vietnamese students may enroll in Fisk University for graduate work to further their collaborative research projects. • The study of organolithium compounds is a field of major importance in the development of new synthetic methods, and computational methods are a major tool to study these compounds. Although Vietnam is a developing country without extensive laboratory facilities for research, the University of Pedagogy does have a computational chemistry laboratory that is sufficiently equipped for moderate research projects, or more extensive research projects in collaboration with other institutions.

34. Workshops • Co-organized by U.S. & foreign investigator • NSF supports U.S. participants • Identify areas of joint research; purpose is to develop new, targeted collaborations • Outcome should be a proposal to one of the disciplinary offices within NSF • Priorities vary by region

35. Examples • Patterson and Jan Persens, University of the Western Cape, South Africa • “The Mathematics of Computer Security”, Tunis, Tunisia, August 2004 • Patterson and Ricardo Baeza-Yates, University of Chile • “Computational Methods for Security in a Web Environment”, Arica, Chile, July 2006

36. Example – Chaden Djalili, USC • US-Peru Workshop in Nuclear Physics and Its Applications, June 11-16, 2007, Cusco, Peru • Djalali, Chanden, University of South Carolina • This Americas Program award will support a workshop on nuclear physics and applications to be held in conjunction with the Seventh Latin American Symposium on Nuclear Physics and Applications in Cusco, Peru, June 11-16, 2007. • The workshop is being organized by Dr. Chanden Djalali of University of South Carolina, and Dr. Philip Cole of Idaho State University in collaboration with Dr. Fernando Umeres Sanchez of the Universidad Nacional San Antonio Abad del Cusco, Peru. • This workshop will discuss topics presented at the symposium such as nuclear matter at high densities, nuclear astrophysics, neutrino physics, exotic nuclei, as well as photo- and electron-nuclear physics with the attendant applications of nuclear physics.

37. Pan-American Advanced Studies Institutes (PASI) • Short courses of two to four weeks duration, at the advanced graduate and post-doctoral level. • Courses should involve distinguished lecturers and active researchers in the field, preferably from the Americas. • PASIs aim to disseminate advanced scientific knowledge and stimulate training and cooperation among researchers of the Americas in the mathematical, physical, and biological sciences, and in engineering fields

38. Recently Funded PASI’s • Modern challenges in statistical mechanics - Argentina • Study of surfaces, interfaces and catalysis - Venezuela • Physics at the nanometer scale - Argentina • Green chemistry - Uruguay • Quantum information - Brazil • Materials for energy conversion and environmental protection – Brazil • Process Systems Engineering - Argentina

39. Partnerships for International Research and Education (PIRE) • Cutting Edge scientific research • Strong international partners • Innovative models • Involvement of students & junior researchers • Institutional resources (IT, language/culture, curriculum, study abroad, other) • 14-17, 5-year awards of up to $2.5M each • Eligibility: Ph.D. granting in U.S. (20 in 2 years) • Prelim proposal deadline: October 30, 2006 (limit 3 per institution)

40. PIRE U.S.-Japan Cooperative Research and Education: Ultrafast and Nonlinear Optics in 6.1-Angstrom Semiconductors – PI: Junichiro Kono, Rice University

41. PIRE Remote Sensing for Hazard Mitigation and Resource Protection in Pacific Latin America – PI: Gregg Bluth, Michigan Tech University

42. PIRE – examples of FY05 projects • UCSB and Dalian Institute of Chemical Physics: “Electron Chemistry and Catalysis at Interfaces.” 14 professors, extended research visits, jointly mentored grad students, summer schools, language training, tech transfer. PI Alex Wodtke. • Penn State, NC A&T, U. Witwatersrand, as well as other U.S. institutions and scientists in 9 African countries: “PIRE-AfricaArray Project.” Geophysics focus, semester at university in Africa, e- and field courses, language training, HBCU involvement. PI Andy Nyblade.

43. Outline • Introduction to NSF • International Collaboration at NSF • Support for Faculty • Programs for Postdoctoral researchers • Programs for students

44. Postdoctoral Researchers • Participation in NSF disciplinary awards • Disciplinary Postdoctoral Fellowships • International Research Fellowships

45. International Research Fellowships • Designed to introduce young scientists to international research opportunities • Provides support to carry out research at science and engineering establishments in foreign countries • Research experiences range from tenures of 9 to 24 months • Applications from women and minorities, and for work in developing countries are especially encouraged.

46. International Research Fellowships – Eligibility Requirements • U.S. citizenship or permanent residency • Applicants must have a Ph.D. by the time IRFP tenure begins • Applicants cannot have had their Ph.D. longer than two years at the time of application • Deadline: October 3, 2006. Next year, Second Tuesday In September!

47. From the Participants... “I look back and recognize how much my involvement [in Iceland] has shaped and opened up new opportunities. I am still actively working with my colleagues in Iceland…and my work there has enabled me to apply for positions (and receive job offers!) for which I would have otherwise been unqualified.”

48. From the Participants... “Overall the fellowship seems to have had an extremely positive effect on my career…I was interviewed for four of the six tenure-track jobs for which I applied; I was given tenure-track job offers at two universities; and I have accepted my dream job at a four year research university.”

49. Outline • Introduction to NSF • International Collaboration at NSF • Support for Faculty • Programs for Postdoctoral researchers • Programs for students

50. Support for Students • Participation in NSF disciplinary awards • Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) Program • Graduate Research Fellowships • Participation in OISE planning visits or workshops • Dissertation Enhancement Awards • East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) • International Research Experiences for Students • International REU’s