posted 04/16/2008
NSF Broader Impacts Proposal Requirements Updated for 2008

In light of NSF’s commitment to the broader impacts criterion, proposers should carefully consider ways to incorporate rigorous, meaningful and innovative broader impacts activities (e.g., broadening participation) that integrate with the research being proposed. It is expected that project activities related to broader impacts will be of the same caliber as those addressing the intellectual merit criterion. They should be based on good scholarship, and be designed to achieve clearly stated goals and metrics, while possessing the appropriate expertise and resources available for implementation.

Thus, a simple listing of outreach activities, or reference to inclusion of research personnel who are members of underrepresented groups, falls short of the rigor required to satisfactorily address this criterion.

The National Science Foundation would like to call the community’s attention to several sections of all proposals that require the broader impacts criterion to be specifically addressed: the Project Summary, the Project Description, and the Results of Prior Support section.

For additional information on Broader Impacts, please see the Dear Colleague located at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2008/nsf08044/nsf08044.jsp?govDel=USNSF_25.

posted 04/16/2008
NEW NIH PUBLIC ACCESS POLICY EFFECTIVE APRIL 7, 2008

This policy calls for mandatory deposit in PubMed Central of peer reviewed electronic manuscripts upon acceptance for publication. The change from a voluntary to mandatory policy creates new expectations, not just of funded investigators, but also of institutions (grantees) that house those investigators.

For additional information NIH is maintaining an FAQ on the NIH Public Access Policy at http://publicaccess.nih.gov/.