From BlueOxen

The National Science Foundation is not in the tool business. It funds research. When making proposals, you want to stress the research part of the program (as opposed to the "development"). Focus on what's new for science. In this vein, you also need to differentiate yourself from existing work.

NSF is a bottoms-up organization. Unlike organizations like DARPA, NSF is not mission-oriented. It listens to what the research community wants to do, and it funds the projects that have the most potential.

Similarly, NSF is not an initiating organization. It will not connect people or put teams together. That is the responsibility of the proposers.

Government fiscal year starts in October.

NSF is a "best efforts" granting organization. It is in the business of funding basic research, and it doesn't expect proposals to exceed. However, it does do regular site visits for larger projects (non-SGER) to check up on progress and to make sure their money is being used properly.

Grants

There are two kinds of grants: SGER and everything else. SGER grants are up to $200,000 and are not peer-reviewed. There are generally no deadlines associated with proposals for these grants, and so they can be submitted anytime. They can also be turned around fairly quickly. They are generally for one year, although they can be extended for a no-cost second year.

Anything above $200,000 must be peer-reviewed. They are typically for three years. The approval cycle takes six months on average and can be up to a year.

On a rare occasion, NSF will fund planning grants -- small funds for helping put together larger grant proposals. These grants are generally tens of thousands of dollars and are for six months. These are very rare.

It's possible to submit multiple proposals simultaneously, but NSF cautioned against linking them. Most proposals are rejected, and linking two proposals together increases the chances of rejecting them, because NSF doesn't want to fund a project that depends on another projects also getting funding.

Things that interest NSF:

• Education-related -- training the next generation of scientists. NSF likes to see students on proposals. Students who participate in a project will be trained to be the scientists you'd like to see today.
• True collaboration. They're wary of proposals where people are just going to do their own thing independently of everyone else.
• Team makeup is key. They want to see people qualified to do the research.

NSF does not typically fund industrial research. The exception to this are small (1-2 people) companies. It will fund nonprofits.

Proposal Process

For the planning stage, the best thing to do is to put together a two page pre-proposal along with a draft budget and to send it to a program officer for feedback. Submit this at least a few months before proposal deadlines.

Peer reviewers are anonymous, although they get to see who's doing the submissions. NSF is highly protective of its reviewers. Proposals are behind the firewall forever, mainly due to IP issues.