Features

Please note that the deadlines for submitting proposals to the Information and Data Management Program (IDM)

and other programs in the Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) Division,

and Information Technology Research (ITR) initiative http://www.itr.nsf.gov/ are quickly approaching:

IDM/IIS deadlines:
November 16, 2002
March 1, 2003

ITR deadlines:
PRE-PROPOSALS:
November 18, 2002: Large projects (<$15M)
(After NSF review of pre-proposals, only PIs who are invited may
submit full proposals for Large projects.
NSF will return feedback to pre-proposal PIs by the week of January
27, 2003.)

PROPOSALS:
December 12, 2002: Small projects (<$500K)
February 12, 2003: Medium projects (<$4M)
March 24, 2003: Large projects (<$15M): Pre-proposals are mandatory and are
due by November 18, 2002.

IDM proposals will be handled by Maria Zemankova mzemanko@nsf.gov and the ITR proposals in the area of "Information Management", i.e., proposals relevant to the IDM program and other relevant programs in the IIS Division will be handled by Bhavani Thuraisingham bthurais@nsf.gov. Both of us will also be involved in handling ITR proposals in "Scientific and Engineering Informatics", especially datamining in bioinformatics and geoinformatics (GIS, etc.). Both of us can be reached at the phone number 703-292-8930.

The ITR areas "Information Management" (IM) and "Scientific and Engineering Informatics" (SEI) are NOT defined. However, we use the term IM to describe proposals that address more fundamental/core issues in information technology, whereas SEI refers to proposals where the information technology research is driven by a scientific or engineering application. The SEI proposals very often have interdisciplinary co-PIs.

We would like to encourage you to submit innovative datamining proposals, addressing important and timely research problems, where the results will have broad impacts. (Note that your proposal will be reviewed by the two NSF review criteria, intellectual merit and broader impact, so make sure to address both of them in your proposal.)

Many PIs would like to know where to submit their proposals, what the chances are in the IDM program vs. ITR initiative, what types of proposals are better suited for IDM or ITR. Although we cannot predict your chances of success, we believe this would be a good strategy:

Smaller-scale (<<$500K) projects should be aimed to the IDM program. The IDM budget is rather tight, hence it will be extremely difficult to make awards much larger than $300K for 3 years. Projects that may require individual attention (e.g., very interdisciplinary, hence will need to be reviewed by a diverse body of reviewers, possibly considered by several NSF programs, etc.) should also be directed to the IDM program, although the budget may be higher. Any proposal will be happily accepted in the IDM program, and hopefully 15% or more of proposals may receive an award.

Small-scale (<$500K) projects that address broader "Information Management" or "Scientific and Engineering Informatics" should be submitted as ITR proposals (NSF 02-168), directed to the Information and Data Management (IDM) Program. We HOPE to receive many (100 - 200) ITR small proposals, so that we can have several IDM-related proposal review panels and thus improve chances of IDM-related proposals. We also hope the success rate of the ITR-small IDM-related proposals can be around 15% or better.

Medium (<$4M) projects and Large (<$15M) projects that address broader "Information Management" or "Scientific and Engineering Informatics" should be submitted as ITR proposals (NSF 02-168), directed to the Information and Intelligent Systems (IIS) Division. After selecting IIS as the primary CISE division, you are encouraged to select the Information and Data Management Program as the secondary organizational unit as well as other relevant program(s) (scroll down the screen to the "Show All NSF Units" button, and select the most appropriate program(s)). Again, we hope to have a strong showing of IDM-related proposals, so that we have a strong presence in the proposal review panels.

Small, Medium and Large ITR awards are an excellent chance for the IDM community to receive support for visionary, larger-scale, often interdisciplinary proposals. We strongly encourage you to take the advantage of the ITR funding opportunity.

Furthermore, both the IDM and ITR projects with international collaboration are also encouraged. However, please note that the non-US collaborators cannot be supported by NSF, hence must have or should plan on receiving support from their home funding agencies.

Sorry if you receive this message several times, as we are trying to use several mailing lists in order to reach as many potential IDM and ITR PIs. Please forward this message to other researchers in the IDM community and pass our encouragement to submit ITR and IDM proposals.

Best wishes,

Maria Zemankova and Bhavani Thuraisingham