Demystifying the NSF
Transcript cleaned by Raquel Escobar
===

Ray Fouché: [00:00:00] Uh, since, since I've been at the National Science Foundation since early March, uh, I've had multiple conversations with people who talk about how confusing, confounding it can be to find any bit of information about the National Science Foundation. So I think part of what I'm going to do is open it up, lay out the landscape, um, talk about specifically in the context of the DISCO Network, uh, the Division of Social Economic Sciences and specifically the Directorate of Social and Behavioral Economic Sciences, which is most relevant to the folks in the DISCO Network, but also give you a perspective about what the, the landscape looks like.

So. Let me begin by giving you a perspective of what the National Science Foundation looks like, uh, from, from inside and outside. Currently, you see in the middle of the picture, the office of the [00:01:00] director, the, the director is, um, as people call him, Dr. Panch, and he is, uh, a federally appointed director of the National Science Foundation.

Over to your right, you see the National Science Board, which, In as many ways, when we're talking about the university, the National Science Board works as a, as like the Board of Trustees, and the Board of Trustees are the governing body, so they meet regularly and talk about the direction and functioning of the National Science Foundation.

And over to the right, you have I would say the legal arm, right, the Office of Equity and Civil Rights, General Counsel, Integrative Activities, International Sciences, and the Office of Legal and Public Affairs, which is a kind of fancy word for saying the communications arm of the National Science Foundation.

So that just kind of gives you a perspective of the landscape of, of kind of the, the top of administration, but [00:02:00] as you'll see here, there are eight main research directorates and these directorate directorates fund host of research activities. So the current NSF budget is about eight and a half million dollars, billion dollars.

I'm sorry. And so right, you have directorates of biology. CISE, which is Computer Information Science, EHR, which has just recently changed this name to EDU and within the last few weeks, uh, engineering, geoscience, mathematical, physical sciences, SBE, which is the directorate, which when, which I work and the TIP directorate, which is a new directorate that was just recently started for Technology Innovation Partnerships.

, So part of this new directorate is pushing the limits on what. Um, and then the last thing that people think about is National Science Foundation research and work. And so here's a more organizationally friendly chart of seeing how it works out that [00:03:00] the tip directorate, unfortunately, is not on this org chart.

And, on the eight research directories directorates, I did leave off BFA, which is the budget finance and award management and information resource management. So the kind of functioning pieces of that. And also you see up in the right hand corner. Some of the other things I didn't talk about, the Office of Polar Programs, which is, you know, maintains the large polar infrastructure.

So, for this community, I think it's important to think about this specific directorate of, which goes by the acronym SBE, um, Social Behavior and Economic Sciences. And right, this directorate is about exploring human behavior and social organization. So, As you'll see in the next few slides, it'll make more sense about the specific departments and programs that fit within this.

And the part that's important about SBE is like the language of science, right? There's an [00:04:00] effort to produce and promote science. And right, it's a progress of science by, again, developing employee rigorous methods to discover fundamental principles. And so, Trying to use that language to think about understanding the ways in which scientific inquiry develops and move forward moves forward.

So. Yeah, so there's other pieces of it. So let me move in and give you a, an equally larger perspective of, of kind of how it functions financially. So these is this, SBS by the Nu, SBE by the numbers. You can check the, the link down below. NSF is very fairly transparent and how and where it spends its money.

So the SB Directorate is receives and awards roughly $254 million annually. And as you can see. Just about 4000 proposals were submitted in fiscal year 2021. 918 new awards were made and [00:05:00] averaging about to 23 percent funding rate. And as you can imagine, some programs obviously fund at higher rates on fund to the lower rate with the mean award around roughly around 277, 000.

Uh, sorry about that. And more specifically thinking about the organizational structure of SBE. Each of the specific directorates have an assistant director, and our assistant director Kellina Craig-Henderson. And as you can see, it's broken down into three, four, four pieces roughly. So, uh, and the way it's, I would think about it is there are Division of Biological and Computing Sciences, BCS, Division of Social and Economic Sciences, which I lead, The National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics, which has its own separate funding line, but it's also part of this directorate and the Office of Multidisciplinary Activities, which is funds out of the main office.

So roughly the way [00:06:00] it breaks down and that 250 million is Roughly 100, 000, 000 for social and economic sciences, 100, 000, 000 for behavioral and cognitive sciences and 50, 000, 000 for the, the office of multidisciplinary activities. And I can show you next about how those really break out. 

So within the directorate of social behavior, economic sciences, a division of behavioral cognitive sciences, and these what this is what it funds right archaeology, archaeometry.

Biological Anthropology, Cognitive Neuroscience, Cultural Anthropology, Developmental Sciences, Human Environment and Geographical Science, Human Data Networks and Data Science, Linguistics, Perception and Action and Cognition Research, Science and Learning and Augmented Intelligence, Social Psychology, and a cross directed program called Strengthening the American Infrastructure, which is, uh, reaches across the divisions within the National Science [00:07:00] Foundation.

The division I direct funds these, this group of programs, so accountable institutional behavior, which mainly people within the discipline of political science apply to decision risk and management science, economics, law and science, methodology, measurement, statistics, science, organizations.

Science is discovery, where I would say projects like, evidence based policymaking come out of science technology studies, security and trustworthy cyberspace. This is joint with, uh, computer science directorate. And right. This is where people are studying this information, this information, um, and the ways in which, well, problematic occurrences of digital life.

So this is where people get funded for that security and preparedness, which is also primarily pro political scientists and sociology.

And it's the final piece [00:08:00] is that the SMA, which is kind of the collection of the. Directorate funds research experience for undergraduates, which are generally summertime research sites, which support undergraduate during research postdoctoral research fellowships that are related to SB research build and broaden, which is a fascinating program that's geared to connect HBCUs and minority serving institutions with larger, well funded institutions, um, instead of making the uh, I would say the HBCU or the MSI or the minority serving institution secondary. It tries it. It's, it's, it's, it's just Really geared around making those minority serving institutions primary in the conversation and then ethical responsible research, which is a program that's, you know, trying to think about how we do a better job of doing research and it funds a host of interesting research endeavors.

So, [00:09:00] SB is also connected to cross directory initiatives, and these are cross cutting themes and programs run by one individual, but pull together money from across the agency. So if you think about something like ecology and evolution of infectious disease, there are a lot of folks from biology, anthropology, sociology, uh, chemistry, who are invested in this conversation, along with things like dynamics of integrated social environmental systems.

And the future work at the human technology frontier, which brings together computer scientists, sociologists with, uh, um, political scientists, uh, with, um, all kinds of scientific researchers to study what the future of work will look like, which engages a host of people across the agency. So there are these large cross sectional activities that Bring together funding and researchers from across the [00:10:00] agency. 

But there are also internal directorate initiatives. So one of that we're involved in is a partnership with the social science research council that just came together in May late late spring. And the idea is to think about how we can do a better job of public health guidance, right? It's connected to the effects of COVID, but also there's a host of public health issues that we need to think about how to do a better job with that.

And the Social Science Research Council is allowing is has agreed to contribute 7. 5 million up front and potentially 20 million over the next few years to help. researchers who are interested in social behavior, economic science research to ask questions that are relevant to social, the social science research council.

So in a sense, it allows more funding to do more research within the space. So there are these cross [00:11:00] platform conversations about research, and then there are more internal research opportunities, which are Germane to specific division and directorates.

All right. So kind of mechanisms for words awards.

So I'll kind of go through this and they kind of scale and, and, and, and since dollar value and of importance. So at the most basic level, you have doctoral dissertation, research, improvement grants, or DDRIGs, which generally are in the The less than 25, 000 range, which allows the graduate students to do research on on their dissertation and it's connected to specific director program initiative.

So it's an interesting program that allows graduate students from across section of universities to have opportunity to do research that would have potentially been I wouldn't say hard to fund, but on the more difficult, depending on what kind of institution you're at, [00:12:00] it might be hard to get 15 to 20,000 dollars to go somewhere and do this research that's hard to come by.

They're called EAGERs early concept grants for exploratory research and eagers are grants and opportunities for things that maybe aren't fully formed yet. And so I think part of what's interesting about the NSF is traditionally people think that they're funding these clear concrete projects, but there's an effort to do and provide opportunities for exploratory research. So these EAGERs are, yeah, so beginning the conversation about doing some interesting research that may not again, as I mentioned before, not be fully formed. 

Then there's a series of boards called RAPIDs or rapid response research and this funded a lot of the work that came out of NSF related to COVID, meaning that you have researchers who have a coherent research trajectory, but then something monumental happens, [00:13:00] whether it be a hurricane, whether it be COVID, whether it be some large geopolitical event that reshapes our world, and it's important to go and do research in that moment, because if you don't get there, it'll disappear.

And these can get approved very quickly because generally the traditional mechanism for NSF awards is that you submit them, they go through review, and then decisions are made and and those that can take from three to six months and rapid awards can be actually done within weeks. So the idea is, how do you get researchers out into the field.

In a quick and expedient way to answer the questions that are relevant of that time and moment, then the NSF also supports conferences and workshops. So oftentimes people think that NSF only supports research activities, but conferences and workshops are [00:14:00] research activities and there are opportunities for there to be a traditional conference, um, and or a workshop to begin bringing together ideas and these can be funded up to through our director, um, 50, 000 to have a workshop on, say, you have this new idea, these new set of questions and how do you put together a group of people that you would like to talk with to begin that.

And similarly, there are these opportunities called Research Coordination Networks, or RCNs, which allow you to think about how to build networks in very much the DISCO mentality and way of bringing together people from disparate parts of the world and to have this early conversation. 

Then there are career awards, which are for early career researchers. And these are primarily to get your research off the ground. So in career awards, a lot of the funding then definitely is geared to supporting graduate students. So it's an opportunity to create [00:15:00] a network of laboratory or researchers within your space to develop your research trajectory. Then they're finding the mid career awards, which would be advancement MCAs, which are designed for.

faculty members who are, you know, late associate, I would say, I mean, late assistant, early associate professors who are potentially advancing in mid career and there's opportunity to launch their research into the next level of work where they're going to hopefully make a big, meaningful impact.

So I think there are lots of different mechanisms and, you know, if you have any questions, I can talk about how to make those mechanisms more useful to you and what that means at a specific moment in time, but I'll keep pressing on.

Uh, part of the, the, the biggest question is how to find programs, how to find the place and space to submit. a [00:16:00] research grant proposal. And part of it is, you know, like all things, it's just a searching activity. So there's opportunities within the NSF infrastructure to understand how and the best ways to search.

So, right, there's a straight up NSF funding search to look for programs and then pass the awards. You can do NSF award searches. There's a, you can do very simple searches or more advanced searches to see specifically what particular programs are funded, search researchers who have been funded, title words, abstracts, keywords, all kinds of different ways that you can search.

And then there is the traditional NSF announcement and announcements and newsletters. You can get on a host of emails that NSF will send out about the newest announcement, the newest award, the new opportunities. So that's always very useful if you're interested in NSF funding, they, they will email you regularly about new things that are [00:17:00] coming down the line.

And then there's also, SB has a key to funding opportunities page, which is a way of thinking about The next steps in the funding research trajectory. So, you know, I always try to get people to that aren't really sure to actually use the, the NSF. No, it's, it's, it's new, but it's not super new the new funding research tool that allows you to do a lot of things you can filter by directorate, you can filter by division, you can filter all different ways to get to the questions you're interested in. So for instance, right, this search is just political science, um, still choosing divisions and directorates, and you're able to pull up programs that will fund political science, which are traditionally security, impairedness, accountable institutions, behavior.

So once you can kind of give them these programs, then you can kind of pull out [00:18:00] and see the key relevant information. So there's a page that will connect you to when the deadlines are and. Right, deadlines are the next one coming up is January 15, 2023, and then it has the program contacts and the program contacts are key because these are human beings that live behind work in NSF and are the key people that shepherd proposals from once they are finally submitted through the review process, and it's important to know those people and potentially contact those people. And a little later, I'll get to that conversation about contacting the program directors. 

Thank you very much. And then finally, as you can see, it's important to look through the awards made through this program so you can browse the funded projects funded this program.

I think it's a really good way to just even look from titles and abstracts understand what is funded by the program and give you a sense of what's relevant in that space. [00:19:00] So, You can also go to the more in depth advanced searches, which allows you to choose all kinds of things. Um, it's, uh, an advanced search word that you would expect from the Natural Science Foundation that lets you get pretty deep into the weeds, about information and you can pull down really, really detailed examples of research from principal investigation, keywords, and then it sends you clearly a set of links and right. It gives you pretty much a short little bit of information. As you can see, uh, award number, principal investigation, investigators, institution. The start date and the award amount. So this is kind of relevant to the scale and scope of the research and where it can fit within your desired research trajectory.

Right. And then oftentimes you click these things and it'll take you to the abstracts and there are [00:20:00] NSF. Abstracts are always up and available. Um, pretty much after you receive an award, it will go up and you can research it and you can read specific abstract. You can read the titles. You can read all the kind of key elements of what this project may look like.

And to get a strong understanding of what's going on. So right. It gives you the program manager, the direction director duration, the word amount, all of the, I didn't say all, but a good selection of a piece of information that are relevant to to understanding the research and project. And finally, before you apply this two things that you should kind of look through and to your right is the the proposal and award policies and procedure guide, which is called the PAPG.

I would not suggest you look through the PAPG, because the PAPG is hundreds of pages, but it has all the nitty gritty about how to apply it [00:21:00] and and work with the NSF. But the most important part is to look at, which is to the left, the program description. And the program description will tell you all the relevant information. How much they're willing to fund, how many programs they're, how many awards they're trying to get, and specific interest areas that they're trying to, to focus on. The research and how they're trying to get you to think about the research questions and the research that would be would be funded through with a specific program.

So those are really important to think through. And but it's also important once you if you've done all this and you've kind of poked around and you know there's a program that looks relevant to your research and You're interested in thinking about that. I think it's important to start contacting people Yeah, so like after you've narrowed down the program And read the program page.

It's important [00:22:00] to reach out to the program directors and When we say reach out to them, emailing them just a one pager, that's a, that's a big thing. It's very important. There's a one page summary of your, your plan to research and project, and as there are two acronyms in here, intellectual merit and broader impact.

And so those are the two key things that are most important in NSF proposals is intellectual merit, which is How your research connects to the specific research community and broader impact, meaning that what is the impact that your work is going to have not only within the research community, but beyond.

And so if you can kind of lay that out to a program director, they can give you really useful feedback on whether your project will fit within this program's goals or They can say, well, no, this doesn't fit this program, but please contact this person. Um, they, I can also say, well, [00:23:00] have you looked at this specific group of research funding opportunities?

So there's all kinds of things that are relevant that are going on. And, um, it's important to, yeah, email all relevant programs. And a single email, because it's important to kind of reach out and get in contact with people. 

This is again, there are the people like you and me, and they're all back there working to help fund your research.

And the more important thing is if you haven't heard from back from them, follow up, it's not personal because depending on what time your email lands, they might be in the middle of a research review panel and your email gets lost. So oftentimes it's not. It's not as that people are ignoring you or dismissive of your project.

I think, you know, I I'm at the NSF and the email is pretty brisk. Let's just call it that. And, and [00:24:00] certain things sometimes gets just get slipped or they have reached out to another program officer and they haven't heard back from someone else. So they just. Aren't ready to even respond. So if you have heard back from them, yeah, just email them again and say, you know, I sent you this and I was just curious about your thoughts and they'll get back to you.

So again, Zoom appointments are quick and easy. Now the building is slowly opening up. So there's opportunities meet with program officers in person in the building and most programs will run at least one webinar about their research efforts, their trajectory annually. So there are opportunities to be in that conversation.

And common pitfalls to avoid in SBE proposals, and I think not just in SBE, but I think in all proposals, right? I think the first thing is, [00:25:00] mind always don't overlook the key aspects of the program announcement and the requirements, right. NSF uses federal funding, primarily from tax dollars to fund all this research, and there are potentially some very idiosyncratic requirements that are baked into the announcements that are very important. And so, and all that is in the, the announcement and the requirements. So just read them carefully and be very clear about what the expectations are it's also important to rely on the advice from, the work. Yeah, from people who work only with other directorates. Uh, so within the NSF, like in a university, there are different cultures of, of questions of research and proposals.

It's important to speak to the [00:26:00] folks within the research program. So I think I've noticed this happens fairly regularly that someone says, well, I had someone from computer science or biology review my proposal for sociology, and they thought it looked good. But when I applied to sociology, it didn't get reviewed very well.

I mean, I don't think it would be the same way. You wouldn't ask someone to do that for your research article. You would want someone in the field. So, so really heed the advice of the people within the specific programs. The other thing that's very hurts people in the proposal process is lack of specificity about method.

And, uh, it's the relationship to theory. Uh, the National Science Foundation is the National Science Foundation about producing really good, rigorous science. And science comes in all kinds of different forms. But, it has to be methodologically sound, theoretically, relevant, and, yeah, rigorous. [00:27:00] So it's very similar to writing a journal article.

You have to present a case for why this is meaningful and value. Um, and so, similarly, undeveloped or vague data analysis plan. So part of that is getting to the question of why does the research you're doing matter and how will it transform the world in which we live? So, right. Last thing is, some of the last things are Disconnection between framing and motivation and pros activity, failing to establish feasibility.

So there are opportunities where there's clear understanding that this research that you're going to do has high risk of, of a failure and there are opportunities that, that makes sense, but there also are more traditional opportunities where folks who are viewing the polls will have to feel pretty good that actually this is feasible.

You've shown me in your 15 pages, which is the page limit [00:28:00] for NSF polls that you are capable of doing this. You know what you're doing, and it's possible that you will deliver good sound research. Uh, Yeah, so think about tailoring your proposal to the appropriate audience. So most of the programs are fairly disciplinary or fairly inter, multi transdisciplinary.

So, for instance, you're applying sociology program, you have to live within the confines of sociology. And because most of the people that will be reviewing those proposals are sociologists. So really be thoughtful about who the audience is, because if you miss the mark on that, You will just struggle in the process of proposals.

So I think that's all I have to say. I'll stop sharing my screen. I think we're still a pretty small group. So, if anyone has any questions, [00:29:00] comments please chime in and I will do my best to address them from someone who's sitting inside the NSF and is fairly 

far up the food chain. So thank you all.

Catherine Knight Steele: Thank you for that. Right. That was super insightful and helpful for me being able to pass that on to my students. I have a question that I mean you got into a little bit, but maybe could provide a little more. I don't know. Advice on is that a lot of the students that I'm working with and even the way that my work is interpreted is often sitting between.

Social science and the humanities. And I think a lot of the work that folks are doing in like critical black digital humanities in terms of platform studies that might fall into that place about misinformation are also sitting in like traditionally more humanistic disciplines, but see our work as being in [00:30:00] conversation in the sciences.

Do you have any advice on how to, you know, structure that, that kind of divide or imagine divide or, you know, how do we basically get folks to, to read our work the way that we want them to in that way? 

Ray Fouché: Yeah. So I think in the context of applying for the NSF, I think part of it is it's really critically important to have a pre conversation With the program director who you're applying to.

So in this conversation about misinformation and disinformation, the program officer from SBA, Sarah Kiesler, who worked at Carnegie Mellon and has lived in computer science programs, is I would say thoughtful and understands folks who are at the fringes of humanities, arts, and social sciences and computer science.

So part of that is going, all right, Sarah, you, you're [00:31:00] living in this space. Uh, yeah, I mean, Andre, so. She's kind of, she gets it right. And part of that is saying, okay, I've got this project and how can you see this fitting in with the context of this research in depth and using the program directors as in their knowledge about.

Um, the proposal review process to help you move that through, because, you know, the thing is, you have to remember that the way that structure. So the proposal gets sent to the machinery of NSF, and then it lands, say, if you're applying for, say, doing a project on black disinformation, disinformation, what do you want to call it?

It would land at Sarah and then Sarah as the program director would assign it to reviewers. And she has chosen the group of people who review this proposal. [00:32:00] So, within that context, right, uh, you know, you can't speak or

assume what people are going to say or think. But I think part of it is like, if you understand the community of people that are potentially in the room, you can give people better advice about how to potentially draft your proposal that. Will be relevant and speak to the people in the room. So, so that's kind of a long winded answer, but part of it is just having a conversation with the program director and saying, you know, there are pieces of the project that might be really relevant.

Say, okay, well, we can fund this piece, but this other piece, we can't fund. And if you maybe put that on the side outside of proposal, then we might, [00:33:00] uh, we want, we might. Be able to fund this, right? So it's all about understanding the parameters of the conversation and getting information about the parameters.

Because I mean, if, again, if you're going to talk with someone like Sarah, if you go, well, okay, so this, this is the research that has never been funded through the program. It's, it's, it's great, but it just hasn't been funded. But this is the kind of research that has been funded. And how does that connect with the things you do?

So part of it, right, is just having a conversation about. Where the opportunities are and where the dead roads are. Well, then it was 

Catherine Knight Steele: Super helpful. Thank you.

Aaron Dial: I had a question. I put it in the chat. But, um, so [00:34:00] only because I'm not, I've seen it done, but I'm not familiar with the process. If there was a project that I was working on that was large enough. And say, just like you mentioned that NSF is funding a particular portion of it. Um, how, uh, how does NSF view projects that maybe have multiple funding sources?

Um, or like, is that encouraged? Is that okay? What is kind of the general norms around it? 

Ray Fouché: Uh, I would say it's definitely encouraged. I mean, Because the point is NSF is a limited resource saying, well, I would say if you get more money to do more projects and we can participate and not the way we can please or more money, the better and the more research session get funded.

That's really great. So there are limitations to what we can fund. So, and part of it. 

Aaron Dial: In those cases, is it that, um, we are articulating these projects with, like, very, uh, [00:35:00] specific slivers that, like, so, you know, there's three parts to this project. NSF is funding part A, group, uh, the other group is funding part B, or can I have the same part being funded by multiple sources?

Does that question make sense? 

Ray Fouché: Yeah, yeah, yeah, I understand what you're saying. So I think part of it is you have to remember that NSF, I wouldn't say doesn't care, but is not It's, it's funding research and however you slice that up is your business. They want to know that the piece of research that you're doing is going to produce.

Good work and however you may package that because the thing is when you submit your research proposal I think a good program director will tell you No one wants to hear about the other research funding that people are doing you have a limited amount of words and you should say i'm asking the national science foundation for money to do x y and z [00:36:00] and Uh, if you can if there's another agency that will allow you to do x y and z as well You That's fine.

But I think part of it is just trying to capitalize and use your dollars as most effectively and efficiently as possible. So, yeah, I would say that there's not, I mean, yeah, for instance, I mentioned the social science research council. So if your project came through and had a piece about public health, Uh, guidance.

We would try to add some social science research money to it. So if we're already doing it in a sense in house, then the idea of you doing it outside of NSF is all good. 

Aaron Dial: Thank you.

Ray Fouché: Does that does that answer your question? 

Aaron Dial: No, it absolutely does. Thank you.[00:37:00] 

Jessica Hill Riggs: I have a question, Ray. Um, and this just comes from my experience of working with the Department of Education previously, and it seems like. Sometimes, you know, depending on things that are happening politically, there's more pressure to fund projects under a certain area. 

And so, like, grant cycles from 1 year to the next, there can be a specific prioritization of funding going to a specific discipline.

In the past, I was working in area studies and so, like, there would be more of a focus spending, giving awards on, like, Southeast Asia versus the Middle East and depending on the cycle, right? That funding might change. And so I'm just wondering when it comes to the NSF and the role that you're in. What is that relationship?

Like, is there sort of [00:38:00] certain disciplines or topics that are on trend that are receiving more attention than others? How does that? Yeah. 

Ray Fouché: Yeah. I think like anything right there. There are things that are being, I wouldn't say pushed, but. Focused on by, say, the director, um, and two of the things that I'm, I'm really excited about, um, is one of the things the director has been pushing is questions and research about, um, equity, um, and talking about the missing millions of underrepresented people within the science and technological pathways and how can we do better about that.

So, right. And for me, who's interested in issues of diversity and difference, that makes it a lot easier for me to say, hey, as [00:39:00] a division, we want to try to move the bar on the ways we research and and help shape the research that's being done in the future. So, so, yeah, I mean, there are there are initiatives that are kind of percolating up in the ecology.

Right. Uh, so one of the things that is, is, is pop bubbling up in a sense of questions about disability. Uh, so that's a conversation that's, you know, the director is talking about, right? So what does it mean to not only do science about people and study people with disabilities, but actually create new pathways to do that science?

Also, there's strong emphasis on the co production of science and scientific knowledge with [00:40:00] communities and scientists. So that's these are new kind of pathways and things are happening. So those are really. Interesting questions that are that are. Are being asked, but but again, right? There's certain big big issue items like climate climate everywhere. Is it's a big, big issue. Economic policy for the place I sit is a is a big, big issue. So, uh, yeah, I mean, there, there's no shortage of people that put pressure on any government institutions. I think still the The great part about the National Science Foundation is that all decisions about what gets funded are really heavily driven by the community, meaning that we have a fairly robust review process where [00:41:00] we have scholars from the community review proposals and evaluate them.

You know, nothing is perfect. But if you are submitting to your proposal to a group of people who are in your field, I think you feel a lot better about their assessment than people who have a political axe to grind. So So, I don't know if that kind of gets to your question, Jessica. 

Jessica Hill Riggs: Definitely. And I guess it's just sort of another follow up question is, how do you, how do you become aware of those changing trends?

Right? Or, like, the different funding priorities over time, given different political changes and sort of things that are happening in the political sphere. Is that really just sort of, you know, attending conferences, being in the know, having conversations with like people like you and leadership positions, it's sort of like.

Because I know from a grant administrator [00:42:00] side, like, I see the back end. I see that. Yeah, one year. This topic is going to have more funding versus the next cycle. It gets moved around. Um, yeah, yeah, so I think, I think it's just something to be aware of, right? Like, on the grant making side of things, sometimes things are prioritized or divvied up differently.

Ray Fouché: Yeah, it's interesting. I feel like from where I sat that the message is not, is very clear. 

Jessica Hill Riggs: Okay. 

Ray Fouché: It doesn't mean, right, they are. There are, 

Jessica Hill Riggs: but I think it's good for the, you know, like the public to know. Right. But like, there are sometimes these other forces at play 

Ray Fouché: Yeah, there are. But I think the part that's interesting is that I think the public, it's very, oftentimes it's very clear, but the public just doesn't know where to look.

[00:43:00] So for instance, one of the, there's the office of science technology policy. So Alondra Nelson was running the science technology policy for a while. And when she's giving talks saying we need to do and really take co production very seriously. So when, when Alondra is making those statements coming out of the White House and making it clear that those are White House priorities, it's very clear what, what those priorities mean to us, uh, how do we enact that? Or do we need to enact that? 

That may not, that may, that's a different question, but. Uh, it's very clear what the, like the White House agenda is and oftentimes it's [00:44:00] not so simple to enact that or, or make it real. But sometimes it's, there are people who are saying, well, we would like to have done this research and now we're going to push it forward, right?

Climate has been a hot potato for a long time. Questions about climate intervention or climate change, but it's pretty clear at this moment that we, as human beings are influencing the climate. And if we want to continue to live on the planet, we need to do something about it. So, and there's certain parts of NSF that are more invested in climate and some that are not.

So. I think I would say watch the White House and the other organizations like the National Academy of Science, Engineering, Medicine, who are setting out large agenda items and promoting [00:45:00] specific trajectories of the way they want the large scale, I would say, science and research enterprise and the same thing on the humanities and arts side.

You know, what, what is the NEH, what is the NEA doing? What are their talking points? What are their director saying? What are the questions they're asking? And those things filter down to the funding agency as well. 

Jessica Hill Riggs: Thank you. Yeah, it's interesting that you're noting disability studies, because the Ford Foundation has a new cohort of disability fellows that they're funding.

And then you Mozilla Foundation, and it's very clear that. And some conversations we've had with them that like disability studies, the new angle that they want to take as well. And so also hearing from the NSF. So, just seems like it's tracking across the different research and sort of philanthropic [00:46:00] organizations that this is growing.

It's good to know. 

Ray Fouché: Yeah, I think it's just the same way just watch what say. Pew charitable trusts, what are they funding? What new efforts are they building? What new groups are they putting together to fund specific research trajectories and areas? Those were 

critical about where the energy is going. So I was going to say, 

uh, Andre. Yeah. Yeah. I can, I can share the slides. I should probably get those to Jessica so you can, 

André Brock: yeah, I was going to, I was going to ask you for that after, after this, right. Um, uh, yeah, I guess if, if there are one, I guess I'll ask, are there any more questions for Dr. Fouché? 

Aaron Dial: I do have one, but it's kind of, I'm more interested in, [00:47:00] in how you find yourself doing this. Like, how did you get here? 

Ray Fouché: That's a good question. How did I get here? Uh, well, I, I've had natural science. I mean, I guess I could give, I should give you the short long version. Uh, part of it is that, is building a relationship with the National Science Foundation. So I always tell people that if you ever want to understand the National Science Foundation, the funding process, sit on a review panel.

And programs are always looking for reviewers to sit on review panels. Because they happen so regularly. We're trying to decrease the number of proposals that everyone is individually reeling and responsible for. So we need more people. So if I would say first, reach out to a program officer.[00:48:00] 

And as I tell people, you know, if you say you spoke with me. I told you to reach out to program officer because you're interested in participating on a review panel and so the way my pathway was that I was asked to be an ad hoc reviewer, which means the NSF emails me and says, Hey, we have this proposal that we think you might be an expert in so would you be willing to write, you know, a short review of this, right? It's like reviewing an article and generally they're they're 15 pages. They're all 15 pages They're pretty quick and the reviews are relatively short, right? So they're asking you pretty much your assessment of this should should we fund?

And from there, I think if you probably do a good job [INAUDIBLE] review then you'll potentially be invited to sit on the panel. Which In the good old days, you would fly to the National Science Foundation, fly to Washington, D. C., you would [00:49:00] sit in one of the conference rooms for two days and deliberate on a cross section of proposals and create an assessment of what you think are things that shouldn't get funded or what you think should get funded.

And so, so I sat on a panel. And from there, I was involved with NSF in various capacities and fashions. And then about three years ago, I was asked to be on the advisory committee for the Directorate of Social and Behavioral Economic Sciences. And in that role, it's If you think about SBE as being, you know, I, I, I think it's like a college and I was, I was similar to being an advisory board to the college or university or whatever.

So it's like, [00:50:00] it's an advisor and from there you get, I, I, I got to learn a lot about what was going on. Internally within NSF, what the agenda, the direction, the focus, the energy was, and basically they're just asking for advice on how to kind of move the agenda forward. And then from there, I was asked to be The chair of the committee of visitors.

And so the committee of visitors pretty much similar to if we're thinking about the college model was asked to do a review of the entire college. So pretty much I was asked to share the review of my division and that I'm running right now. So part of that was probably a three day effort where you brought in probably 30, roughly 30, 40 [00:51:00] people of specific expertise, you'd review proposals, and you would assess how, how has the division been doing in assessing the, the project, right?

So has this, has this program been making the right decision? I mean, that's kind of the big question. Are they making the right decision? Or do you feel it's balanced? Are they feel like more certain institutions are getting more money than others? How? So it's, it's a check and balance. So from that point on, I've been on the advisory committee.

I had, I'd written the review report of the, uh, the division. And so then when the position came available, people said, you might want to consider applying. And then I applied and ended up getting the position. So that's, that's how. It worked for me. So yeah, kind of a long story. [00:52:00] 

Aaron Dial: Awesome. Thank you.

Ray Fouché: So, but I mean, I think part of it is like, you know, it's, it's a long process. Cause I started reviewing for the NSF probably 20 years ago. So, you know, it's, it's not as if it happened in the last like, Four or five years. It's been a it's a long process.

André Brock: Well, uh, um, thank you for that, uh, Dr. Fouche. If there are no more questions, I think we can, uh, I guess go ahead and wrap it up here and let everybody get back to their, to their Thursday evening. I want to thank everyone for attending for attending. everyone for this lively discussion. At the end, I'll make sure we have the recording circulated as well as the slides for.

Dr. Fouché for this presentation. Um, with that being said, uh, thank you everybody. Have a great day.