By: Merar

Merar — Thu, 10 Sep 2015 12:06:38 +0000

The PO job is very different betewen NIH and NSF (I’ve been on about a dozen panels for each, and have some professional colleagues who are permanent as well as past NSF rotators).NSF has good POs and bad POs. A subset of the good and the bad know how to manipulate the review process so they have a large say on what gets funded (depending on the division, this subtlety is often lost on the panelists). A subset of NSF program officers think they know a lot about their field but are 20 years out of date, and some are downright crazy and/or have an agenda (NSF doesn’t have a process, as far as I can tell, of seriously evaluating them). Some are excellent, provide great customer service, and take their job seriously. So they’ve got them all. I think that is part of the problem – no standards or quality control. NSF culture, and even the process for reviewing grants and deciding on funding, varies dramatically betewen directorates. Some use panels, some use ad hoc reviewers, some use ad hoc reviewers followed by a panel. At the end of the day, the PO has a degree of discretion in funding decisions within a given classification (Highly Competitive, Competitive, Not Competitive).It is my impression that many NSF POs were not exactly successful academics (but some were). However, the two do not necessarily correlate. I’ve known at least one mediocre academic who became an excellent PO. I’ve seen POs run panels that are stretched well beyond the panelists’ expertise comfort level, I’ve also encountered panelists who were borderline incompetent and had done nothing in a field in 15+ years, but were considered experts on that topic for reviewing those proposals.Some NSF POs are rotators (1-2 years on leave from academia), and others are permanent. Some directorates utilize the rotators as their recruiting ground for the permanent positions. (In general, I think this is a good thing, but I don’t know how common the practice is).I might be sounding cynical about NSF. I believe in their mission, but think they are seriously understaffed, need some clear vision and direction (like NIH did with their Roadmap), and some operationally-minded folks to put processes in place to evaluate programs as well as the performance of program officers.NIH program officers have much less say in what gets funded (the council sets priorities), and you live and die by the score a lot more. However, a good NIH PO will shop a borderline fundable proposal to other institutes and try to get it funded. POs do not run the review process (the SRAs do), but a good PO will attend a panel and give you a briefing of how the discussion went. Sometimes the summary the panel writes does not really convey the weighting of the issues and how they were discussed.It is also my impression that NIH SRAs and POs have much more time for career development, staying on top of their field, and doing a good job, while NSF POs are spread rather thin and don’t have enough hours in their day. I’ve known of good NSF POs who left for NIH and are much happier there.Then there is DoD, where the POs get to basically call all the funding shots. Unlike NSF (as far as I can tell), DoD actually holds POs accountable for the success or failure of their portfolios.Anything I say here could be wrong, and is based on personal observation, experience on panels, and buying people beers.

Comments on: Grant Proposals: Best Writing Practices

By: Merar