• Formatting and Submission Instructions 
• Proposal Review Process
• Tips from the Science Advisory Board

Include the following in your proposal, where applicable:

COVER SHEET	WG	DGS	Postdocs	Sabbatical Fellows
Proposal Type - Indicate Working Group, Distributed Graduate Seminar, Sabbatical, or Postdoctoral	√	√	√	√
Descriptive Title	√	√	√	√
Short Title – Two or three words for use as a project name (25 characters max)	√	√	√	√
PI Name(s) and Complete Contact Information	√	√	√	√
Project Summary – A brief scientific abstract of your project	√	√	√	√
Expected Date of Ph.D Completion (if applicable)			√
Proposed Start and End Dates - Proposed start and end date of project (month, year)	√	√	√	√
Proposed Data Release Date - Date you expect to submit data set(s) to NCEAS (month, year)	√	√	√	√
Is this a resubmission? - Yes/No	√	√	√	√
Conflicts of Interest with Reviewers - Review list of SAB members on the NCEAS web site and note any potential conflicts of interest based on NCEAS COI policy .	√	√	√	√
BODY OF PROPOSAL	WG	DGS	Postdocs	Sabbatical Fellows
Problem Statement – Clear and concise statement of what is to be done, why it is important, and how it will be accomplished	√	√	√	√
Proposed Activities – Brief description of methods and why they are appropriate	√	√	√	√
Names of Participants	√	√
Indicate whether participants are confirmed	√	√
Identify a technical liaison for NCEAS computing staff - this participant should have considerable analytical expertise	√	√
Identify one participant who will be responsible for ensuring that the requirements of the NCEAS Data and Information Policy are met	√	√
Identify at least one graduate student participant - this person should be a full intellectual participant, not a technician	√
Provide names and affiliations of seminar leaders at 6-8 institutions - at least 25% of seminar leaders should be from U.S. institutions serving underrepresented minorities		√
Timetable of Activities	√	√	√	√
Anticipated Results and Benefits – Include description of data and software products and proposed public release date	√	√	√	√
Indicate how you first heard about the NCEAS Call for Proposals	√	√	√	√
Literature Cited	√	√	√	√
Curriculum Vitae for Each PI – Two (2) page maximum for each	√	√	√	√
Budget – See Working Groups and Sabbatical Fellows pages for more information	√ Budget Temp- late			√ Budget Temp- late
Letters of Recommendation – Three (3) letters should be sent directly by authors as email attachments to: proposal@nceas.ucsb.edu An email confirming receipt will be sent to the referee within 24 hours of submission			√

Formatting and Submission Instructions

Proposals will be accepted in digital format only, as a Microsoft Word or PDF file. Proposals should be submitted as single, complete documents, formatted to standard letter size (8.5” W by 11” L) with graphics embedded directly in the document. The body of the proposal should follow the cover sheet.  Infomation to be included in the cover sheet and body of the proposal is provided in the table above.  Do not send compressed collections of files, such as .ZIP files.

Send the proposal document as an email attachment to:
proposal@nceas.ucsb.edu. All those who submit proposals and references will receive an email confirming receipt within 24 hours of submission. If you do not receive a confirmation email, please call (805) 892-2500 with the first PI's name and proposal title and someone will follow up with you shortly. Please contact proposal@nceas.ucsb.edu if you have difficulty submitting your proposal, or if you have extenuating circumstances that would prevent you from submitting a digital version of your proposal by the deadline.

For answers to questions not addressed on this Call for Proposals site, please email:
proposal@nceas.ucsb.edu, visit the NCEAS web site, or call (805) 892-2500.

Proposal Review Process

Proposals are evaluated for their scientific merit, novel approaches, and rationale for involving NCEAS. The Center’s Science Advisory Board (SAB) reviews proposals and makes recommendations to the Director who, in consultation with the Deputy Director, makes the final decisions about which proposals to support.

Board Members are given a list of proposals under consideration and submit a list of those they prefer to review. Review assignments are made considering these preferences. Reviewers recuse themselves from proposal review when there might be a conflict of interest, according to the terms of the NCEAS Review Process and Conflict of Interest Statement.

A context statement and reviews written by Board members (but not the actual scores given by reviewers) will be returned to the PI(s) without revealing the names of the reviewers. While reviews are provided to applicants, they may not reflect the discussions that takes place at the Science Advisory Board meetings. These discussions are much less focused on specific content than the nature, scope, and innovation in the proposed project.

Proposals that are clearly inappropriate for NCEAS (e.g. those requesting overhead, funds to be spent at the investigator's home institution, or funds intended to fund new data collection, etc.) will be returned without review.

Tips from the Science Advisory Board

To help you develop successful proposals, the Science Advisory Board has developed a few rules of thumb to guide your proposal preparation:

• Proposals are evaluated primarily on the significance and novelty of the idea(s) under consideration and should be question-driven (i.e., not purely descriptive).
• Provide a clear rationale for why this should be, or can only be, done at NCEAS.
• Be clear and concise. Give brief examples of major points you are making or approaches you are using. “Trust me” proposals are not effective.
• For Working Group proposals, include a diverse array of participants who are committed to the project. Pay attention to gender balance and include individuals from underrepresented institutions and groups. For each participant, specify the expertise brought to the project and whether he/she has agreed to participate.
• Indicate where the data used in your project will come from and its availability.
• If the results are designed or imagined to be useful to resource managers, make clear, valid statements about why and how that is so.