Center Proposal Development

1. Center Proposal Development Randolph Hall Vice Provost for Research Advancement

2. Why Pursue Centers? • Impact Extends Beyond What You Can Personally Accomplish • New Types of Research, Crossing Disciplines, Linking Applications with Basic Research • Increase in Recognition, Reputation, Rewards • Ability to Reach Out Beyond Traditional Base (industry, government, students, community) • Support for Basic Infrastructure (labs, staffing, marketing) • Stable Funding Over Long Periods

3. Center Cautions • Must be Satisfied with Role of a “Conductor” • Will Detract from Personal Research • Financial Responsibility • New Forms of Reporting (site visits, annual reports) • Must be Responsible for Performance of Fellow Faculty • Sponsor Can be Fickled and Arbitrary • Not for Everyone

4. Personal Background • Program Manager, Systems Engineering, Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways • Founding Director, METRANS transportation center at USC • Principal Investigator CREATE Homeland Security Center at USC

5. Lessons Learned • Begin with the vision • Build a team among people you can trust • Set highest standards for ethics and fairness • Make the tough decisions and accept the consequences • Reinforce the vision

6. What it Takes to Win • Leadership • Top quality team, that works together • Vision and ideas • Organization and management • Responsiveness and clarity • Commitment • Leadership

7. Starting Point • You, PI, Director, Leader • Vision • What center will be known for • What it will contribute • Unique and compelling theme/idea to tie it all together • Mission • How it will achieve the vision • Set of activities undertaken

8. Mechanics • 1. Team building • 2. Organization Plan • 3. Selection Process • 4. Talk with your administration • 5. Proposal writing • 6. Budget creation • 7. Broader impacts/outreach • 8. Site visit

9. 1. Team Building • What skill mix is required by the RFP and by your vision? • Multi-department? • Multi-institution? • Minority institutions? • National laboratories? • Industry and government? • Special facilitiies

10. Competitive Assessment • Where is strongest competition, and what will they propose? • What weaknesses can USC exploit? • What USC strengths can be applied to the problem? • How can USC compensate for weaknesses with external involvement? • “Shadow” the competition

11. Before going too far… • Sketch the budget, see what you can afford • Administration: 10-20% • Education: 0-20% • Outreach: 5-10% • Funded projects: 50-75% • Pre-selected funded projects: 0-75% • Assess realistic funding per investigator, and matching requirements, before inviting anyone • Identify those skills that are needed to fulfill the vision

12. Picking the Members • Open invitations are asking for trouble – will quickly lose focus • Scientific reputation (build the quals) • Satisfying diversity goals (individuals and institutions) • Trustworthyness • Team players • Time and prior commitments (will they be present at site visit?) • Special assets (facilitiies, familiarity with sponsor, matching funds)

13. Attracting Key Members • Sell them on the vision – opportunity to be part of something important • Carefully considered financial commitments

14. Create Core Group • Identify about 3-5 people who are core to the proposal – absolutely essential • Clarify the role of each core member in the proposal and center – reach agreement, but avoid specific budget commitment at this point • Begin meeting on regular basis to map out strategy and execute • Based on the leadership you exhibit, make it clear that you are in charge

15. 2. Organization Plan • Director/PI (you) • Bottom line responsibility/final authority for entire center • Primary interface with sponsor and key advisory/steering committees • Intellectual leader for entire center • Typically 50% to 100% effort

16. Deputy Director(s) • As needed, faculty member may be deputy director for defined areas: • Deputy Director for Education • Deputy Director for Technology Transfer • Deputy Director, or Research Lead, for Defined Research Concentration Areas, or Institutions • Do not burden center with too much administration

17. Staffing • Sometimes, Managing Director ($100-$150k) • Project management, production of deliverables, budget oversight – should have broad technical understanding (often PhD), but usually not the idea generator • Sometimes, Industrial Liaison ($100-$150k) • Chief Financial Officer (level I to K) • Budgeting, payroll, financial reporting • Outreach Manager (level H to J) • Publicity, events, brochures • Educational Coordinator (level H, I) • Advisement, student programs, etc.

18. Other Staffing, Depending on Size • Lower level support staff for administration • Research support positions

19. Committees • Scientific Advisory Committee • Technical review of work • Industrial/Government Advisory Committee • Executive Committee (sometimes) • Participation in selection, review process • Set internal technical direction

20. Example Organization Sponsor Scientific Advisory Committee Scientific Advisory Committee Director Managing Director DD for Education Business Officer Outreach Manager Faculty Project Leaders

21. Alternate Organization Sponsor Scientific Advisory Committee Scientific Advisory Committee Director Research Leader 1 Research Leader 2 Business Officer Outreach Manager Faculty Project Leaders Faculty Project Leaders Faculty Project Leaders

22. 3. Selection/Review Process • How Will You Allocate Funds Among Projects & Review Work? • Role of initial participants • Balancing “processes” versus “plan” • Authority of PI to make decision • Peer review of work & proposals • Respond to sponsors priorities • Sticking to the vision • Must be a good system for changing course

23. Peer Review System • Create RFP for limited competition, with input from sponsor and advisory committees • Publicize within USC, perhaps beyond USC (among partners or broadly) • Send for reviews, either individual or panel • Rank order, present back to advisory committee for strategic assessment & selection • Review work before advisory committees, integrate into the process

24. Peer Review Merits • Strengths • Can filter best quality proposals • Generally perceived as fair • Attracts new blood • Fairly easy to make corrections • Weaknesses • Loss in your authority • Harder to integrate projects • Bureaucratic and slow • Difficult to push work toward particular needs • Reviewers may be out of touch with priorities and may not be aware of past performance • Proposal may be viewed as non-specific

25. Follow Master Proposal • Build team with specific work plans at time the center proposal is submitted • Follow the plan, unless significant corrections are needed

26. Merits: Master Proposal • Strengths • Builds continuity • Team building • Easier to integrate • Weaknesses • Can be hard to fix problems—sense of entitlement • Not responsive to change • Creates perception of insularity – hard to develop outreach/support in university

27. PI is in Charge • Based on input from advisory committees, PI makes decision on whom to fund, what to fund, on annual or perhaps continuing basis

28. Merits: “PI is in charge” • Strengths • Easiest to respond to changing priorities • Builds coherency among projects • Power to cut losses early • Weaknesses • Lose commitment among faculty • May make wrong decisions

29. Balanced Approach • Percentage reserved for competitive programs • Percentage for original group of participants, subject to advisory committee review • Percentage at discretion of the PI

30. 4. Talk to Your Administration(s) • Begin with the vision: why it is important • Space Needs • Cost-share • Degree programs • Leveraging existing programs • Participation/support in proposal generation, site visit

31. Overhead Division • USC Policy: Overhead is collected by the school that performs the work. • OH on Administration, Education, Outreach, other central activities generally collected by the PI’s school. • Individual projects generally established as satellites, with OH traveling to the recipient school

32. Types of Required Cost-Share • Overhead reduction (often for foundations) • % of total cost • Tuition • NIH Salary Cap Starting point: each school participates equally in cost-share, in proportion to overhead received Deans will want to use soft cost-share as much as feasible (discussed later)

33. Space Commitment • Center will likely need an office suite, and perhaps new labs. • Space commitment for the center is normally met by the PI’s school • When this is impossible, or if center is independent of a school, space might be found through provost office (likely off campus)

34. Provost Office Role • Advise and support site visits for major efforts • Identify persons to create budgets • Critique proposals, advise • Participate in site visits • Generate commitment letters • Cost-share on occasion (discussed later)

35. 5. Proposal Writing • Proposal should have a single author, the PI, with some input from others • Consistency and coherency are essential • Ensure that all elements are covered • PI might be assisted by a professional proposal writer • Assemble input from others • Prepare graphics • Stylistic, grammatical editing • Packaging and formatting • Other faculty can provide input for individual sections

36. PI Must Write these Sections • Abstract, Summary • Introduction • Vision, Mission • Organization Plan • Conclusions

37. Proposal Writing Steps • Parse the RFP – determine required sections and their order • Determine which sections require input from others • List key messages that will be reinforced • Prepare initial draft vision statement or abstract (perhaps graphics) that explains the theme of the proposal • Create schedule, allowing first draft at least 2 weeks before due date (longer the better) • Write and revise

38. Communication with Co-authors • Provide all high-level material: vision, key messages, information on organization, etc. • Make a specific request • Exact topic • Use naming convention for file • Length, format, due date • May give budget range for topic, but avoid specific commitment

39. Processing Input • Review for Quality – if poor, reject the participant • If good and needed, edit for style, grammar length • Assemble all components into single document • Write, Re-write, Review, Criticize, Input from Multiple Parties

40. 6. Budget Creation • You need help from a professional • Qualified to be business officer • Experience in proposal creation with multiple departments, sub-contracts, institutions, cost-sharing, etc. • The professional cannot do everything • All strategic decisions are yours • Do not delay, as it will be complicated

41. What to Tell the Budgeter • Total dollars available, start date, end date • Organization plan, with time commitments (%) for all central activities (admin, outreach, education, etc.) • Other needed central expenses – gross $s (equipment, materials, travel, events, etc.) • General budget guidelines, year 1 versus future years • Dollar division among participating faculty and projects • Any cost-share requirements

42. What the Budgeter will Tell You • Aggregate budget • Split among budget categories (admin, outreach, project areas, etc.) • Whether you are in budget or not; whether to cut or add

43. Your Next Step • Make budget adjustments, up or down, based on your priorities, commitments, and what it takes to win – iterate until budget is balanced

44. Once Budget is Balanced: • Budgeter communicates with each faculty member who has a project (or an assistant), to prioritize the allocation of that faculty member’s budget. • Specific budget may be requested for each – exact dollar amounts, exact durations – with specific deadline (do not allow any deviations at this point)

45. General Advice • Don’t over specify the budget – use categories, rather than specific individuals, where feasible • Leave a cushion – must have some funds that can be moved as needed • Don’t over commit to participants – needs will change

46. Meeting Cost-share • Soft Cost Share (these may prioritize existing allocations toward your center) • Tuition • Portion of academic year salary, paid by your school and devoted to research • Some forms of staff support, for instance in education • Sometimes fellowships • Hard Cost-share • New dollar commitments

47. Sources of Cost Share • Your own lab, such as gift funds • Your school or department • External sources, such as companies or state government • Provost office, when: • Cost share is required • Two or more schools • Each school makes hard dollar commitment • Strategic university priority

48. 7. Broader Impacts Outreach • NSF: How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while promoting teaching, training, and learning? How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of underrepresented groups (e.g., gender, ethnicity, disability, geographic, etc.)? To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks, and partnerships? Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and technological understanding? What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?

49. Diversity • Broadening opportunities and enabling the participation of all citizens -- women and men, underrepresented minorities, and persons with disabilities -- is essential to the health and vitality of science and engineering. NSF is committed to this principle of diversity and deems it central to the programs, projects, and activities it considers and supports.

50. Strategies • Broad participation • Minorities, women as lead participants • Minority serving institutions • Include outreach plan in proposal • Strong role for industry/government • Education program