Applying for the NSF CAREER Award

If you're a faculty member in the Sciences or Education, you may be aware of the Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) award through the National Science Foundation (NSF). The CAREER grant is a prestigious award offered through all directorates of the NSF. The grant is meant to infuse early career investigators with funding to hit the ground running to develop them as researchers and educators.

ORDE offers a toolkit for those interested in the CAREER. Below is some initial information:

CAREER AWARD PURPOSE AND BACKGROUNDAll NSF directorates participate in the CAREER Program, designed to support junior faculty in their dual roles as teacher-scholars. CAREER Awards provide recipients the opportunity to enhance their professional career development, better integrate their research and education responsibilities, and build academic leadership abilities. While all NSF directorates make CAREER Awards, the number of awards varies significantly by directorate.

The CAREER Award deadlines for 2018 are July 18, 19, or 20 – depending on the NSF directorate to which you are applying. Specific deadline details are found in the CAREER Award program announcement.

Three areas emphasized by NSF program officers and CAREER awardees are:

·         Begin work on a CAREER Award proposal early. This is a very competitive program; NSF is estimating it will make just 450 new and continuing CAREER awards per year for Fiscal Years 2018 and 2019. It is also unlike any other proposal you will submit to NSF because it involves planning your career objectives and illustrating how the CAREER Award will contribute to your professional development over the next 5, 10, and 20 years.

·         CAREER Awards represent a true balance between your faculty research and education roles. The required educational component may focus on any level: K-12 students, undergraduates, graduate students, and/or the general public. When planning this component, design innovative outreach efforts that go well beyond what you normally do in your faculty role and make sure your educational component is integrated with your research.

·         Partnerships, especially industrial partnerships, are considered a positive aspect, but keep in mind that no co-principal investigators are allowed on CAREER proposals (see discussion under Budget Details on page 5). International collaborations are also encouraged.

Resources:
ORDE CAREER Toolkit
NSF CAREER Website

Working with External and Community Partners

Last week, ORDE offered a seminar that featured a panel of PIs who have done extensive work with community groups and external partners, including the federal and state government and tribal groups. The diverse panel was made up of Barbara Paradiso, Director of the Center on Domestic Violence in the School of Public Affairs, Timberley Roane, Associate Professor of Integrative Biology, and Ekaterini Vlahos, Professor and Chair of Architecture. Each of these PIs has also maintained an impressive record of funding in their work with external partners. It was a wonderful panel of experts and I wanted to share some of the nuggets of advice they had for other PIs looking to collaborate with external partners, particularly in funded research.

Discuss the needs and expectations of each group upfront
Key to developing a collaboration that is productive and benefits everyone is to begin by identifying how it can benefit everyone. When researchers swoop into a community to collect data and then leave, it creates a sense in that community that they were used for the researcher's own gains. But when a researcher begins the collaboration with an open discussion about what they need and what the community needs and all partners design the project to meet each group's needs, the results will be that much more robust and the relationship will be maintained.

Also, make sure that expectations are clear. What do you expect to publish on? Is the community comfortable with it? Do they understand that you will publish objectively even if the results do point to a problem within an organization? Do you understand what your partner is comfortable sharing/disclosing with you in your research? Having these conversations at the forefront can help you to better navigate the collaboration, holding each participant's needs and expectations in mind.

Build relationships and show up
As you are working with external partners, be sure to keep open communication. If you see something in your results that will concern your partner, share that with them sooner than later. Also, make an investment in your partnership by showing up. Go to community meetings. Invite community leaders to your presentations. Offer non-academic presentations on your work to better engage your partners.

Find the joy
Going into a partnership and seeing it as a burden, e.g., thinking, "I wish I didn't have to work with these people to do this project!" is probably an indicator that collaborative research or at least community research is not for you. There is great joy in working with community and external partners successfully. You are able to see and feel the impact of your collaborative research project as it goes. Collaboration can also make your research more dynamic, as you may consider practice and implications for your research in a very tangible way.

Many agencies are demanding more collaborative research, and that done in partnership with community and external groups. But the benefits of collaboration to your research go well beyond the competitive edge gained.

Resources
The Challenges of Collaboration for Academic and Community Partners in a Research Partnership - NCBI
Team Science Toolkit - NCI