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Topic: General Information and Forum Rules (Read 1,099 times)

Aureliano Buendia
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General Information and Forum Rules
« Thread Started on Jun 9, 2010, 10:01am »

Now is the silly season for many of us who count on research funding from the US National Science Foundation. Most of us are receiving rejections of the research grant proposals that we spent most of the winter break writing, and many months or years of field and lab work preparing. We are scientists with exemplary records, working at top institutions, publishing in and editing for the finest peer-review journals in the world. And we open the emails from NSF to find that our ideas are "Not Competitive." These are the same ideas that will be and have been published in top journals and won us tenure at top institutions.

This situation is frustrating and untenable. We KNOW our science and writing are good. We don't appreciate having to waste months of our lives writing and rewriting proposals in the hope that we can be one of the lucky 8% to be funded in our program. We'd rather do our science.

We don't appreciate seemingly capricious decisions from uncommunicative program officers, who themselves are overworked, underpaid, and doing their best in a broken system.

We protest a system that awards absurdly huge grants to a few select researchers and institutions, while letting many investigators with busy schedules waste their time year after year chasing funding in programs with success rates around 10%.

Please join the discussion of current NSF practices and policies in the forums entitled "Problems" and "Solutions."

Begin new threads to address issues not covered in current threads. Use this forum to ask general questions and make general comments.

Our goals are to provide a safe and anonymous forum for discussion of touchy yet important issues. Most of us would never have the chance to discuss these issues openly because we would fear (whether justly or unjustly) harming our chances for future NSF funding.

Rules for posting:

-Keep all postings clean, polite, and constructive.
-Anonymity is encouraged and respected by the board administration.
-Ad hominem attacks will not be tolerated.
-Opposing views will not be censored unless they violate the rules. Rigorous discussion is encouraged.

Please note that this board has no official affiliation with NSF or any other institution, and the views expressed herein represent those of the posters, and no one or nothing else.

« Last Edit: Jun 9, 2010, 10:17pm by Aureliano Buendia »

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forsdyke
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Re: General Information and Forum Rules
« Reply #1 on Jun 11, 2010, 7:51am »

You do your homework before submitting a grant application. You should do likewise when submitting a comment to this site. For those who wish to do their homework, rather than just beefing off, many years ago I, as a member of CARRF (Canadian Association for Responsible Research Funding), established a webpage providing information on the peer review system as operated in Canada and by the NSF and many similar organizations. It may be accessed at http://post.queensu.ca/~forsdyke/peerrev.htm

Circa 1993 I also instituted a forum similar to this one, which is still in operation. It is called Bionet.journals.note Please feel free to browse the extensive past discussions.

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Aureliano Buendia
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New Rule
« Reply #2 on Jun 12, 2010, 6:14pm »

The goals of this forum do not include supporting to harassment of the unfunded by the funded. If you have received funding, or if you don't see any problems with NSF's current practices, I honestly offer you my congratulations. Please feel free to leave constructive comments and observations that lay out your views.

But I've seen too many internet forums taken over by smug minorities to allow that to happen to this one.

All posts of a judgemental or mocking nature will be deleted as soon as I see them. So don't waste your time.

« Last Edit: Jun 12, 2010, 6:27pm by Aureliano Buendia »

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odyssey
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Re: General Information and Forum Rules
« Reply #3 on Jun 14, 2010, 10:04am »

Jun 12, 2010, 6:14pm, Aureliano Buendia wrote:

All posts of a judgemental or mocking nature will be deleted as soon as I see them. So don't waste your time.

So basically you reserve the right to delete posts you don't like. Specifically those that point out where you might be wrong. And you want this forum to provide the NSF with suggestions on how to "fix" itself? Good luck with that.

Feel free to delete this post. It's my last on this forum.

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Aureliano Buendia
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Re: General Information and Forum Rules
« Reply #4 on Jun 16, 2010, 10:01am »

Absolutely, I'll delete posts that are harmful to the mission of the site. That's my prerogative. I don't really mind if you choose to leave, Odyssey, but you are welcome to stay. You've got some deep-felt and important opinions, and I think your posts have the potential to strengthen the debate.

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sumitbabes
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Re: General Information and Forum Rules
« Reply #5 on Jun 18, 2012, 2:38am »

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