Date: January 22, 2007.

SUBJECT: Ridge 2000- new deadline/procedure for all R2K proposals; URGENT for PIs

This year all Ridge 2000 Marine Geology & Geophysics proposals should be submitted to a new 15 March R2K target date. Proposals with main emphasis on Biological Oceanography aspects of R2K goals should still be sent to that division; either Feb 15 or March 15 submittals will be accepted this year. March 15 will be the only Ridge 2000 target date for 2007, and there will be a single R2K proposal deadline for all subsequent years. All R2K proposals will be reviewed by a new dedicated panel. Very little flexibility is available for the March 15 target date, due to a tight Spring NSF schedule, so please treat it as essentially a deadline.

Proposals that involve work in the Ridge 2000 Integrated Studies Sites and/or that address areas of marine geology and geophysics research defined in the R2K science plan should not be submitted to either the Feb 15 or August 15, 2007, MG&G target dates.

From 2008 on, an annual 15 January Ridge 2000 deadline is planned. There will be an R2K panel convened by NSF to review all program proposals. The first dedicated R2K proposal review panel will meet this year in time for recommended seagoing projects to be included in ship scheduling arrangements for the following year’s field season. Biological Oceanography proposals will be reviewed by the full Bio/OCE panel and will also be considered by the R2K panel.

It is important that you establish the relevance of your proposals to the Ridge 2000 Program goals and science plan (documents available here) R2K relevance should be made clear to reviewers, as part of the Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts components of your proposal. There will no longer be a Relevancy Review by a subset of the R2K Steering Committee. Instead, at each Spring StCom meeting, current R2K priorities will be discussed explicitly. A few weeks later, I will present a summary of recent progress and an updated account of program priorities to the independent R2K proposal review panel. You can help Steering Committee members represent your interests by getting in touch with them to discuss your science and relevant logistical aspects for the program.

In order to guide planning and set an appropriate scope for Collaborative Research proposals or other large projects that you are considering, please be sure to contact the cognizant NSF Program Officers, Adam Schultz (MG&G) or Phil Taylor (Bio), in advance of submission. The ability of the R2K Program to support a significant number of large proposals is limited, so take advantage of the insight available at NSF to target realizable project objectives. You can also contact me, or any R2K Steering Committee member, if you have questions about current priorities within the program.
Ridge 2000 proposals submitted in error to the MG&G target date of 15 February 2007 will either be held for the 15 March 2007 Ridge target date and reviewed by the R2K Panel, or the PI will have the option of withdrawing and resubmitting for 15 March 2007. Similarly, Ridge 2000 proposals submitted erroneously to the 15 August 2007 MG&G target date will be held for the 2008 R2K proposal submission deadline. Proposals submitted for Ridge 2000 funding that do not fall within the scope of the R2K science plan will no longer be automatically transferred for consideration in the MG&G core program, so will not be reviewed.

Recall from my message dated January 4, 2007 that funds available in the FY08 budget are about half of the full R2K budget, due to prior mortgaging by ongoing projects. This can accommodate some field programs but fewer that have significant science support costs than when we are back to our full budget. Starting with the January 2009 deadline, essentially all of the R2K funds (~$4.3 M) will be available for new projects each year.

-Donna Blackman

Best Wishes to all Ridge 2000 members as 2007 gets underway!

All scientists considering applying for National Science Foundation (NSF) funding for Ridge 2000 or closely related mid-ocean ridge research in the next several years please read on.

Changes in the way that Ridge 2000 (R2K) proposals are submitted and reviewed at NSF will be implemented this year (2007). The changes have been under discussion by NSF program managers and R2K Steering Committee members since November. I had hoped to provide information on the new procedures at the AGU meeting but details are still being finalized. This message explains the nature of the changes, so that you can adjust any plans you have for the February 15 Ocean Sciences (OCE) target date. As the specific plan is finalized later this month, I will send information with new R2K proposal submission dates and panel procedures. All such updates will also be posted right away on the R2K website www.ridge2000.org.

The main motivation for the changes is to optimize the review process so that the inter-disciplinary projects that characterize many R2K studies are considered by a panel that has the necessary range of in-depth expertise and is well-informed about current program priorities. This has been difficult to achieve within the framework of the general Marine Geology & Geophysics (MGG) review panel (with Bio representation as relevant).

I expect NSF will implement a dedicated R2K Panel to review the upcoming round of Ridge 2000 proposals. R2K Steering Committee agrees that this approach can benefit the program. NSF will also implement a single proposal call each year, as is currently the case for other special programs. This change will aid ship scheduling and other facility utilization issues that are key for much of the seagoing work we do.

The new R2K proposal deadline is expected to be set for Spring 2007. Proposals for this deadline would have earliest start dates in Fall 2007, to draw from funds in Fiscal Year 2008. Following the November, 2006, NSF Panel, R2K funds for FY07 are essentially spent out, so investigators contemplating projects for Ridge 2000 funding probably want to hold off submitting to the Feb 15 OCE target date, to take advantage of the dedicated R2K deadline that will follow in the subsequent few months. The MG&G program continues to experience significant proposal pressure from all sub-disciplines. The likelihood of R2K projects receiving support beyond the program’s funding allocation (~4.3 million dollars per year for science support, plus contributions from Biological Oceanography) is significantly reduced. By moving to an R2K-dedicated panel, the aim is to keep expenditure of our portion of the OCE budget supporting the strongest R2K science.

An additional step aims to renew the program’s ability to respond to excellent new proposals as they come in. The early R2K years were characterized by a number of important large projects, some of which have mortgaged the program significantly into the 2007/2008 fiscal years. This previous management approach allowed a strong inception for the program but recently it has limited the number of new projects that the program can take on. With the change in panel procedures will come a move by NSF to fund most R2K projects as Standard grants (block funded in the first year). This is intended to significantly reduce future mortgaging so that R2K can remain a program that is responsive to ideas that evolve with new findings.

Please feel free to get in touch with me, or any R2K Steering Committee member, with questions or comments about the new plan.

Since November, I have discussed various aspects of the changes with Adam Schultz, and we both recognize that this first round of proposal submissions for an R2K-dedicated panel will likely turn up things that need clarification. An important difference from past procedure is that proposals submitted for R2K funding will no longer be shifted automatically to core MG&G if R2K relevance/priority is low. I expect there may be some flexibility in this first round as we all work through the transition. As always, the Ridge 2000 Science Plan and subsequent reports are a good guide to the range of projects that fall within the scope of the program (all available on the R2K website www.ridge2000.org).

The R2K program is strong- I see this in my day-to-day dealings with a wide variety of people in our community as well as in the responsiveness of NSF to our science, both in terms of actual support and in our impact on planning activities within broader Ocean Sciences. I understand that there will be some wariness to this change, but keep in mind that the Steering Committee has tried to think this through carefully. We see this as a positive move for the program. It will increase the strength of our profile as R2K undergoes its scheduled major review in late 2007/earliest 2008 and reinstates a full budget each year for the post-review phase of the program.

Lets all get those papers written this year to ensure that the broader community knows about the excellent results we’ve obtained since 2001! Most importantly, this will make our knowledge available to others but it is also key for ensuring that the program review results in a recommendation that R2K continue for the second half of the initially expected ~10 yr term.

Donna

Donna Blackman
Chair, Ridge 2000 Steering Committee