Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) to Study the Impact of the Economic Stimulus Package and to Advance the Scientific Understanding of Science Policy

Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences
NSF 09-034

Dear Colleague:

People will ask important questions over the next one to two years about the success and the impact of the economic stimulus. The Science of Science & Innovation Policy (SciSIP) Program, within the Directorate for Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences, can be a vehicle for mobilizing research capacity to respond to these questions and to assess the effects on both the ecology of innovation and on the science and engineering enterprise. 

The SciSIP program will take advantage of NSF’s Rapid Response Research (RAPID) funding mechanism to accept short (two to five pages) RAPID proposals that attempt to answer many of the outcome questions that will be asked about the impact of the stimulus package as well as to advance the scientific understanding of science policy.  These would include, but not be limited to, such questions as:

• What was the contribution of the science investment to the creation and retention of jobs?
• What was the contribution of the science investment to science and technology industries?
• What scientific or technological advances were achieved?
• What was the impact on the scientific workforce?

In keeping with the Presidential focus on openness and transparency in government, proposals might also examine and evaluate different approaches to building appropriate platforms for tracking and assessing science investments across the federal government as well as ways to visually convey the information to policy makers and the American public.

Proposals must conform to the Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID) Guidelines specified in the Grant Proposal Guide and may be submitted electronically at any time to the Science of Science and Innovation Policy announcement (PD 09-7626) via FastLane or Grants.gov.  The SciSIP program director, Julia Lane (jlane@nsf.gov), should be contacted for assistance and advice prior to proposal submission.

In order to avoid unnecessary duplication of effort, the decision process will consider program knowledge of the spectrum of similar efforts both within and outside the federal government.

Sincerely,

David Lightfoot
Assistant Director
Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences