IGERT Program Solicitation

The NSF has announced the solicitation for the IGERT program.

The Integrative Graduate Education and Research Traineeship (IGERT) program has been developed to meet the challenges of educating U.S. Ph.D. scientists and engineers who will pursue careers in research and education, with the interdisciplinary backgrounds, deep knowledge in chosen disciplines, and technical, professional, and personal skills to become, in their own careers, leaders and creative agents for change. The program is intended to catalyze a cultural change in graduate education, for students, faculty, and institutions, by establishing innovative new models for graduate education and training in a fertile environment for collaborative research that transcends traditional disciplinary boundaries. It is also intended to facilitate diversity in student participation and preparation, and to contribute to a world-class, broadly inclusive, and globally engaged science and engineering workforce.

The full text can be found at: http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2009/nsf09519/nsf09519.htm

Since only 4 preliminary proposals may be submitted from Drexel, it is necessary to have an internal competition. Thus we will accept 3 page proposals from interested faculty, submitted to research@drexel.edu no later than 5 pm JANUARY 23, 2009 with the word IGERT in the subject line. (Note that NSF requires submission more than 1 month earlier this year than last year, viz. March 13 2009.)

The document must be a single pdf, with the name of the PI in the title.

***2 NEW requirements for our internal review***

1. The detailed proposal must be preceded by 2 pages in the pdf containing two (2) lists:
   Page 1 (title page): List Investigators. This includes all those who participated in the development of the proposal.
   Page 2: List Associated Faculty. This includes those who are affected, and whose expertise or reputation may assist the final proposal, but who did not directly contribute to constructing the proposal. This might include faculty who would teach new courses, or reconstruct courses to fit a new curriculum, or who might lead seminars, or contribute labs to projects, etc.
   
   example: Professors Jones and Jodpur conceive an IGERT in Energy. They approach Prof Lee in Engineering to teach a new course on renewable Energy, and Prof. Long in LeBow to teach a new course on the economics of Energy use. Long points out that Prof Kalivas' existing macroeconomics course would be necessary too. Only Jones & Jodpur go on page 1, Lee and Long and Kalivas go on page 2.
   
   (In last year's solicitation, 138 faculty were named as involved one way or another! This is an attempt to distinguish the investigators themselves.)
   
   
2. Any resubmission MUST include previous reviews to best allow assessment of the chances of success in this highly competitive program.