For the 2015 competition, see updated info here.

DEB and IOS have different deadlines for Preliminary Proposals

The IOS deadline is Friday, January 17th, 2014.

The DEB deadline is Thursday, January 23rd, 2014.

DEB has new Preliminary Proposal Instructions for this year

The DEB solicitation (NSF 14-503) is here and introduces several changes covered earlier. Please be sure you are not following an outdated version.

There are important preparation differences between DEB and IOS

Please be sure you are reading the correct solicitation. The IOS solicitation (NSF 13-600) is here with distinct instructions.

The “Small Grants” designation only applies to DEB Preliminary Proposals

DEB and IOS request different info by email and thus provide distinct templates

DEB and IOS both request that you:  1) do not send a completed template until after submitting your preliminary proposal in FastLane, and 2) in the template and email, use the proper FastLane proposal ID number (7 digits, starting with “14” for fiscal 2014) that is generated only after you submit the proposal.

UPDATE 1/21/14:

We’ve received several questions along to the lines of: Why do the Excel template url and email address say “debcoi” when we’re only listing personnel?

There are a couple of reasons.

We check for conflicts in two ways: you list people and institutions you believe are your conflicts, and we also ask panelists and reviewers to look at proposal personnel and alert us to any conflicts they might have that were not already noted. As we mentioned previously, the purpose of collecting personnel data by template (which is otherwise in the Project Description) is so we can compile it and have panelists and reviewers identify additional conflicts before we give them access to the proposal content. Last year we tried to take care of both conflict data angles at once but that proved problematic. Now we ask for one piece (personnel) by template, and the other (collaborators) as a supplemental document.

We also didn’t want to change the URL and email address and wind up with everyone who missed the announcement of the changes working off the old materials and links and sending their information  to a dead (or unmonitored) address. We’ve gotten lots of mail from people who only notice a problem when they reach the new template from the old solicitation. Dealing with that seems preferable to having multiple URL and email addresses that cause confusion for PIs.