ATP and BEFS selections have been announced, and letters should have arrived.
Well, except maybe in Colorado +/- 1 state.
Sounds like hit rate was about 12-15%. Fewer submitted proposals than I'd have expected, somewhat higher success rate (but not high enough...).
More worryingly, ROSES '07 is postponed 'till April... so no Requests for Proposals in January as normal. Which suggests the call dates will be late in '07, presumably if-and-when they know what the budget is and therefore not just how much each line has, but whether the lines exist at all!
This could lead to an effective "year without grants", if the timeline stretches long enough then by the time the awards are made there will be almost a full year gap. Or maybe they'll pretend to have a budget, set up a virtual set of panels and roll them out very fast in the spring.
They can't just clone ROSES '06 into the summer, because exploration will eat all the MODA funding if the budget stays at 2006 levels well into the year, the extra funds are needed to keep any science alive, and even with the proposed extra funds, science will be cut.
For more grants, either exploration development must be cut, or even more new funds added (or earmarks canceled as promised...).
Leaves the interesting dilemma for PIs as to whether to shelter and stretch funds, to stay alive, or to go for broke and hope it will all work out in the end.
Heh.
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Is this in part due to the funding freeze in Congress? It sounds like the current budget is dead in the water and everything is floating on at '06 levels, which is bad news for NSF too.
I presume so, can't know for sure.
They have cloned one of the '06 calls for proposals into '07, with the same deadline, but they can't keep doing that - exploration development budgets are ramping up and without additional appropriation there is not enough money to fund Mission Ops and Data Analysis and the university PI researchers at the current level. So at some point they would either defer or cancel calls for proposals, or they'd have to go through the calls without knowing if there is any money for awards (making calls actually costs, so this is not something to do automatically just in case).
So either a budget must be passed, quickly, or the calls for proposal for '07 will be deferred or cancelled. If they are deferred for more than a few months than the funding cycle is basically pushed into '08 and there will be an effective year with no grants awarded.
That'd suck, and be an effective one time 33% cut in funding for solicited proposals.
Which means postdoc money.
The senior senator from Maryland could expedite this issue in january...