NSF Merit Review Process
It has been a long time. I moved to UCF as of August 2016 and have been re-establishing my research group . We are moving on with more research. Today's blog topic is somewhat ad hoc. I just submitted my feedback for the National Science Foundation (NSF)'s Merit Review process per NSF's request, and thought I should write to my blog about it. First, let me say that submitting proposals to NSF and participating in the merit review process as a panelist is one of the most enjoyable and rewarding activities you can do as an academic. It is, by far, the most fair and the most thorough system for funding fundamental research. Yet, I have to admit I have not seen the practices of all agencies, e.g., NIH. So, my comments below are meant for making minor improvements to an already excellent system. If you are not familiar with the NSF proposal merit review process, there are several online resources or experiences you can read to have a good understanding of it, e.g.: https