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To stimulate interest and activity in mathematical research, the National
Science Foundation intends to support up to seven NSF-CBMS Regional Research
Conferences in 2009. A panel chosen by the Conference Board of the Mathematical
Sciences will make the selections from among the submitted proposals. In the
thirty-nine year history of this NSF-CBMS Regional Research Conference Series, a
total of 308 such conferences have been held.
Each five day conference features a distinguished lecturer who delivers ten
lectures on a topic of important current research in one sharply focused area of
the mathematical sciences. The lecturer subsequently prepares an expository
monograph based upon these lectures, which is normally published as a part of a
regional conference series. Depending upon the conference topic, the monograph
is published by the American Mathematical Society, the Society for Industrial
and Applied Mathematics, or jointly by the American Statistical Association and
the Institute of Mathematical Statistics.
Support is provided for about 30 participants at each conference and the
conference organizer invites both established researchers and interested
newcomers, including postdoctoral fellows and graduate students, to attend.
The continuing success and strength of this conference series over the past
thirty-nine years is due to certain distinguishing
features which differentiate these conferences from typical research conferences. These are
As with all proposals submitted to NSF, proposals must be prepared in strict
adherence to the current NSF Grant Proposal Guide. The NSF Fastlane website,
www.fastlane.nsf.gov, contains the
current version of the Grant Proposal Guide and all the necessary electronic
forms and instructions.
Proposals must be submitted electronically via Fastlane. The target date for
submission of proposals is April 21, 2008. Principal investigators will be
notified as soon as possible (usually late summer) as to the status of their
proposals. Formal announcement of awards will be made in October, 2008.
Proposals should be submitted for consideration by the NSF unit "Division of
Mathematical Sciences - Infrastructure Program."
On the cover page, the title should be: NSF/CBMS Regional Conference in the
Mathematical Sciences - ``Your Conference Title'' - ``Your Conference Dates.''
Note that the Project Summary must explicitly address both the intellectual
merit and the broader impacts of the proposed conference.
The project description portion of the proposal presents
most of the information that determines whether a grant will be awarded. The
case for the importance of the subject of the conference and for the choice of
lecturer must be made in the project description and should be written to be intelligible
and convincing to a mathematician who may not be a specialist in the field of
the conference. Proposals should be written to respond to the review criteria
listed above. The project description must cover the following points:
1. Subject. The subject of the conference should be a topic of
current research interest and activity in one or more of the mathematical
sciences. Here the mathematical sciences are understood to include pure and
applied mathematics, mathematical logic, statistics, and operations research.
The proposal must contain a sufficiently detailed description of the subject
area, including a bibliography of important recent work in the field, to allow
the review panel to make an assessment of the significance and timeliness of the
proposed conference topic.
2. Principal Lecturer. Each conference is to have a principal
lecturer from outside the host institution. He or she should be both a leader in
research in the proposed subject area and a good lecturer and expositor. The
proposal should include a brief description of the lecturer's qualifications.
3. Description of Lectures. The proposal must include a description
of the topics to be covered in the ten lectures with sufficient detail to give
the reader a clear idea of what will be covered.
4. Participants. The proposal should describe the efforts the
conference organizer will make to attract and include beginning researchers and
underrepresented groups. Participants other than the principal lecturer are not
normally named in advance in the proposal. Rather it is expected that after a
conference is funded, the host institution will publicize the coming conference
and invite applications from qualified participants. It is the host
institution's responsibility to select the participants. These would normally be
persons already working or beginning to work at the research level in some area
of the mathematical sciences whose research activities would profit from the
lectures and the other stimuli and interactions that the conference would
provide.
5. Local Arrangements. The conference organizer at the host
institution is responsible for carrying out all local planning, arrangements,
advertising, and management of the conference. In addition to the items already
discussed this includes: arranging for appropriate lecture halls and informal
meeting places, accommodations and meals for the participants, headquarters for
email and information, secretarial services and duplicating facilities for
schedules and announcements, reproduction of interim lecture notes, and any
special equipment that may be needed.
6. Conference Dates. Conferences proposed for 2009 should normally be
scheduled to occur sometime after the end of classes in May, 2009, and before
the beginning of classes in September, 2009, but may also be scheduled during
December, 2009, or January, 2010, when most colleges and universities are in
recess.
7. Additional Speakers. It is important that the conference provide
ample free time for informal discussions among the participants about the
principal lectures. Hence, contributed papers by participants are
emphatically discouraged. Additional lectures by other leading researchers
in the field may enhance the conference's value, but they should be kept to a
very few and should be complementary to the main lectures.
The proposal must include biographical sketches of the principal lecturer and the conference organizer(s). Note that the publication list in the biographical sketches is limited to the five publications most relevant to the proposal and up to five additional publications. In addition to the items requested in the Grant Proposal Guide, please include the social security number, telephone number, and email address of the principal lecturer.
A conference proposal should include funds to provide support for about 25 to 30
participants. Participants are provided with lodging, meals, and some travel
support by the host institution's grant, but do not receive stipends. A
reasonable allowance for participants' travel and subsistence should thus be the
major budget item in the host institution's proposal. Other typical budget items
that may be suitable are the following: travel and lodging for the principal
lecturer, the conference organizer's salary (about one half month), a
secretary's salary, printing of advertising materials, telephone, postage, and
duplicating. As in the case of all NSF award decisions, the total cost of the
proposal is a consideration in the evaluation and selection process. Budgetary
items and their costs will vary considerably, depending on the location and
character of the host institution, the estimated average distance participants
will travel, the availability of low cost lodging in dormitories, and similar
factors. Typical awards for these conferences vary between $32,000 and $34,000.
CBMS pays the lecturer a stipend of $2,000 for the delivery of the lectures and
an additional stipend of $4,000 when the lecturer delivers to CBMS a manuscript
for publication satisfactory to NSF. The lecturer's stipends are paid directly by CBMS and are not to be part of the budget of the host institution's
proposal.
Letter of Commitment. The proposal must contain a letter of
commitment from the principal lecturer stating that, if the conference is
funded, the lecturer will deliver ten lectures during the five days of the
conference and will submit to CBMS, within one year following the conference, an
expository monograph based on the lectures. This may be included in the project
description portion of the proposal.
Special Note on the Principal Lecturer. Although the biographical
sketch of the principal lecturer is limited in length and number of publications
in the proposal to NSF, the proposer may, via regular mail or email, send a
complete vita and list of publications of the principal lecturer to the CBMS
office.
Inquiries concerning this conference series or the preparation of proposals
for conferences should be directed to
CBMS
1529 Eighteenth Street NW
Washington DC 20036
Email: rosier@georgetown.edu
or lkolbe@maa.org
Tel: 202-293-1170
Fax: 202-293-3412