hamogu
commented
4 years ago The Coco and the Interim Finance Committee will not lead a proposal for this round because we are still busy to implement all the measures already funded by the Moore Grant, but will support any proposal lead by others in the community.
The NSF has issued a call for Cyberinfrastructure for Sustained Scientific Innovation (CSSI)
This is a broad call for all divisions of the NSF from education to engineering. The NSF is an organization that distributes government funding in the USA. This funding can only be used for people inside the USA, but of course we welcome help in writing the text of a proposal from anyone who is interested. Specific to astronomy, the call states “The Division of Astronomical Sciences (AST) is interested in proposals to support the development and dissemination of sustainable software and tools for data handling and computational activities that enable progress on key questions in astronomy and astrophysics.” See: https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2020/nsf20592/nsf20592.htm
If you have ideas for projects to propose on behalf of the Astropy Project, want to co-lead or help with writing a proposal, please join the discussion in this issue as soon as possible, but no later than Sep 15th. Since ideally this funding would go through NumFocus, someone on the CoCo or the Finance committee will need to be the PI.
The Astropy Project clearly builds software and tools of the sort covered by this call and the Astropy Project, with NumFOCUS as fiscal sponsor, can apply for NSF grants as an organization. Any proposal submitted by the Astropy Project through NumFOCUS will be supported by the Interim Finance Committee and the Coordination Committee by drafting a budget, and working out the details of how money gets distributed from NumFOCUS to the people who will actually do the proposed work. Astropy has previously applied for federal funding and to the Moore foundation and some text from those proposals can be reused if applicable.
Because submitting a federal proposal is significant administrative work for the Astropy Project and NumFOCUS, the Astropy Project will not support more than two proposals. If more than two ideas emerge, we will ask them to join forces.
(*): NSF allows proposals with separate hats on, e.g. you can submit a proposal for the Astropy Project as PI even if your employer is e.g. a university. On the other hand, some employers have rules that restrict any work that could be considered a conflict of interest. If you have a good idea, but are limited by such rules, let us know and we’ll work out a solution.