NSF Shutdown Notice and Guidance

A Special Message from NSF’s Geography & Spatial Sciences Program Director

The National Science Foundation is in the process of closing our doors for the [U.S. Federal Government] shutdown, and GSS (Geography & Spatial Science) program officers along with all other non-excepted federal employees will not have access to NSF email or systems. FastLane also will not be available. We are very cognizant that our DDRI (Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant) deadline is approaching next week on Thursday, October 10. We hope to be open for business by then, but in the spirit of preparation, please note the following and help us inform our community:

1) I have attached the primary guiding documents that your doctoral students and SROs (sponsored research offices) would need to continue working on their submissions: the GPG (Grant Proposal Guide), GSS Solicitation (note especially formatting departures for extra graphics pages and additional review criteria), the overview of the SBE Directorate’s DDRI solicitation (note information on inclusion of indirect costs), and the SBE solicitation (to which GSS students are applying, though again the GSS solicitation instructions supercede those in the SBE DDRI solicitation or GPG where directly indicated). We recognize people are used to these documents being readily available and hope that providing them helps our community.

2) We do not know what the decision will be if shutdown continues after the October 10th deadline, but news of an extension or other such matters will be widely circulated including here on this listserv.

3) Our emails are supposed to be waiting upon us once we re-open, but technical glitches are possible. We ask that you be patient once we re-open and email us again if you have an urgent question, particularly if related to the October 10th deadline. Note you can reach all active GSS POs with one handy address: gss-info [at] nsf [dot] gov (once we re-open, that is!).

Kelley A. Crews, PhD
Geography & Spatial Sciences (GSS) Program Director
Division of Behavioral & Cognitive Sciences (BCS)
Directorate for Social, Behavioral, & Economic Sciences (SBE)
National Science Foundation