Extramural III: Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement Grant

The following proposal was submitted to the National Science Foundation’s (NSF) Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement (DDRI) Grant Program (BCS 0000281). DDRI proposals are written in conjunction with your graduate advisor. Because NSF only awards grants to faculty, the advisor is the Principle Investigator (PI) and has responsibility for the grant. The student is the second PI and expected to contribute most of the work and intellectual input to the project. The DDRI can be submitted twice a year and can ask for up to $12,000.

This DDRI proposal was funded on the second submission of the proposal. The first submission was rejected but the reviewers provided much good input for how the project could be improved. With incorporating these comments and having another year to advance the preliminary findings of the work, we were able to submit a stronger grant proposal. NSF often funds grant proposals that can defend the success of the concept in the proposal. Because of this, much of the work towards the project must be completed before a strong proposal can be submitted.