XMM-NEWTON PROPOSAL & PLANNING TOOLS
ABC Guide for Budget Proposals
So, you want to submit a budget proposal to obtain funding to analyze your XMM-Newton AO-5 accepted observations. Here is a list of steps to go through. The steps are roughly in order, although there will be some iteration in the middle.
1. Determine whether you are eligible to receive funding
NASA funding for the analysis of XMM-Newton GO observations is limited to scientists whose primary affiliation is with an Institution in the United States. US PIs are eligible as are the US Co-Is on proposals where the science PI is associated with a foreign institution (with reduced funding in the latter case, about 50 cents on the dollar). If you are planning on leaving the US before the grant period will begin you may transfer the budget responsibility to a US Co-I, but the proposal will then have a foreign PI with the reduced funding. If you are now outside of the US but are planning on moving to a US institution before the grant period will start then contact us to determine eligibility.
1a. For foreign PI proposals select a Lead PI for the budget
Only one budget may be submitted for any accepted science proposal. Therefore, if a foreign PI proposal has multiple US Co-Is then a Lead Co-I must be chosen for the budget process.
1b. If you are not allowed by your institution to be a PI on a budget then delegate the responsibility
If you can't be a PI on a grant, for instance if you are a graduate student, then delegate the responsibility to someone who can (your major professor, for instance).
2. Determine whether you need to submit a budget now
Proposals with only C priority targets should not submit proposals during this Call for Budget Proposals but should wait until a target has been scheduled for observation. All proposals with A, B, or T targets should have their budgets submitted now.
3. Get your Fair-Share budget estimate - NOT ANY MORE
As of AO-5, fair-share estimates are no longer being provided to proposers. However, in the Call for Budget Proposals the expected total of funds available for the support of AO-5 projects is listed as well as the rough number of proposals, so you can do the math to determine a rough estimate for the average level of support.
4. Determine what your budget request will be
Presumably in cooperation with your Co-Is and your institution's grants administrators you must come up with a budget which should have some reasonable relationship to the availability of funding. This will typically be painful as there are never enough funds to support all grants at the levels which are desired.
5. Get the budget form numbers from your grants administrators
This will require them to take a look at the budget summary form in RPS. You will also need the budget summary form information from any subgrant institutions before completion of the RPS submission.
6. Get the Subgrant General Form information from the subgrant recipient
Since the budget PI is responsible for entering the subgrant General Form, you will need to get the subgrant institutional information from your Co-I. To ease this burden, an ascii form listing the required information is available, and can be e-mailed to the subgrant recipient to guide them.
7. Enter proposal information in the RPS system
RPS is a web-based proposal data entry and submission system of the HEASARC. For the XMM-Newton budget process there are at least three forms which must be filled out and electronically submitted. They must also be printed out and submitted with the hard copies of the proposal. These are the Cover Page, the General Form, and the Budget Form. For proposals with subgrants, the Subgrant General Form and the subgrant budget form must also be entered. There is an RPS Help Page with detailed instructions for filling out the forms.
7a. Electronically submit the proposal by RPS
When the forms are completely filled out and you are satisfied with them, submit them via RPS.
8. Get institutional endorsement signatures on the General Form
This is necessary for the PI's/Lead Co-I's institution as well as for any separate institutions receiving subgrants. Don't forget to sign it yourself. For any subgrants, send the Subgrant General Form to your subgrant Co-I for their signature and institutional endorsement.
9. Write a short Budget Justification
In the budget justification include enough detail to justify the expenditures. Budget justifications are required for subgrants as well.
10. Fill out the Current and Pending Support Form
List all of the grants from which you are currently receiving funding as well as those which are pending.
There is a very specific ordering as to how the budget proposals are to be assembled. Please follow this ordering, and PLEASE do not allow your institution to place an extra cover page on top of ours.
12. Duplicate and send us the proposal
Ten copies of the proposal must reach us by 17 March 2006. NOTE: At many institutions the grants administrators will do the duplication and mailing of the proposals. We strongly recommend that you examine the proposal for correctness before they do so. You might save us all a lot of trouble. In AO-3 one single institution messed up over thirty proposals.
Useful pages and sites:
If you have any questions concerning XMM-Newton send e-mail to xmmhelp@lists.nasa.gov