STR Program: Past, Present, and

Future

ILIA I. Roussev

iroussev@nsf.gov

Program Director,STR Program

Division of Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences

SHINE WorkshopJul 6, 2015

Synopsis of the Program

The Solar-Terrestrial Research (STR) Program supports research on the processes by which energy in diverse forms is generated by the

Sun, transported to the Earth, and ultimately deposited in the terrestrial environment. Major topics include space weather

impacts, helioseismology, the solar dynamo, the solar activity cycle, magnetic flux emergence, solar flares and eruptive activity, coronal

mass ejections, solar wind heating, solar energetic particles, interactions with cosmic rays, and solar wind/magnetosphere

boundary problems.

STR Program

Main Components:• Core STR Research ~$3.25M/year• Solar, Heliospheric, and INterplanetary Environment (SHINE) ~$3M/year

Related Programs• Faculty Early Career Development Program (CAREER) ~$0.7M/year• Atmospheric and Geospace Sciences Postdoctoral Research Fellowships

(AGS-PRF) ~$0.2M/year• NSF/DOE Partnership in Basic Plasma Science and Engineering ~$0.2M/year• Research in Support of the National Space Weather Program (NSWP) $0/year

Basic Research Supported by STR Program – I

STR program has been supporting research projects which deal with improving present understanding of:

1. Fundamental physical processes that govern solar and space plasmas out to 1AU (e.g., magnetic reconnection, turbulence, etc.), and

2. Physical drivers of Space Weather, namely flares, Coronal Mass Ejections (CMEs), and related phenomena (e.g., SEP events)

The transport of magnetic flux, helicity, mass, and energy from the solar convection zone through the inner heliosphere is a fundamental area of

research funded by the STR program!

Basic Research Supported by STR Program – II

STR program has been supporting research projects dealing with detailed understanding of physical processes governing the Sun-Earth system

• This requires extensive observations of the Sun and the solar wind, both remote sensing and in situ‐ , as well as complementary numerical modeling efforts that incorporate (or assimilate) these observations

STR program has been supporting research and EPO activities in various ground based facilities (BBSO, IfA, HAO, NSO, ‐ etc.), academic institutions (NJIT, MSU, etc.), and non-profit organizations (PSI, Helioresearch, etc.)

• The supported ground-based facilities have been providing state of the art ‐ ‐ ‐observations needed to drive those computational models (e.g., at CCMC)

Sun Experiences Seasonal Changes (Apr 7, 2015)http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=134822&org=NSF&from=news(Scott McIntosh, High Altitude Observatory)

Solving Sunspot Mysteries (Jun 3, 2014) http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=131706&org=AGS&from=news(Phil Goode, Big Bear Solar Observatory)

It Is Hot... Super Hot (Nov 12, 2013) http://www.nsf.gov/discoveries/disc_summ.jsp?cntn_id=129547&org=AGS&from=news(Daniel Savin, Columbia University)

Voyager 1 Has Left the Solar System (Aug 15, 2013)http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=128861&org=AGS&from=news(Marc Swisdak, Univ. Maryland, & Merav Opher, Boston University – 2007 CAREER & 2007 PECASE Awardee)

STR in NSF News

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http://shinecon.org

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STR Budget Detail

SHINE community in USA has grown steadily over the past decade• Total participation at the SHINE Workshop hit its peak (215

attendees) in 2012• Graduate student involvement in SHINE increased more than 10 fold

in 10 years!

SHINE program at AGS/STR has been very successful since its inspection in 2002• In FY2013, 46 unique projects (52 proposals total) were submitted,

and 9 awards were made– Total SHINE expenditures in FY2013: $2.56M, of which $597K for

new awards• In FY2014, 72 unique projects (78 proposals total) were submitted,

and 13 awards were made– Total SHINE expenditures in FY2014: $2.96M, of which $1.257M

for new awards• In FY2015, 45 unique projects (55 proposals total) were submitted,

and 13 awards were made– Total SHINE expenditures in FY2015: $2.99M, of which $962K for

new awards

FY13-15 SHINE Competitions

Susan Lepri (Univ. Michigan)Maher Al-Dayeh (SWRI)*Harald Kucharek (Univ. New Hampshire)Daniel Verscharen (Univ. New Hampshire)Peter Gary (Space Science Inst.)Michael Hahn (Columbia Univ.)Yi-Min Huang (Princeton Univ.)Jiong Qiu (Montana State Univ.)*Paul Cassak (West Virginia Univ.)Jie Zhang (George Mason Univ.)*Kathy Reeves (Center for Astroph.)*Bart van der Holst (Univ. Michigan)*Noé Lugaz (Univ. New Hampshire)

Congratulations to all!

FY15 SHINE Winners

STR Funding Rate (by PI)

FY Proposals Funded

PIs Applied PIs Awarded PIs Declined PIs Fund Rate

2008-2010 38.0% 129 62 67 48.1%

2009-2011 38.9% 134 66 68 49.3%

2010-2012 38.1% 152 80 72 52.6%

2011-2013 31.0% 160 74 86 46.3%

Number of proposal submissions to the STR program has steadily increased over the last 6 years

Number of collaborative projects submitted to STR program has also increased over same time period

Funding rate in STR program has dropped substantially over the past three years, with FY14 being the extreme (17%); in FY15 the funding rate is 23%!

SHINE web site provides guidance to the solar community concerning the distinction between topics chosen for the SHINE workshop sessions and topics suitable for submission to the NSF as SHINE proposals – the two concepts are not identical!

There is no longer a separate SHINE Postdoc program – it has been subsumed under the AGS Division’s Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (AGS-PRF) program (web address below). Note that all AGS-PRF applicants must be US citizens or ‘green card’ holders because they will receive funding directly, without any institution as an intermediary.

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14509/nsf14509.pdfhttp://www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id=6201

http://www.shinecon.org

Other SHINE Items of Interest

Integrated NSF Support Promoting Interdisciplinary Research and Education

• Requires authorization from two “intellectually distinct programs” to apply

• 30 new up-to-$1M awards (5-year in duration) • Bold interdisciplinary projects• FY2015 funds: $28 million (Foundation-wide)

INSPIRE

http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2014/nsf14106/nsf14106.jsp

• NSF places significant emphasis on computational and data-rich science and engineering, with the goal of providing a sustainable, community-based and open cyberinfrastructure for researchers and learners.

• This goal is a major challenge because the number and volume of data sets have grown to proportions well beyond the range of applicability of traditional data handling tools.

• The vision of EarthCube is to transform the conduct of research by supporting the development of community-guided CI to integrate data  and information for knowledge management across the Geosciences.

http://www.nsf.gov/geo/earthcube/

EarthCube

The latest NSF “Users Manual” can be found at this website:http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/policydocs/pappguide/nsf15001/nsf15_1.pdf

Proposal & AwardPolicies &

ProceduresGuide

NSF 15-1

Important Info for All Proposers

• In addition to your Final Report to the NSF, you must now submit Project Outcomes online for the public, at

http://www.research.gov • Your Annual Report become due 90 days before your award anniversary date, and are overdue on “anniversary date + 1 day”

• Your funding increment – and that of any of your current Co-PIs on

any NSF grant – is delayed until your annual report is approved!

• Please submit a No Cost Extension if you cannot expend your annual budget due to unforeseen circumstances – do not just delay the submission of your annual report …

Awardee’s Reports to the NSF

Unless you have been informed that your review is for a special competition, or a specific NSF panel, your review is for a proposal submitted to my core STR program (fund code 1523). I need to

obtain a minimum of 3 written reviews within 6 months.

Your help is greatly appreciated!!!

Solicited NSF competitions (such as SHINE) have deadlines (Aug 19, 2015) and are reviewed by panels. However, reviews for

unsolicited STR proposals are strictly mail-in, and do not have hard deadlines (other than the NSF’s 6 month rule).

I would prefer to receive a delayed review than none at all!!!

Review Requests

Questions?

Thank you!