My father was one of the first four employees of the National Science Foundation when it was founded in 1950: Personal Assistant to the Director and Executive Secretary of the National Science Board. He remembered those happy days as a bunch of first-rate guys in an office in Washington trying to do the right thing for science and their country. I estimate he took home as his salary about 3% of NSF’s budget of $225,000.

75 years later, having moved to Harvard after decades in England, I have just registered with NSF as a potential investigator so that I can apply for grants. NSF’s budget last year was $9,877,000,000, and my proposal will ask for about 1/20,000 of that. My ID is 0000A0PB5, and Harvard’s is LN53LCFJFL45.

Among the many documents I must upload is my Mentoring Plan. I wish I could show my father NSF’s instructions for this, to be found in Chapter II, section D.2.i(i) of the NSF Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG) (NSF 24-1), which begin as follows: “Pursuant to Section 7008(a) of the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science (42 U.S.C. § 1862o(a)) Act,…”.

[14 August 2008]