The responsibilities of the NSF Program Director are constantly evolving. The Program Director is guided by the goals of NSF's Strategic Plan: (1) enable the United States to uphold a position of world leadership in all aspects of science, mathematics, and engineering, (2) promote the discovery, integration, dissemination, and employment of new knowledge in service to society, and (3) achieve excellence in U.S. science, mathematics, engineering, and technology education at all levels. The core strategies NSF staff employ include developing intellectual capital, strengthening the physical infrastructure, integrating research and education, and promoting partnerships.
Responsibilities of the Program Director include, for example, long-range planning and budget development for the areas of science represented by the program or program cluster, the administration of the merit review process and proposal recommendations, the preparation of press releases, feature articles and material describing advances in the research supported, and coordination and liaison with other programs in NSF, other Federal agencies and organizations.
Additional duties and responsibilities include the following:
PROGRAM PLANNING AND MANAGEMENT
Maintains a healthy balance of support for all the needs of the research and education enterprise through program, division, directorate, Foundation, or interagency activities. Manages program resources to provide optimal appropriate scientific judgment to insure integrity and consistency in the grant/declination process without conflicts of interest, and with balance among appropriate sub-fields and institutions, and participation of all qualified scientists. Manages an effective, timely merit review process, with attention to increasing the size and quality of the reviewer pools and insuring participation by women, minorities and disabled scientists.Provides scientific expertise, evaluation and advice for other programs in NSF, including international programs, and other research programs, and cross-directorate programs.Advises and assists in the development of short-and-long range plans, establishing goals and objectives for support of research programs. Plans the budget for the program considering past, present and future fiscal years, allocates resources within the budget by distributing scarce resources among competitive projects, and manages post-award evaluation.Controls waste, fraud and abuse. REPRESENTATION, COMMUNICATION AND LEADERSHIP Represents the Program, Division and the Foundation within the scientific community, with other NSF Divisions, with other appropriate agencies and organizations, and with the public, accurately reflecting NSF policy and positions.Creates and maintains linkages to other NSF units and other Federal agencies in pursuit of the overall NSF mission.Participates in staff, panel, committee and other meetings, providing input relevant to program area and/or Division.Pursues affirmative action and Equal Employment Opportunity (EEO) goals.Pursues and/or is responsive to assignment on special projects and temporary function teams across the Foundation to solve problems, improve staff communication, and effect coordination for special programs.Contributes ideas and effort to improving the quality of policies and NSF's performance of the overall mission. Prepares and disseminates a variety of informational documents which may include data on progress being made toward NSF goals, trends and opportunities papers, and budget plans.PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT Establishes contacts and maintains active involvement in Program and related areas through participation in professional activities.Maintains familiarity with salient current research developments. Pursues individual research as workload and travel funds permit.Expands administrative capabilities through training courses or assumption of new management.
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