Important items to consider when submitting your proposal

When you submit a proposal to the NSF that includes field work, you must include a logistics description in the timeline/work plan section. If you plan to pay for field logistics through your grant, you must also include the year-by-year costs in your budget and detail the costs in your budget justification.

If you would like assistance from a third-party provider, do not include these costs as a budget line item. Instead, identify your plans clearly and realistically in the logistics description, include statements in your budget justification signaling your intent to request third-party logistics provider support, and obtain a support letter and budget estimate from the provider to include as a supplementary document to your proposal. If your proposal is awarded, this ROM estimate will form the basis of the approved logistics support scope. Researchers who request logistics support/funds beyond the scope of that identified in their funded proposal will be required to justify changes to their Program Officer before any additional support or funding is approved. For this reason, it’s important to clearly identify all anticipated support requirements at the proposal stage.

If you plan to use Battelle ARO as your logistics provider, we will work with you to develop a ROM estimate for inclusion in your proposal. For additional information, please contact arctic.planning@battelle.org.