Funder template: National Science Foundation · Opportunity: PD-26-366Y · closes no deadline stated

How reviewers read this: NSF merit review asks two questions of every proposal: Intellectual Merit (the potential to advance knowledge) and Broader Impacts (the potential to benefit society). Both are weighed through five elements: potential to advance knowledge/benefit society; creativity and originality; soundness of the plan and mechanism to assess success; qualifications of the team; adequacy of resources.

Verify: Conventions per NSF PAPPG as of mid-2026. Always confirm against the current PAPPG edition and the solicitation, which may override.

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Project Summary

Page limit: 1 page (three separate text boxes in Research.gov) — verify against the NOFO.

Overview

Explain, in plain language, what fundamental transport-phenomena question you will answer, how you will study it, and why the answer matters for NSF’s basic-research mission. State the vision and the main activities in the first two sentences.

• What is the core transport-phenomena problem in this project, and how does it advance understanding of mass, momentum, energy, or species transport?
• What experimental, theoretical, or computational approach will you use to study the phenomenon?
• How will the work create new knowledge that could inform engineering applications, while remaining fundamentally research-focused?
• [DRAFT] Recast the tornado-warning idea as a transport-phenomena question only if the project is truly about fluid dynamics, atmospheric flow, or message-independent warning propagation; otherwise do not force a fit.
• [DRAFT] Emphasize that the project will generate fundamental insight into the dynamics of a relevant physical system and develop an analytical or modeling technique.

Intellectual Merit

Show how the project advances knowledge in TP, including any new theory, measurements, models, or methods. Make this box quotable for reviewers.

• What specific gap in transport-phenomena knowledge will the project close?
• Which TP themes does it connect to, such as multiphase flow, interfacial phenomena, thermal transport, or reactive flows?
• What is novel about the method, model, or dataset compared with current state of the art?
• [DRAFT] If the idea remains a social-science warning study, this section should instead explain why it does not belong in TP and whether the project should be redesigned before submission.
• [DRAFT] Describe how linking longitudinal observations with message wording would reveal mechanisms, thresholds, or response dynamics only if the underlying phenomenon is a physical transport process.

Broader Impacts

Name the beneficiaries and the concrete activities that will produce societal value. Tie impacts to assessable outcomes rather than generic education claims.

• Who will benefit from the project’s outcomes, and in what way?
• What specific outreach, training, data, or partnership activities will extend the results beyond the research team?
• How will you measure whether those broader impacts occur?
• [DRAFT] If adapted to TP, identify an application domain NSF highlights, such as energy, manufacturing, microelectronics, biotechnology, or climate/wildland fire.
• [DRAFT] Specify any resources, open tools, or shared datasets that could help researchers or practitioners use the findings.

Project Description

Page limit: 15 pages (solicitation may differ) — verify against the NOFO.

Introduction and Objectives

State the research questions and hypotheses crisply on page one, and make clear how they align with TP’s focus on fundamental transport processes.

• What are the central research questions or hypotheses?
• What are the project objectives, stated as testable aims?
• How does the project connect to NSF TP priorities, such as multiphase dynamics, interfacial phenomena, thermal transport, or combustion?
• [DRAFT] If the actual project is about tornado warnings, state clearly that it is not a TP topic unless the work is reframed around atmospheric transport, flow dynamics, or another physical transport mechanism.

Background and Motivation

Identify the knowledge gap, explain why it matters now, and show how the proposed work builds on and extends the state of the art.

• What is currently known, and what is not known, about the relevant transport process?
• Why is this an important question now for basic science and engineering?
• Which prior studies, models, or measurements define the frontier your project will push?
• [DRAFT] If using the example idea as inspiration only, explain why existing approaches fail to capture the mechanism you propose to study.
• [DRAFT] Identify the physical scales, interfaces, or coupled processes that motivate the work.

Research Plan

Organize the plan by aim or objective, and specify methods, analysis, timeline, and contingencies. Reviewers need a clear mechanism for judging success.

• What will you do in each aim, and in what order?
• What experiments, simulations, theory, or hybrid methods will you use?
• How will you analyze the results, validate models, and decide whether each aim succeeded?
• What are the likely risks, and what alternative strategies will you use if the primary approach fails?
• [DRAFT] If the project is genuinely TP-related, describe the physical system, governing equations or measurements, and the variables that capture transport behavior.
• [DRAFT] If the project remains a longitudinal survey study, it does not match this program; revise the plan toward a fundamental transport system before submission.

Broader Impacts

Provide a distinctly labeled broader-impacts section with concrete activities, audiences, partners, and evaluation.

• What specific societal or educational activities will you undertake?
• Who is the audience or beneficiary, and how will you reach them?
• What measurable outcomes will demonstrate impact?
• How will you evaluate and refine the activities?
• [DRAFT] If relevant, describe dissemination to an engineering or science audience through open data, code, workshops, or community benchmarks.
• [DRAFT] Tie impacts to NSF-relevant application areas only if they follow naturally from the transport-phenomena research.

Results from Prior NSF Support

If any PI or co-PI has had NSF support in the past five years, summarize the prior project’s Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts.

• Do any investigators need to report prior NSF support?
• What were the key scientific outcomes of the prior award?
• What broader impacts were achieved, and what evidence supports them?
• [DRAFT] If no prior NSF support exists, state that explicitly and do not leave the section ambiguous.

References Cited

Page limit: no page limit — verify against the NOFO.

References Cited

Include every work cited in the project description, with full and consistent citations.

• Which papers, books, datasets, or reports are cited in the narrative?
• Are the citations complete and formatted consistently?
• [DRAFT] Ensure the references support a TP-centered fundamental research case, not a social-science warning-response study unless the proposal is substantially re-scoped.

Budget Justification

Page limit: 5 pages — verify against the NOFO.

Budget Justification

Justify each budget line item by category and tie requested effort and costs to the research plan.

• Why is each personnel request necessary for the aims and timeline?
• What travel, materials, or computational resources are needed to complete the work?
• Are any participant support, equipment, or subcontract costs essential and reasonable?
• How does the budget reflect the program’s emphasis on fundamental research rather than service delivery or commercialization?
• [DRAFT] If the work uses surveys or panel data, justify any participant incentives only if they are essential and allowable; otherwise reconsider fit with TP.
• [DRAFT] Explain how any specialized instrumentation, high-performance computing, or experimental supplies directly enable transport-phenomena measurements or simulations.

Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources

Page limit: no page limit — verify against the NOFO.

Facilities, Equipment and Other Resources

Describe only the resources available for the project and why they are adequate; omit dollar values and generic institutional boilerplate.

• What laboratory, computational, field, or instrumentation resources are already available?
• What specialized facilities or user centers will support the research?
• What institutional resources, collaborations, or access agreements are relevant?
• [DRAFT] If the project is not truly transport-phenomena research, do not try to force-fit facilities; instead identify the resources needed for a re-scoped physical science project.
• [DRAFT] Name any modeling, experimental, or data infrastructure that will support the proposed fundamental studies.

Institutional facilities & resources (boilerplate — trim to relevance)

Maintain approved paragraphs here, one block per unit/resource. Shells
append this file to facilities documents; the researcher deletes blocks
that don’t apply. Replace the placeholders with ORS-approved language.

University of Oklahoma (general). [[FILL IN: one approved paragraph on
OU as an R1 institution, research infrastructure, computing, and libraries]]

IPPRA. [[FILL IN: approved paragraph — survey research infrastructure,
M-SISNet panel, secure data enclave (Prometheus 42), staff expertise]]

OU Supercomputing Center for Education & Research (OSCER). [[FILL IN:
approved paragraph if applicable]]

[[Additional units as needed]]

Data Management and Sharing Plan

Page limit: 2 pages — verify against the NOFO.

Data Management and Sharing Plan

State what data, code, and other products will be produced, how they will be formatted and shared, and where they will be archived.

• What types of data will the project generate?
• What standards, metadata, and file formats will you use?
• Where will the data and code be shared, and on what timeline?
• How will you protect any sensitive or human-subjects data, if applicable, and what de-identification or IRB steps are needed?
• [DRAFT] If the project is a fundamental TP study, plan to share simulation inputs, processed measurements, and analysis code in a reusable repository.
• [DRAFT] If any human-subjects or survey data are used, note that this plan must include IRB compliance, de-identification, and access controls; however, that would be atypical for this TP program.
• [DRAFT] Specify an archival venue appropriate to the data type, such as a disciplinary repository, institutional repository, or code archive.

Biographical Sketches (per senior person)

Page limit: 3 pages each, SciENcv format required — verify against the NOFO.

Biographical Sketch

Prepare each senior person’s sketch in SciENcv and ensure it is current, complete, and certification-ready.

• Which senior personnel need biosketches?
• Are their appointments, products, and synergistic activities fully and accurately entered in SciENcv?
• Do their recent and relevant products support the TP topic and methods?
• [DRAFT] If the project remains centered on tornado-warning survey research, the biosketches should demonstrate expertise in a different NSF program area; otherwise, the proposal should be redirected before submission.