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Technical Assistance

ASCEND will work with EPSCoR university (and jurisdiction) research leadership in developing and providing technical assistance services aligned with local strategic S&T areas of importance.

Initial Technical Assistance Strategy

ASCEND's initial strategy will be to provide centers development technical assistance to EPSCoR research teams — in an opportunistic manner — under the following parameters:

- Restrict focus of ASCEND technical assistance to major NSF centers (e.g., STC, ERC, MRSEC, NSEC, CREST) and other large-scale projects (e.g., IGERT, emerging NSF [or other agency] large-scale programs) in which the relevant university (and/or jurisdiction) wishes to invest their strategic energies and resources.

- Cease quick-turnaround pre-reviews of proposal drafts of little local strategic importance.

- Provide help — via interactions with PIs and university research leadership — with structuring technical assistance operations (e.g., site visits, proposal reviews).

- Provide organizational and leadership support in forming and managing centers development technical assistance teams (with costs largely supported by universities).

- Verify that university (and/or jurisdiction) leadership is fully engaged and agrees to share in technical assistance costs (via support of outside experts), organized by ASCEND’s core team.

- Engage in early planning with major prospective PIs and institutions for centers under these terms (e.g., start working with teams/institutions on the next ERC and STC competitions by conducting planning visits with technical assistance teams visiting campuses to plan next steps).

- Assemble and lead technical assistance teams (ASCEND core team plus additional discipline and centers experts) to provide assistance over pre-proposal, full-proposal, and site visit stages (including site visit ‘dress rehearsals’) of major centers competitions at NSF and other federal agencies.

- Make a significant effort to engage university and jurisdiction leadership to explore roles and mechanisms of centers development technical assistance (e.g., via conference calls and interactions at meetings).

Please visit the EPSCoR/IDeA Foundation Technical Assistance page for more information on CDI's technical assistance.

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