Innovator FAQs

ELIGIBILITY QUESTIONS

1. Is there a specific number of years after a terminal degree that would exclude a prospective applicant?

  • No. There is no career stage limitation to this cohort. Assistant-, associate-, and full-professors, and teaching or research faculty are eligible. Postdoctoral fellows, adjunct faculty or equivalent appointments are not eligible to apply except if they will become research faculty or tenure-track faculty at the time of proposal submission (January 2026). Emeritus faculty are also not eligible to apply. 

2. Are applicants from Puerto Rico and Guam eligible?

  • Yes.

3. Are international faculty with visas eligible to apply?

  • It depends. Faculty must be based at a U.S. university and your university would make the final decision about whether you are able to accept funding through the subaward, at the amount we are offering.
  • Before an applicant is invited to attend the workshop, non-US citizens will be required to submit a statement from their sponsoring Institution confirming that the applicant can participate in the program. This is not a letter of support/reference letter. Letters should be emailed as part of the workshop application materials.  .

4. Are non-tenure track or research faculty eligible to apply?

  • Yes.

5. Are international graduate students on a Student Visa eligible to participate as part of a funded research team?

  • Yes.

APPLICATION QUESTIONS

1. For the personal statement, does the 2 page limit include a reference page?

  • No. A reference page is only necessary if the faculty cite literature in their application.

2. How do I know if my interests align with those of NSF NCAR?

  • Navigating NSF NCAR's websites can be complicated, but you can start here. You can also view the work of each of our labs. 

3. Do I need to establish a connection with an NSF NCAR scientist or lab before attending the workshop?

  • No, it is not required to communicate with NSF NCAR scientists or develop a collaboration with NSF NCAR at the application stage. Connections will be made at the workshop.

4. Who will be reviewing my application (as well as LOIs and proposals)?

  • Your application, LOI and full proposal (if invited) will be reviewed internally by Innovator program leadership and the Core Science Team. General review criteria are itemized under the application instructions on our Eligibility and Applications Instruction page.
  • LOIs will also be reviewed by Innovator leadership and the Core Science Team as will the subset of LOIs invited to write a full proposal in collaboration with identified NSF NCAR collaborators.

5. Can faculty submit more than one LOI?

  • A faculty participant may only submit one LOI. 

6. If my research interests are not very close to any areas of research conducted at NSF NCAR, do I have a lower chance of being selected to submit a full proposal?

  • If your research focus and expertise is not a good fit for what NSF NCAR is looking for in the next few years, you do have a lower chance of getting invited to a full proposal. However, it may not be easy to tell what planned projects are on the horizon at NSF NCAR, so please submit an LOI and Innovator Program scientists will find out if labs and/or personnel have complementary interests, ongoing projects, or a research area they want to pursue that aligns with your ideas and background.

7. Will there be opportunity for feedback and modifications if invited to submit a full proposal? What if NSF NCAR identifies a better fit for collaboration with the proposed project than I do?

  • Yes. Feedback and modifications should be expected, as well as input from NSF NCAR. After reviewing your LOI, it is possible that we will identify a different or additional collaborator. We will put you in contact with those researchers.

8. Will the Innovator Program support a research project with its geographic focus outside the United States?

  • At this time we are not accepting proposals with a geographical focus outside of either mainland or U.S. territories

9. What are the requirements for the full proposal?

  • Faculty invited to a full proposal will receive detailed instructions.

FUNDING AND NSF NCAR VISIT QUESTIONS

1. I’m planning on changing universities partway through the award period. Can my award transfer to my new university?

  • Unfortunately, awards are non-transferable between universities within the award period due to overhead costs and the administrative burden to support a transfer. Award transfer to a different faculty within the original university will only be considered on a case by case basis.

2. How is funding distributed to faculty?

  • Through a subaward to your university. NSF NCAR will provide each faculty member with $250k for two years, roughly split as $125k per year. However, it is acceptable to split the funding unevenly between the two years (i.e., you may allocate $150k the first year and $100k the following year).

3. Do subawards include indirect costs/overhead?

  • University indirect costs/overhead will be taken out of the subaward. Thus, each year, faculty can expect to receive $125,000 minus their University’s cost for overhead/indirects.

4. Are there any restrictions on issuing subawards to other organizations or to paying community partners to collaborate within the project? What about if the organization is international?

  • We do have faculty who are paying other individuals or domestic/local groups as resources, whether through consulting or folks doing interviews. It’s your university who may ultimately say if you can use your funds in that way.
  • Funding for international organizations/entities is not permitted.

5. Are faculty required to live in Boulder?

  • The Innovator Program requires faculty to spend one week in Boulder each summer to foster collaborations with NSF NCAR scientists and other cohort members. The exact time-frame for the summer visits will be determined in consultation with the selected faculty.
  • Prior commitments to summer conferences or summer field work will not exclude faculty from consideration.

6. What should I budget for my stay in Boulder?

  • $1,000-$2000 toward lodging per person for a week-long visit.
  • Surrounding towns such as Longmont, Louisville, Lafayette, Gunbarrel and Superior are within 30 minutes and may be priced lower than Boulder itself.
  • Boulder can be traveled via public transportation and UCAR's shuttle system, but a rental car may make sense for your team. The past cohort estimated this at approximately $360 for the week.

Note: These are approximate budgetary guidelines and should not be considered strict limits. Individual circumstances as well as tourism and economic fluctuations in Boulder, CO will dictate the true expense of the visit. Faculty are encouraged to use their best judgement when determining their travel and accommodation costs and living expenses for the summer visits.

7. Do faculty need to use Innovator sub-award funds to cover student housing when visiting NSF NCAR?

  • It is expected that the faculty will provide funding to cover the cost of living for themselves and their students (if any) during visits to NSF NCAR. This funding can come from the subaward.
  • $2,500 / month should cover living and housing expenses in Boulder for most graduate students.

8. Are there any additional considerations on the proposed project’s scope?

  • While there are resources available for NSF NCAR researchers to collaborate, development of new modeling products that will require long-term support by NSF NCAR is, in most cases, outside the scope of a two-year award.

PROGRAM QUESTIONS

1. What do you mean by “faculty awardees will connect with NSF NCAR researchers and co-develop interdisciplinary and actionable research projects"?

  • The expectation is that faculty awardees will find NSF NCAR collaborators for mutually beneficial projects that all parties are interested in pursuing. Through the workshop participation, there will be time to get to know NSF NCAR and your potential collaborators, and there is flexibility in this grant for your research ideas to be modified from what is proposed in the LOI or the invited proposal stage.

2. How much time should I expect to commit to the program throughout each year?

  • Innovator Program projects are year-round and may require more time from faculty than other grants of comparable size. Because these collaborations with NSF NCAR colleagues cross disciplinary boundaries, the discussions that are needed to make meaningful connections often require additional time. Furthermore, there is the time commitment to visit NSF NCAR over the summer, as detailed in the Funding and NSF NCAR Visit Questions above.

3. What is the connection between NSF NCAR and UCAR?

  • UCAR manages the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research (NSF NCAR), a Federally Funded R&D Center through the US National Science Foundation. While you will work with NCAR scientists and staff, your subaward will be through UCAR.