NSF Unidata Equipment Award Application Checklist
Consider the following as you prepare to apply for a Unidata Community Equipment Award grant:
- Read the RFP Carefully
While the high-level goals of Unidata's Community Equipment Award grant program remain the same from year to year, we do focus on different issues over time. Be sure to read the current Request For Proposals carefully, noting any areas we're especially interested in supporting. Don't be discouraged if your project doesn't line up with one of our yearly areas of interest — please apply anyway! But if what you're doing does touch on the issues we list, be sure to call attention to the overlap. And always read all of the requirements listed in the RFP carefully. - Come up with an idea
Identify a way your program could benefit from some extra computing resources, courtesy of the Unidata Program. Do you need a way to receive real-time weather data? Want to share Jupyter notebooks with students? Need hardware to let students try out new geoscience techniques? No request is too small, and awards range as high as $20,000. - Figure out what computing resources you need
Once you have a project in mind, think about what computing hardware, software, or services you'd need to make it happen. - Consult with Unidata
Talk with us about your proposal. We can help you refine your ideas about what you'll need to accomplish your project goals. We're good at finding economical ways to accomplish computing tasks — and we really want you to succeed. - Draft your proposal
Write a five- to ten-page description of what you want to do and what you need to be able to accomplish it. We've tried to make submitting a proposal as easy as possible; there is a proposal template to give you ideas, and we're always available to answer questions. - Submit your proposal
Send your proposal by the program deadline to egrants-submit@unidata.ucar.edu. - Respond to questions from the evaluation committee
After the application deadline, Unidata will convene a panel to review all of the proposals. The panel may have questions or suggestions; please be ready to respond in a timely manner. - Work with Unidata to receive the funds
If your proposal is selected for funding, you'll need to work with Unidata to do the paperwork that allows us to send you the funds. - Report back on your project
After your funded project is complete, you'll need to submit a brief report on how things went. These are usually just a few pages long. If you'd like to share your results with the Unidata community more broadly, we'll work with you to create an article about your project.
Proposal Template
A proposal template is available (see Resource Links at rightbelow) to help you get started. Note that you are not required to use the template for your submission. Whether you follow the template or not, please make sure your submission addresses all of the requirements outlined above.