1. Intellectual Merit
Dr. Brian Agee

2. Merit Review Criteria
All NSF proposals are evaluated through two merit review criteria:
Intellectual Merit
Broader Impacts
Proposals that do not separately address both criteria within the Project Summary will be returned without review.
These criteria are not just for the summary page.
Reviewers are looking for words about these criteria to help construct their review.

3. Intellectual Merit
It is not enough that your proposal targets the needs of the funding agency.
Your proposed ideas(s) must also be intellectually sound.
Intellectual Merit asks:
How important is the project?
How well qualified is the PI and other involved individuals?
How creative, original or potentially transformative is the proposal?
How well conceived and organized is it?
Is there sufficient access to resources?
Reviewer will rate the Intellectual Merit of your proposed work based upon these five main criteria.

4. Intellectual Merit Judging
Proposals score high if they present a creative approach or an innovative idea.
A good idea that has already been explored is seldom funded.
A winning proposal must demonstrate that the proposed work will accomplish something.
Gap statements and gap-fillers in articles are used in proposals to call attention to the new steps your proposed work will take.
By addressing problems that were left unsolved in the past, and by showing how your new approach will solve them,
will underscore the creativity of your work.

5. Using Short Summary Statements
To help the reviewer, use short summary statements at the end of sections.
This work is important because……
The investigators are very well qualified on the basis of their background and experience…
The most creative aspect of the proposed work is…
There are potentially transformative aspects of the proposed work, which if successful, could….

6. Don’t Be Afraid To State The Obvious
Importance:
Don’t Be Afraid To State The Obvious
Three recommended steps to communicate your work’s importance to the reviewer:
Help the reviewer do their job.
Give clear language in your proposal to easily identify the importance of your project.
You can write: “This work is important because….”
State the obvious because what may seem obvious to you is not necessarily to the reviewer.
Write in your discipline’s language to make a scientist-to-scientist connection.
Writing from your scientific point of view will greatly increase your credibility in the reviewer’s mind.
Use common acronyms and abbreviations used in your field, and write as if you’re talking to a fellow scientist.

7. Don’t Be Afraid To State The Obvious
Importance:
Don’t Be Afraid To State The Obvious
Three recommended steps to communicate your work’s importance to the reviewer:
Grab the Reviewer’s Attention
If you can clearly state an urgent or timely issue related to your project, this can help to capture the reviewer’s attention and interest.
Could say something along the lines of: “We need to understand the results of this study because…” and express a timeline or urgency in your explanation.

8. Remind Reviewer of Your Team’s Experience
Reviewer can get a good sense of how well-qualified your team is by reading your attached curriculum vitae, but you should reinforce this point within your proposal.
Don’t make the reviewer hunt through the attachments to find this information.
Bring your qualifications right to the forefront.
Remind reviewer of the exact qualifications of all your team members.
Call out these qualifications clearly, and don’t shy away from using the term “well-qualified.”
Can use summary statement to stress this as well.

9. Creative, Original, or Transformative
NSF looking for proposals that could move the field into a brand-new direction or change the state of the art in a new and innovative way.
Call attention to any key words and tell the reviewer exactly why you feel your activities are potentially transformative.
Ex. “There are potentially transformative aspects of the proposed work, which if successful could….”
Ex. “These activities are potentially transformative because…”

10. Organization
Another criterion that the reviewer will consider for Intellectual Merit is how well organized your proposal is.
Unlike other criteria, you shouldn’t call this out in your proposal by writing “this proposal is well-conceived and organized.”
Follow guidelines.
Major Organizational Pitfall: Trying to fit everything you want into your proposal page-limit by altering font size.

11. Tools At Your Disposal
What the reviewer is looking for here is assurance that you either have laboratory facilities to perform the proposed activities or that you have access to the facilities and equipment.
The reviewer won’t assume that you already have the resources that you need for the project – you need to state this clearly in your proposal.
Ex. “This project is particularly well-resourced for the following reasons…..”

12. Credibility
Credibility of your work plan – including both proposed research methods and projected timeline is judged.
To be credible,
Proposed methods must be sound
Knowledge of standard techniques must be evident, even if you are proposing a new or innovative approach
Credibility may be enhanced by describing inherent limitations of your methods
Timelines should be ambitious but realistic

13. Competence Competence is judged largely on your past achievements.
Level of education
Work history
Publications
Grants received
Conference presentations
Other scholarly contributions
Also, it is not an exaggeration to say that your competence as a scientist will be judged by your writing.

14. Strong Intellectual Merit Statement
Understanding the role of vascular changes in stress, brain injury, and learning and memory will open new doors in brain plasticity research. Much of the current literature has focused on neurons rather than vasculature. I will change this by discovering how stress and brain injury affects vascular plasticity (angiogenesis) and learning and memory. While studies investigating the role of vasculature in brain plasticity are showing promise, there is a long way to go. New knowledge of what angiogenic mechanisms, growth factors, and receptors are involved in stress and brain injury will allow us to further map the angiogenic cascade. My current project, which addresses stress, has the potential to shed light on how stress affects memory. For physicians and clinicians, this research could result in new therapeutic treatments that could treat and ultimately alleviate clinical conditions related to stress and vascular changes, such as anxiety, depression, Alzheimer’s, and stroke.
Source: uwm.edu/officeofresearch/wp-content/uploads/sites/91/.../Prop-IM-BI-Examples.doc