Date

The National Science Foundation is seeking immediate responses for proposals
for its Information Technology Research initiative.
NSF is also seeking immediate help in the form of reviewers.
The ITR Program is described at
http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1999/nsf99167/nsf99167.htm
Potential Panelists should point browsers to http://www.itr.nsf.gov/panelist
Those interested in submitting proposals should contact
John Lynch

jlynch [at] nsf.gov

Dear Colleague:

URGENT! WE NEED YOUR HELP! YOUR IMMEDIATE RESPONSE IS REQUESTED!

NSF is preparing for the review of proposals submitted to the
Information Technology Research initiative for Fiscal Year 2000.
The success of this program depends critically on our ability to
enlist the help of expert reviewers such as you to help us identify
the outstanding proposals. We are building a pool of reviewers
qualified in IT-related research areas. ITR is a new $90M NSF
initiative that aims to promote fundamental research in information
technology, encouraging in particular research spanning information
technology and scientific applications, and in the area of social,
ethical and workforce issues. Specific areas include:

1) software
2) information technology education and workforce
3) human-computer interface
4) information management
5) advanced computational science
6) scalable information infrastructure
7) social and economic implications of information technology and
8) revolutionary computing.

The ITR Program Solicitation can be found on the NSF Web
Page at http://www.nsf.gov/pubs/1999/nsf99167/nsf99167.htm

The Fiscal Year 2000 competition requires the submission of
preproposals by January 5, 2000 for all PIs who plan to submit full
proposals requesting more than $500K. The preproposals will be
panel-reviewed during the week of February 7, 2000 at three locations:

at NSF in Arlington, VA
at a location in Chicago, IL near O'Hare Airport; and
at a location to be determined in the San Francisco area.

Based on the results of the preproposal screening, approximately 120 full
proposals will be encouraged for submission by April 17, 2000.
Full proposals will be panel reviewed at NSF on May 22, 2000.

A separate competition is being organized for those proposals
requesting less than $500K for the full duration of the award. For
this category of proposal, no preproposal is required. Proposals
requesting less than $500K are due at NSF on February 14, 2000. They
will be reviewed during the weeks of March 20 and March 27, 2000.

We would like to consider you as a potential panelist for this
activity. If you are involved in a proposal submitted to any area of
ITR, as PI, co-PI or otherwise as a participant, you are ineligible to
serve as a panelist. However, persons who are submitting proposals
only to the more than $500K competition can serve as panelists to
review proposals less than $500K and vice versa. We welcome panelists
from foreign countries, national laboratories, and industry.

Indicate your availability, and provide us with your information by
completing the ITR Panelist Entry Form at the following url:
http://www.itr.nsf.gov/panelist.

We urge you to fill out the form immediately, since we will start to select
panelists for the February 7 panel meetings within the next few days. NSF
will pay all travel costs in addition to $130 per travel day and $260 per
panel day. If you have other questions related to serving as a panelist,
please refer to the FAQ section of the ITR Home page at
http://www.itr.nsf.gov/it2-faq.html.

Finally, we would also appreciate it if you could forward this request to
other well-qualified IT scientists who you think may be interested.

Since ITR is a large-scale competition, and we have a number of people
involved in seeking panelists, we apologize if more than one person
contacts you in this regard.

We look forward to your reply, Sincerely, The ITR Working Group
E-mail: itr [at] nsf.gov

Note added - You are strongly urged to consider submitting a proposal
to this competition. Please inform John Lynch if you plan to
submit: jlynch [at] nsf.gov