Advice on Contacting Your Program Officer
The Office of Sponsored Programs encourages faculty to contact the sponsoring agency’s program officer for the competition that most closely matches the priorities of their project. Program Officers’ roles are to both guide individuals toward programs that are a good match and to advise on the general expectations for the competition and the process. As a general rule, do not contact a program officer if you have not already written a one-page summary of the project which includes both the need as well as the potential merits and impact of the project. We recommend contacting program officers via email first to request permission to share a one-page summary with them. Then, if appropriate, request a separate face to face meeting. Contacts to program officers should focus on the science or scholarship of your project. One of the great benefits of being an institution within the District of Columbia is that most of our sponsors have a local office within a short distance from campus. The OSP is also available to accompany you to meet with program officers or to ask questions that may arise in the process of developing your proposal.
Here are some additional resources with advice on contacting your program officer that you may want to review before your first contact.
College of William and Mary - Advice from the NSF: Get to know your program officer
http://www.wm.edu/news/stories/2013/advice-from-the-nsf-get-to-know-your-program-officer221.php
Can We Talk? Contacting Grant Program Officers - Robert Porter (via Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education)
http://www.okhighered.org/grant-opps/can-we-talk-contacting-program-officers.pdf
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