Mark Coles

1
Major Research Equipment and Facilities
Construction (MREFC) projects at NSF Unique
programs with important objectives

• Mark Coles
• Deputy Director for Large Facility Projects
• Office of Budget, Finance, and Award Management
• National Science Foundation

2
History of the MREFC Account

• Magnificent Research Equipment and Facilities
  Construction
• Created to fund big NSF projects with long
  construction durations
• Comparison to the rest of NSF
• Around 12,000 individual grants awarded every
  year
• average award size 100K
• MREFC
• 0-1 new start/yr, 150M average award
• High visibility, high responsibility!

3
Characteristics of MREFC Projects

• Transformative impact on a field of research
• Greatest potential to train future scientists
• Importance to the nation impact on national
  priorities and needs
• Scientific credentials of proposers are of
  highest rank
• Highest quality project management

4
HIAPER Demonstrates that NSF Can Effectively
Oversee Large Projects

• Outstanding Teamwork
• HIAPER Project Office
• NCAR
• Gulfstream
• Lockheed-Martin
• Community or researchers that have built the
  airborne instrumentation
• NSF Geoscience Directorate staff and others
  across the Foundation

5
HIAPER Legacy

• Successes blaze a trail for future MREFC projects
• Institutionalization of lessons learned builds up
  expertise that can be broadly applied in other
  areas

6
NSF Vision

• Provide just the right amount of project
  oversight by NSF.
• Demand just the right amount of investment in
• Pre-construction planning
• Project Management
• Goal maximize scientific return on investment

7

• "See first that the design is wise and just. That
  ascertained, pursue it resolutely do not for one
  repulse forego the purpose that you resolved to
  effect.
• Attributed to William Shakespeare

8

• In operating under the Government, it has amused
  me from time to time in budget procurement to see
  a social analogue of the conservation of energy
  principle. The sums requested, say for capital
  facilities, are large. For an individual or a
  private group to acquire capital for any purpose
  requires the expenditure of a considerable amount
  of energy, commensurate with the magnitude of the
  sum required. Opportunities for acquiring large
  sums from the Government are most inviting. But
  according to the First Law (of thermodynamics),
  this cannot be easy and calls for the expenditure
  of corresponding energy. The time, effort, and
  grief a Government agency puts into the job is
  the kind of compensation nature demands.
• Alan Waterman
• first Director of the NSF

9

• "If you don't know where you're going, you're
  liable to end up someplace else."
• Yogi Berra