[ih] misc questions about 1970s/1980s contracts and funding

[touch at strayalpha.com]

Speaking from experience as an NSF/DARPA/etc PI:

For all the questions, notably #11: A lot of what you’re asking covered by government contract and procurement rules. This is a specialized area of business operations and law, often coordinated by contract managers at organizations that submit proposals to these gov't entities. Business schools offer classes and there are books in this area, but a lot of what you need to know is buried in government regulations that are specific to each organization or government-wide (e.g., the Federal Acquisition Rules, or FAR).

For questions #7-10: Proposals are not publicly available, nor are contracts; they are typically considered “proprietary”. Research results and some reports may be publicly available, e.g., via DTIC or the funding agency’s site, or may be published in journals, conference proceedings, etc. that are open to the public (but may involve access fees).

For question #4:" DTIC Selected" means that the results or data of a project have been selected for DTIC archive, either as offered in the original project proposal or by request of the project manager or PI.

Joe

—
Joe Touch, temporal epistemologist
www.strayalpha.com

> On Feb 2, 2022, at 3:41 PM, Jeremy C. Reed via Internet-history <internet-history at elists.isoc.org> wrote:
> 
> I am trying to understand contracts and funding from around 1970s. early 
> 1980's such as from National Science Foundation, U.S. Department
> of Energy, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DoD) ARPA Order, 
> IBM fellowships, etc.
> 
> 1) For NSF, what does "MCS" mean? Maybe it is larger project like 
> "Multichannel Seismic"?
> 
> 2) What do the ending numbers mean for NSF contracts, such as
> NSF MCS74-07644-A03 versus NSF MCS74-07644-A04?
> 
> 3) What does it mean when same funding contract number is used for 
> apparently unrelated projects spread out over years?  I seem to find a 
> common link of a common PhD/Masters advisor.
> 
> 4) Why would an ARPA "proposal" have a "DTIC Selected" date 
> stamped on it that is many months after work has already been 
> going on and even after releases?
> 
> 5) What does it mean when the same "ARPA Order" number is used with 
> different contract or grant numbers? (Like ARPA Order No. 4031 with both
> N00039-80-K-0649 and N00039-82-C-0235 which appear to be different 
> years too. What does this numbering mean?)
> 
> 6) Where can I download old NSF proposals, contracts, reports?
> 
> 7) Where can I download old DoE proposals, contracts, reports?
> 
> 8) Where can I download old DoD proposals, contracts, reports?
> I used to be able to download some via http://www.dtic.mil/
> 
> 9) Where can I download old ARPA "Order" proposals, contracts, reports?
> 
> 10) What is an Government "Accession" number and how does it relate to a 
> Report Number?
> 
> 11) Where can I study more about this?
> 
> Thanks,
> 
> Jeremy C. Reed
> 
> echo Ohl zl obbx uggc://errqzrqvn.arg/obbxf/csfrafr/ | \
> tr "Onoqrsuvxzabcefghl" "Babdefhikmnoprstuy"
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