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I am a PhD candidate at a US university, considering a one-year post-doctoral fellowship at German institution 'A' right after graduation. Once I get my PhD [and move to 'A'], I would also like to suggest co-writing an NSF (or other federally funded) grant proposal with a professor at a US university 'B' that would potentially fund my post-doctoral research at 'B' after leaving 'A'.

My question is whether my being employed at a non-US institution at the time of grant submission disqualify me from receiving US federal funding for the work I intend to do at a US institution (and the co-PI is at a US institution)?

I checked this and this, but it does not quite cover the above case.

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This will all depend on the funding call. Some grants require a PI who works at a US institution at the time of submission; some do not.

What is actually going to be be a bigger problem for you with this idea is that an awful lot of NSF grants (and federally funded grants in general) do not allow postdocs to be PI or co-PI - they require the PI to have a permanent position at their respective institute. (There are, of course, fellowships/grants intended for postdocs, but that doesn't sound like what you are describing here.) So doing this with the intention of doing a postdoc at University B will likely not work.

If you simply want to help the professor at University B write the proposal, and be one of the other personnel/staff on the proposal, that would almost certainly be fine even if you're not at a US institution at the time of submitting the proposal.

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  • In that case, does the post-doc's name not appear as PI on the grant?
    – principles-investigator
    Commented 16 hours ago
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    Correct, their name would not appear as a PI on the grant because in that case they would not actually be one of the principle investigators on the grant. They would be named in the "additional personnel" sections. And it is also possible for a lot of proposals to not even have a specific person named to fill a postdoc role at the time of submission, with the understanding that the PI would be hiring a postdoc to work on the proposal if it is funded.
    – WhatTheDuck
    Commented 16 hours ago
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    @principles-investigator To add to this, it is very uncommon for someone in a postdoc position to be PI on any grant, federally funded or otherwise. First, because funding agencies want someone with a "permanent" placement at their institute to reduce administrative headaches, and second, because, to be perfectly blunt, most postdocs aren't ready to be PIs just yet and funding agencies by and large aren't going to take a chance with their limited pot of money on funding a project with an untested postdoc as a PI/co-PI.
    – WhatTheDuck
    Commented 15 hours ago
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    Common misconception: the "PI" of a project is not (necessarily) the person who wrote most of the proposal text, nor the person you will be funded through the project. It's the person who will manage the funds and take responsibility for the grant. That's why most funding agencies look for the stability of (at least) tenure-track staff.
    – xLeitix
    Commented 4 hours ago

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