Subject: approaching deadline for nominations to NBER IFM program
From: Jeffrey_Frankel@harvard.edu
Date: Tue Jan 25 2005 - 15:47:38 EST
Dear IFM affiliates:
It's that time of year again, to submit nominations for FRF and RA
appointments to the IFM group. You should have gotten an email from the
NBER some weeks ago. If you didn't (apparently many people did not,
possibly because spam-killers filtered it out), this will do instead.
FRF stands for "faculty research fellow" and in practice means people
without tenure at their host institution. The median/mode number of
appointments per year is two. RA stands for "research associate." FRFs
are considered for promotion to RA some time after they receive tenure at
their host institution.
Only people at US academic institutions are eligible to be appointed
members of the NBER. (A very small number of exceptions were grandfathered
from the past.) Sorry, no Fed or IMF employees and no people based
overseas. There is an "On Leave" category for affiliates who are
spending a few years working somewhere like the Fed or other government
agency.
What are we looking for? Prominence and good quality research, of interest
to people in the group, of course. But we also want people who will come
regularly and contribute to the IFM group. This is not just some honor to
be added to a vita. With only two slots per year, we need to spend them on
people who will contribute. The NBER has a stated preference for empirical
and applied research over pure theory.
Please send nominations to Denis Healy [ dhealy@nber.org ] with a cc to me.
The name, institution and current CV or link to CV (and whether you are
nominating for FRF or RA) will do, but your nominee has a much better
chance of being selected if you write a short letter explaining why you
think they are so good. The letters are typically much shorter than job
recommendation letters. The deadline for nominations was supposed to be
Jan 31. But if this is the first notice you have received, I think we can
extend the deadline by a week, to the morning of Monday February 7.
In addition to formal nominations, it helps me and the committee of 7 that
advises me to have an idea of how strong support is for various candidates.
So I appreciate hearing from more than one person, and you can also email
me opinions. Also, If your candidate isn't selected on this year or wasn't
last year, feel free to keep trying. Since we are rationed, it sometimes
takes awhile.
You can also let me know if a colleague is a FRF who got tenure and
consideration of a promotion to RA is in order.
2. Reviews
There is an annual review at which time Marty and I see what everyone has
done for the last few years. "Contributions" include submitting NBER
working papers; attending, contributing to discussion at, presenting,
discussing, and organizing program meetings or other NBER conferences and
activities; and especially applying for and then running grants through the
NBER. (Marty REALLY notices this.) Carrot: top performers sometimes get
a year-end honorarium from the NBER. Stick: "Promotion" from FRF to RA is
not automatic, it depends on successful reviews. RAs who do nothing are
eventually asked politely if they would rather not free up a slot for
someone else. (But don't get paranoid. In particular, we understand when
someone is temporarily sidelined for medical reasons.)
I look forward to seeing you at the next program meeting, Friday, March 19
(Menzie Chinn and Andres Velasco are the program organizers).
Best regards
JF
