At our All-to-All meeting on October 28, 2024, Jeroen van Tilborg, a staff scientist and deputy director for experiments at the BELLA Center in the Accelerator Technology & Applied Physics Division at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab), presented the requirements for building successful PIER Plans for U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Science research proposals.

“PIER Plans enhance the research proposal by identifying initiatives and strategies that promote inclusion and equity efforts and have been a requirement of the Office of Science for all proposal submissions from 2023,” says van Tilborg.

He says the PIER Plan Playbook provides resources and guidance to help Berkeley Lab researchers apply and integrate IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity, and Accountability) principles in their research environment “in ways that advance IDEA practices that support the science and technical excellence of their proposals.”

Provided as an Appendix to the proposal, PIER Plans are about 1-3 pages long. “While they can leverage existing IDEA plans,” says van Tilborg, “they should be tailored and integral to the proposed research project.”

The PIER Plan should include at least one SMART (Specific, Measurable, Realistic, and Time-Bound) milestone; progress towards this milestone is a reporting requirement. The complexity and detail required by each milestone are expected to increase with the size of the small business involved and the number of personnel supported. While funds are available to execute the plan, they must be within allowable cost guidelines for financial assistance.

Click here for further guidance and support with developing PIER Plans.

For more information on ATAP News articles, contact caw@lbl.gov.