Principal Investigator Home

This part of the website is a place for new and experienced LTER principal investigators (PIs) to get up to speed on the pros, cons, and relevant context of LTER site management approaches.

Draft Outline

Draft Outline – LTER PI handbook Under construction as of October 13, 2025

Welcome

AKA: omg what have you gotten yourself into?

Background

  • Founding (links to 1978 and 1979 workshops), including original core areas
  • Expansion (site timeline)
  • Major products and initiatives (EcoTrends, Decade of synthesis, cross-site experiments, distributed experiments)
  • Major leadership transitions

LTER Structure

  • Science Council
  • Executive Board
  • Committees and their roles and relationships
  • Bylaws
  • Division of responsibility between LNO/EB/NSF
    • How the LNO can support sites
    • Centralized communication
    • Committee support
    • Synthesis
    • Training
    • Templates and onboarding
  • Information sites should be providing to the LNO
    • Successful proposals (on award) - with Cover page, Data Management Plan, Site Management Plan, SAIF Plan, and Broadening Participation plan, but without detailed budget.
    • Publications (at least annually)
    • Personnel (preferably several times a year, but at least annually)

Regular meetings

  • Annual Science Council Meeting
  • Triennial All Scientists Meetings
  • Site All-Hands Meetings

Review and renewal cycle

  • Typical timeline
  • Proposals
    • Where to access past proposals
    • Ideas for inclusive proposal development processes
    • Proposal development: Dos and don’ts, successful conceptual framework
  • Reviews
    • Sample schedules, material packets
    • General dos, don’ts and cautions for reviews
    • Advice on virtual reviews

General Site Administration

  • This is hard. Don’t hesitate to ask for advice.
    • Lead PI Meeting at Science Council
    • Lead PI email list
  • Starting from scratch - Issues requiring special consideration for brand new sites (recently: MSP, NES, BLE, NGA)
    • Websites
    • Press releases
    • Mailing lists
    • Explaining what LTER is to your institution
    • Bylaws/Best Practices/Handbooks
  • Leadership transitions - Issues for consideration when serving as a new leader of an existing site (recently: SEV, KNZ, NWT, KBS, FCE)
    • Establishing your own leadership approach
    • Communicating changes (to participants, university leadership, “friends of…”)
    • Dedicated field site/station (ARC, KBS, AND, MCR, CDR…) v. distributed research locations (MSP, CAP, …)
    • One or a few institutions (KBS, FCE, JRN…) v. highly distributed among institutions (ARC, MCM, PAL, GCE..)

Leadership:

  • Co-lead PIs (CDR, GCE, MCR, BLE…)
  • Project management support (HFR, LUQ, MCR, SBC, NES…)
  • A designated project manager or research manager assists with tracking research activities, communications, scheduling, events, etc
  • Going it alone (Everyone else?)

Internal Management structure

  • Internal Executive Committee (FCE. …)
  • Executive/Management Committees
    • Who’s invited?
    • How often do they meet?
    • What kinds of issues do they tackle
    • Staff support?
  • External Advisory Boards (who has these? FCE, VCR, …)
    • Who and how often?
    • What kinds of questions do they offer advice on? How do you convene or request feedback?
    • How managed?
  • Models for divvying up funding (plusses and minuses)
    • Grad students only (??)
    • Project-based (??)
    • Planned and predictable every year (??)
  • Models for bringing in funding
    • Gift solicitation and management
    • Relationships with University administrators and development offices
    • Interaction with LTER-related leveraged funding
    • Related research foundation/“Friends-of” organization

Site Science & Communications

  • Listservs, newsletters, brown bag meetings, workshops, annual meetings
  • Engagement of PIs, postdocs, graduate and undergraduate students
  • Team and open science models
  • Working group structures

Where to find additional information

How to suggest updates/new content