Introduction
This document includes guidelines for the proposal development and review exercise to be conducted during the Summer Institute 2001. The exercise will be introduced by Dr. Paul Filmer (US National Science Foundation) after his introductory presentation on development and evaluation of proposals, scheduled for Monday, July 16, 2001.
Rationale
This exercise is the result of a conclusion reached by IAI staff after reviewing numerous research proposals. The IAI staff concluded that many of the proposals received had good scientific ideas, but these ideas were not clearly articulated or supported. When designing the Summer Institute, the IAI decided that a secondary objective of the Institute would be to enhance the capacity of regional scientists to write successful research proposals.
Mechanics of the Exercise
Summer Institute participants will group themselves into teams of 3-6 people, in order to develop a research proposal related to some aspect of management of water resources, and must include an interdisciplinary perspective of the problem. The specific topic of the proposal is to be decided by the participants. For example, it may be based on some problem in which one or more of the participants are working.
On Thursday, August 2, 2001, the participants will then participate in a review exercise, and evaluate each other's proposals against the criteria laid out below. Positive criticism will be encouraged, as we expect that some of these mock proposals will have the potential, as in past Summer Institutes, to form the skeleton for successful proposals leading to actual work.
Proposal Deadline
The Program Officers (Drs. Gladwell and Vlachos) must receive all proposals (paper and electronic submissions) by Tuesday, July 31, 2001 at noon (12:00 AM). There will be NO exceptions to this deadline. An electronic version of each proposal (in Word format on a PC or Mac disk) should accompany the printed version.
Proposal Length
The maximum length of the proposal must be five single-sided pages. The minimum width of all margins must be 0.75 inches. The minimum font size is 10 points. The 5-page limit includes only project narrative (i.e., project description and justification). The limit does not include figures and tables, references, budget and budget justification pages, or investigators' biographical information.
Criteria for Proposal Evaluation
The proposals will be evaluated according to the following criteria (refer to Dr. Paul Filmer's lecture notes on evaluation of research proposals).
1. Research performance competence
a. Technical soundness of proposal
b. Adequacy of institutional resources
2. Intrinsic merit of the proposed research
a. Likelihood that the research will lead to new discoveries or advances.
b. Impact on progress in the field.
3. Utility of the proposed research (Likelihood that the proposed research will contribute to the achievement of goals extrinsic to a specific research field).
4. Effect of proposed research on physical and human infrastructure (potential of the proposed project to better understanding or improvement of the quality, distribution, or effectiveness of science base).
For any questions on these criteria, please contact the Program Officers.
Budget Guidelines
The budget for a given proposal cannot exceed 200,000 US dollars for the entire duration of the project. Maximum project duration is three years, although shorter programs are acceptable if the scientific goals can be achieved. The main objective of including a budget in the proposal is for participants to go through the process of ensuring that resources requested are commensurate with the work proposed, and that every proposed task is supported in the budget.
One problem of this exercise is that research personnel costs may vary widely across institutions or countries. To avoid these differences (and just for the sake of this exercise), all budgets should use the guidelines listed below (these figures are not necessarily realistic). All figures represent annual salaries at 100% dedication. No other personnel costs (e.g., fringe benefits) can be included for this exercise.
Personnel annual salaries:
- Senior researcher: 50,000 US dollars.
- Junior researcher: 38,000 US dollars
- Post-doctoral researcher: 27,000 US dollars
- Research assistant/technician: 25,000 US dollars
- Graduate assistant: 15,000 US dollars
- Secretarial support: 19,000 US dollars
Travel costs must be realistic and explained in the budget justification. Allowable per diem for field work will be 100 dollars.
The cost of requested equipment (e.g., computers and instruments) or data purchases (e.g., satellite imagery) can be based on current US prices (i.e., excluding custom taxes or duties).
No institutional overhead can be included in the budgets (that is, only so-called direct costs must be included).
| Page last Updated: |
Thursday, July 5, 2001 at 5:27 PM |
| Contact: |
Guillermo Podestá (gpodesta@rsmas.miami.edu),
Summer Institute Science Coordinator
Telephone:+1.305.361.4142 |
