[awards-program] Grant proposal questions to ask at submission

[Alta Elstad]

Thanks, James!

Should we specify that proposals must be in English?

Do we need to know what they are going to use the money for if we have no 
intention of raising or reducing the grant amount? Do we need to know what 
percent will go to the actual research? Do we need to have them submit a budget? 
This information would be important if we were considering follow-up grants to 
continue the research. In the current program, I think the researchers just need 
to decide for themselves what they can do/are willing to do for the set grant 
amount. In the current program, I think your fourth question in section 3 suffices.

Maybe all proposals should be PDF to prevent any accidents that could happen 
when viewing any actual source text. Also, source docs look different to 
different viewers who have different preferences and defaults set. PDF looks the 
same to everyone. Also, I have seen grumbling on the campus ambassadors alias 
that they would like to do their theses in OpenOffice but they can't because 
OpenOffice does crummy bibliographies.

I think General Instruction A should apply to sections 1, 2, and 3, but should 
not apply to CVs or supporting documentation. Submitters should be able to 
attach copies of existing CVs and supporting docs without having to reformat them.

In General Instruction C, I don't understand exactly what section 3 attachments 
are and what relevant documentation is. People will submit a proposal document 
that includes a bibliography and will attach brief CVs, right? Perhaps you mean 
that section 3 questions should be answered briefly in a cover document and then 
completely in a separate document? Section 4 is labeled Relevant Documentation, 
but it only lists the brief CVs, budget, and reference list/bibliography, which 
all together should not be three times the size of the description of the 
research, should they? I'm sorry, I've never submitted nor even seen a research 
grant proposal; perhaps this is all very clear to academics.

Thanks a lot for doing this,

James C. Liu wrote:
> As per yesterday's discussion, my A.I. was to come up with a
> list of proposal questions that would span the grant submission
> process and help normalize the submissions so they would fulfill
> critical requirements but also meet relative size limits for what
> the judges would need to score grant submissions.
> 
> 
> Questions are below, but they are somewhat ambiguous.  We need
> to define some concrete policies and assume some basic academic
> infrastructure.  For example, do we require this be purely a grant
> that MUST include a student AND a sponsoring Professor/Principal
> Investigator?  Do we assume that only acredited Universities will
> be submitting this and therefore, the principal investigator will
> be an instructor, professor or other principal staff member at the
> institution?
> 
> 
> 1.  Primary Investigators:  Who will be the primary investigators
> performing the research:
> 
> Principal Faculty Sponsor or Staff Researcher(s)_____________________
> Primary Research Assistant(s)________________________________________
> (Need some type of eligibility policy statement for faculty and
> students)
> 
> 2.  What will the grant be used for:  Please select the category
> which best categorizes how grant monies, if any, will be spent:
> - to pay salaries, wages, stipends
> - to purchase, lease or borrow equipment or supplies
> - to pay for contract services
> - for travel, membership, or publication expenses
> - other (list) _____________________
> 
> 2.a Please state the percentage of these grants (if any) which will
> fund the primary investigation outlined in this proposal. ____%
> (If your academic institution extracts no grant overhead, and
> all monies will go to research, then put 100%).
> 
> 3.  Describe the proposed Research:
> - Provide a statement of purpose for this research
> - Provide a brief Background and cite any supporting or
> related research already performed, and concise set of references.
> - Describe your approach which will be used for the Research
> - Describe how this grant will specifically help in doing Research
> - Describe briefly what the expected outcome of this research will be
> [use file attachment to upload document - PDF, .sxw, or .odt supported]
> 
> 4. Relevant Documentation.  Please attach the following:
> - A brief C/V for each member of Faculty or Student RAs
> participating in this grant proposal.
> - A budget not to exceed 1 page (8.5"x11" letter or A4) detailing how
> money will be spent
> - Reference list (a.k.a. - Bibliography, including open source code
> references) for this grant proposal.
> [use file attachment to upload document(s) - PDF, .sxw or .odt support]
> 
> General Instructions to filers:
> 
> a) For all text, please use single column, double-spaced,
> 12 pt. Times-Roman font.
> 
> b) Proposals should be submitted either in PDF or Open Document
> format as used by StarOffice/OpenOffice (see OpenOffice.ORG for
> free download)
> 
> c) Please try to limit section 3 attachments to less than 2500 words,
> and relevant documentation to less 7500 words.  The total submission,
> including figures, should not exceed 10000 words or 20 pages.  Source
> code references are exempt and can be referenced remotely in support
> documentation.  There is no minimum length submission as long as
> all pertinent information has been provided as requested in items
> 1 - 4 above.
> 
> 
> -------------------------------------------------------------------
> Comments?  suggestions?
> 
> -James
> +------------------------------------------------+
> | James C. Liu, Ph.D.                            |
> | Solaris x86 IHV OEM Engineering                |
> | Sun Microsystems, Inc.                         |
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