Statistics 583
Grant Proposal Project
This Web page contains information about the grant proposal project that is part
of the Stat 583 work. Latest update May 7.
Grant proposals
A large portion of university faculty members' time is spent on grant proposals:
writing them, reviewing them, revising them. Typically, this is the sequence of events:
- The funding agency issues an RFP (Request For Proposal), with specific
or general instructions regarding content.
- Proposals are prepared by investigators.
- The chair and dean of each department, school, and collage involved in the
proposal, as well as the director of Grants and Contracts, must sign that they
agree with this proposal, and will accept the money if it is granted (this is
not always trivial or obvious--grants often require University support in the
form of matching funds, space, equipment, etc.).
Types of funding
An overview of federal funding
agencies is available on the WWW.
There are three main types of funding of universities: grants, cooperative agreements, and contracts.
They differ in how precise is the specification of the work to be done.
Grants
Grants are fairly flexible funding agreements. They are suitable for research
in which the results are not predictable with certainty. Agencies like the
National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
frequently fund research grants.
Cooperative agreements
Cooperative agreements are usually more specific as to what work is to be done
than grants, but do contain some research aspects, so that results again are
not completely predictable. Often cooperative agreements require a detailed
time line for the work to be done. Agencies such as the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) like
the cooperative agreement funding method.
Contracts
Contracts specify exactly what work is to be done, and what deliverable products
are to be produced when. A variety of agencies use this way to fund collection
and analysis of data sets.
Other forms
Recently, a very popular form of funding has been the Small Business Innovation
Research (SBIR) funding. This is a two- or three-tiered funding system
in which small business (such as consulting firms) can get some funding to
explore a potential venture. The first stage often consists of preliminary and
exploratory research. The second stage, which requires another proposal, is
aimed at implementation of the first stage, and the third stage (again
requiring another proposal) is intended for business implementation of the
work in the previous stages.
The project
You will receive a request for preproposals from the
U.S. Department of
Education, and a memo outlining what particular requirements will be
different from the details in the request. Your preproposals will be due on
May 20 (note revised deadline), and can be produced in groups of 1-5 investigators.
General guidelines for proposal writing
There is one very simple rule for proposal writing: read the request for
proposals carefully, and address the items highlighted as important to the
funding agency (whether or not you find them important!).
Some further ideas (not particularly tailored to the request for proposals
from the Department of Education, but maybe of some use anyway)
can be found in this WWW document.
Budget considerations
Appropriate salaries for beginning faculty are in the order of $5,000 per
month. Salaries for graduate students depend on their status: pre-Masters
cost $1,046/month, while post-Masters pre-candidates (before general exam)
are paid $1,121 and Ph.D. candidates get $1,208. All salary costs are
expected to increase by 4% per year.
Benefits (health care, retirement, etc.) are 22% of salary costs for
faculty, 30% for staff, and 8% for graduate students.
Graduate student tuition is $1,452 per quarter, and summer tuition is $1,076.
Tuition is expected to increase by 5% per year.
The total direct cost (all charges except major equipment costing over $1,000)
is subject to
a University tax called indirect cost which is 8% of the direct cost for
the FIPSE competition. For standard grants the indirect cost is 48% of the
direct cost, excluding also graduate student tuition. However, for the FIPSE
competition the lower indirect cost rate is also applied to tuition.
Remember to submit the budget for approval at least one week before the
deadline.
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