FROM: TO: RE:

Kathy Bloom, Chair, Faculty Association Research Committee Anonymous Questioner from April Faculty Association Meeting Frequencies of Summer Research Grants Awarded within COAS

I am providing feedback on the processes and outcomes of the last two years of research grant awards, since those are the data to which I have direct access.

Questions:
1. What specific criteria and method does the research committee use in evaluation processes?
2. What steps has the committee taken to ensure that their review of proposals is unbiased?

Response:
All applications are read and evaluated by one member of the Research Committee and a minimum of two other reviewers. The Committee is elected according the Faculty Association By-Laws as: one representative from each of the five colleges, one representative from the library, and one member at-large. Committee members solicit assistance from faculty within their units to assist in the review process.

Each reviewer carefully evaluates the proposal according to the following criteria on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being low and 5 being high:

1. Effectively communicates the significance of the proposed study.
2. Proposal is clearly organized and written.
3. Research method/approach is appropriate.
4. Based on comments from the Department Chair, your own evaluation of the proposal, and understanding that in the past only about 30% of the proposals have been funded, this proposal should be funded.

The average of the reviews from the three reviewers is used as the final score.

The Committee then meets to make recommendations to the Provost for funding based on the average scores.

Comments from Anonymous Questioner:
“… the overwhelming number of funded proposals are from the hard sciences… By contrast, the social sciences are severely underrepresented. Equally underrepresented are proposals from the other four colleges.”

Response:
Overall funding needs to be viewed in light of the number of proposals received, not just of the numbers of proposals funded, Overall funding recommendation made by the Research Committee for the past two years may be seen in the attached table. This is broken down by college and by department according to the number of applications reviewed each year (and total for the two years), number of proposals recommended for funding each year (and total for the two years), percentage of applications recommended each year (and total for the two years).