Helpful gatekeepers: positive management of the limited submission process

Limited submission grant programs force a sensitive gatekeeper role squarely on research administration. By limiting the number of proposals that an institution may submit in response to a program announcement, sponsors (both governmental and private) are, in effect, pushing down to the universities the initial triage of competitive vs. non-competitive grant proposals, thus reducing their own workloads to a considerable degree. At the other end, research administrators can view this role either as an onerous but necessary task, or they can seize opportunities tar constructive communications, proposal improvements, and faculty development. This paper describes a process at Virginia Tech that aims at the latter approach, using ten rules for managing limited submission programs.
Introduction With sponsor budgets flattening as universities ramp up their research agendas, intensified competition has become the norm. In 2003 NSF underwent a near budget freeze, while the number of [...]