Pre-proposals were accepted through Friday, November 14.

The following guidelines will be used to rank pre-proposals: Academic Pre-Proposal Evaluation and Ranking.

The response to the Academic Plan pre-proposals has been overwhelmingly positive, with a large number of exciting submissions.  Of the 136 proposals submitted , 19 were for Tier 1, 53 for Tier 2, 44 for tier 3 and 20 for Equipment Tier.  The list of the proposals can be found here.

We genuinely appreciate the thought, planning and hard work that went into preparing these pre-proposals and will begin reviewing them over the coming weeks. The proposals have been placed into one of two main review categories.  Due to the number of pre-proposals in the of “Research and Scholarship” category (96 pre-proposals), three sub-committees have been formed. In addition, the “Undergraduate Education & Teaching Effectiveness” and “Graduate Education & Public Engagement” pillars have been grouped together (39 pre-proposals). We have assembled standing committees charged with reading, evaluating and ranking the proposals, and those rosters can be found here. These committees were carefully selected and represent broad constituencies from across the campus. Our goal is for the entire process to be rigorous and transparent. The committee review process will be completed by January 12th, at which time the PIs of the most competitive proposals will be invited to submit full proposals.

During this round of academic plan investments, we plan to support two Tier 1, three Tier 2, five to seven Tier 3 and three to five Equipment projects. Regardless of the outcome, we encourage the groups of investigators who gathered to write these pre-proposals to use this momentum to continue collaborating, and develop extramural proposals for support from federal agencies, industry partners and philanthropy.