RFP-IV: Peer Review

The Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative (GoMRI) will select awards for funding by merit review based on peer evaluation, modeled after the National Science Foundation’s Peer Evaluation Process.   An administrative review of the preliminary and full proposals will take place to ensure that each proposal follows the proposal submission instructions, formatting guidelines, and includes all required sections.  A panel of experts will evaluate the full proposals according to the review criteria listed in RFP-IV:

Scientific Merit (65%)

  • Scope, quality, and potential for fundamentally significant results of the proposed research
  • Project plan describing integration among the sub-projects
  • Value of the anticipated research outcomes for contributing to the major research themes of the GoMRI

Qualifications (15%)

  • Expertise of Consortia Director / PI and co-PIs in the relevant research domains and in the delivery of focused research
  • A demonstrated record of scientific achievement in the relevant science
  • Realistic research timeline and availability of appropriate facilities for the duration of the project
  • Knowledge of the Gulf of Mexico region

Public Education and Outreach (5%)

  • Scope, quality, and potential of the proposed public education and outreach activities
  • A demonstrated record of achievement in public education and outreach activities
  • Effective collaboration with professional scientific research activities

Management (15%)

  • Governance and communication structure proposed to support effective exchange of ideas, data and results among the sub-projects in the collaborating institutions to ensure cross-fertilization and a final research product that will be more than the sum of the results of the individual sub-project policies, rules and regulations proposed to ensure efficient research operations
  • Data management policies, favorably including a strong record of previous submission of data to a public database (where applicable, of GoMRI data to the Gulf of Mexico Research Initiative Information & Data Cooperative, GRIIDC)
  • Compliance with US research requirements (e.g., biosafety, animal research, ethics in science, conflicts of interest, etc) and necessary safety training

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