The request for preliminary proposals is now closed

Preliminary Proposal Preparation
Preliminary Proposal Submission
Preliminary Proposal Evaluation
Glossary of Terms

Download a pdf version of the preliminary proposal guide >

Preliminary Proposal Preparation
CICEET has prepared the following guide to preparing and submitting preliminary proposals for this funding opportunity. You must follow the instructions below when preparing your preliminary proposal. Preliminary proposals that do not address every narrative requirement in the proper order will be deemed non-compliant and will not be reviewed for funding.

Please note: The preliminary proposal requirements are a subset of the requirements you will be asked to address if you are invited to submit a full proposal. Therefore, in developing your preliminary proposal, it’s important to understand the larger context within which you will be asked to respond if you are invited to submit a full proposal. Please read the 2008 CICEET/NERRS Full Proposal Guidance document >

Each preliminary proposal must include:

A. Title Page
B. Narrative
   1. Problem Statement
   2. Project Overview
   3. Project Outcome(s)
   4. Approach
   5. NERRS Involvement
   6. Roles and Responsibilities
   7. Budget Justification
C. Literature Cited
D. Qualifications
E. Budget Forms

A. Title Page
CICEET requires all title pages to be in a standard format. The title page template can be downloaded from: Download the title page >

B. Narrative
Narratives are not to exceed five (5) single spaced pages with one-inch margins. They must be formatted in “Times” 12-point font and use CICEET’s headings and subheadings. Narratives must include the following sections in the following order:

1. Problem Statement
Briefly describe the specific regional or local coastal management problem that this project seeks to address. Describe how this problem is related to the dual forces of changing land use patterns and climate change. Include the location and any relevant natural science (biological, physical, etc.) and social (economic, political, regulatory, etc.) contextual information. Provide citations to show that the problem has been articulated by the coastal management community (reference any papers, workshop proceedings, needs assessments, etc.). Briefly describe existing methods to address the problem and the technical and non-technical barriers that prevent them from being effectively applied. Briefly describe how the problem statement or barriers identified in these citations were validated or refined with intended users.

2. Project Overview
Provide a brief overview of the proposed project activities that will contribute to a solution for the problem stated above. Identify whether your proposal is focused on technology development, refinement, and/or demonstration.

3. Project Outcome(s)
Describe the outcome(s) your project is designed to achieve within the one- to two-year project period. Discuss how achieving the short-term outcome(s) associated with this project will contribute to a longer term solution to your stated local land use/climate change problem. Describe how your project takes into account barriers that prevent existing methods from being applied effectively. Please be focused and realistic about what you plan to accomplish within the one- or two-year scope of your project.

4. Approach
Briefly describe and justify your approach for achieving project outcomes. Proposals must organize approaches under each of the four Project Attribute categories. Because this RFP emphasizes collaborative research, proposals must describe approaches that incorporate input from intended users and relevant stakeholders under each Project Attribute. CICEET acknowledges that approaches you describe here may change as a result of the collaborative process. Applicants are encouraged to discuss their approaches with intended users as soon as possible, and have a plan for incorporating intended user input into the refinement of approaches. CICEET has provided resources that may be helpful in developing an approach to the collaborative process on the resources page. > If you have not settled on an approach for a particular attribute, please describe and justify your plan for doing so.

• Technical: Develop, demonstrate or refine technology to address the stated land use and climate change problem.
• Collaborative: Ensure collaboration between scientists, intended users, and other relevant stakeholders;
• Evaluation/Adaptation: Use evaluation tools to make improvements during the project (formative evaluation) and to assess the degree to which the project achieves its anticipated outcomes (summative evaluation).
• Knowledge dissemination: Use appropriate, intended user driven dissemination strategies to ensure that successful technologies, scientific information, and lessons learned are communicated to other NERRS sites and the broader coastal management community.

Please note: If you are invited to submit a full proposal, you will be asked to describe in detail the approach and methods you will use for each Project Attribute, including the model you will use for your collaborative approach. Please refer to the 2008 CICEET/NERRS Full Proposal Guidance document >

5. Roles and Responsibilities
In this section, briefly describe the roles and responsibilities of investigators. An investigator may fill more than one role if they have demonstrated experience and it is justified in this narrative. However, the collaborative lead and technical lead cannot be the same person. Any investigator may serve as the Principal Investigator (PI).

Mandatory Investigators:
Identify and justify who will fill the following mandatory investigator roles, and briefly describe their key responsibilities during the project period. If you have not yet identified an individual for one or more mandatory investigators, please explain your plan including the criteria and skill set requirements you will use to fill the role.

• Technical approach lead: This person will oversee and coordinate technical aspects of the project. The technical lead and the collaborative lead cannot be the same person.
• Collaborative approach lead: This person will ensure that the perspectives of all team members and intended users are represented in the collaborative process and that interactions are handled appropriately. This person will also be responsible for determining when and if interactions between team members and intended users would benefit from the participation of a neutral facilitator. The collaborative lead and the technical lead cannot be the same person.
• Evaluation/adaptation lead: This person will develop and implement a plan for formative evaluation including setting clear targets, tracking progress toward those targets, and making any mid-course corrections that are needed as the project progresses. This person is also responsible for developing and implementing a summative evaluation plan and capturing key lessons learned from the project.
• Knowledge dissemination approach lead: This person will ensure that intended users and other key stakeholders have access to any information generated by this project. This person is also a lead on collecting relevant results, evaluation findings, and lessons learned for transferring to other NERRS and coastal managers.

Additional Investigators:
If applicable, identify additional investigators or subcontractors with the skills necessary to achieve your project outcome(s). Briefly describe their role and responsibilities. If you have not yet identified an individual, please explain your plan including the criteria and skill set requirements you will use to fill the role.

Please note: Your project will require the participation of intended users and relevant stakeholders as a part of your collaborative process. Only mention them in this section if they will be named as investigators, with their time accounted for.

6. NERRS Involvement
Briefly explain why the NERR site(s) you have chosen is a good platform for conducting this project. How will the distinctive resources that the NERRS possess be used to meet project outcome(s). Examples may include: the use of existing data or previous research to develop or demonstrate the technology; taking advantage of the range of staff expertise to assist with different stages of the project; working with multiple reserves in a region; using the NERRS network to disseminate results, etc.

7. Budget Justification
Please provide a brief budget justification that explains each item in the budget form, available here > Project team members from institutions other than that of the PI must be listed as subcontracts on the budget form and described in the budget justification.

Activities that should be accounted for in the budget and justified here include grant administration, technology development and application, data management and analysis, collaborative process activities, adaptive management activities, transfer, communication and evaluation activities.

C. Appendix of Literature Cited
Please include complete listing of all cited work in the preliminary proposal.

D. Qualifications
Please include a two-page curriculum vitae or résumé for each investigator described in the Roles and Responsibilities section.

E. Budget forms
You must submit one budget form for each year of your project, as well as a cumulative form. Download budget forms here.

Preliminary Proposal Submission
The deadline to submit your preliminary proposal to CICEET is 1 p.m. (1300 hours), EST on Monday, November 17th. Your submission MUST be in the form of one electronic PDF file. Proposals sent in any other file format will NOT be accepted. Preliminary proposals will not be accepted after the deadline.

Please send your preliminary proposal as a single PDF e-mail attachment to:
submissions@ciceet.unh.edu
You must also send one signed hard copy of your preliminary proposal postmarked no later than Monday, November 24th. Please mail the hard copy to CICEET’s Program Coordinator:

Cindy Tufts
Gregg Hall, Room 130
35 Colovos Road
Durham, NH 03824

Preliminary Proposal Evaluation
CICEET will conduct an initial compliance review of all preliminary proposals. Preliminary proposals deemed “non-compliant” will be eliminated from the competition, and CICEET will notify the applicants as quickly as possible. Preliminary proposals will be deemed “non compliant” for failure to do one or more of the following:

• Follow the narrative structure as outlined;
• Include all required information (curriculum vitae, budget forms, etc.);
• Follow directions with regard to formatting and submission procedures.

A panel comprised of a multidisciplinary group of intended users, collaborative research experts, and scientists and engineers in appropriate disciplines will review compliant preliminary proposals. The panel will use the review criteria below to determine which applicants will be invited to submit a full proposal. Applicants will be notified of the outcome of the panel via e-mail.

Evaluative Criteria

1. Problem statement
To what extent is the problem related to the dual forces of land use and climate change? How well does the proposal make a case that the problem they describe is an articulated challenge for the NERRS and/or coastal management community? To what extent does the proposal make the case that existing solutions are inadequate to overcome identified technical and non-technical barriers. To what extent have the investigators validated the stated problem with intended users?

2. Project Outcomes
To what extent are the described project outcomes realistic for the time frame and scope of the project? What is the likelihood that achieving the outcomes will contribute to solving the problem described? To what extent do the outcomes account for the technical and non-technical barriers that prevent existing methods from being effectively applied?

3. Approach
To what extent does the proposal make a case for their approach to each project attribute in order to achieve project outcomes? If an approach has not been described for a certain attribute, does the proposal describe a sound plan for doing so?

4. Roles, Responsibilities and Qualifications
To what extent does each of the identified investigators possess the skills, experience and qualifications necessary to fill the four mandatory lead roles? If team members have not been identified for any of the mandatory or additional roles, does the applicant provide a sufficiently detailed plan for how individuals will be selected? Are there other skill sets that should be added to increase the likelihood of achieving project outcomes?

5. NERRS Involvement
How well does the proposal make the case that the team will utilize the distinctive resources and capacity of the NERRS to meet stated outcomes and advance their proposed solution?

6. Proposed Budget
To what extent is the budget appropriate for the work proposed?

Glossary of Terms
Access: The ability, right, or permission to locate or use technology.

Application: The use of technology to detect, prevent, or reverse the impacts of pollution and/or habitat degradation on coastal ecosystems and communities.

Collaborative Process: Research that involves interaction between scientists and stakeholders within a formal and structured process at every stage of the research endeavor including: problem definition, research design, data analysis, connecting data to management implications, and dissemination of results.

Decision Maker: Individuals or organizations who are responsible for selecting a course of action that directly impacts coastal natural resources.

Development (urban and agricultural): Human induced landscape alteration resulting in changes to natural systems and subsequent changes in the condition of local water, soil, air and biota.

Dissemination: The process of sharing technology to ensure that it is accessible to a wider range of coastal managers and technology innovators who can use it to address local problems, or to develop new tools. Dissemination practices include, but are not limited to, workshops, trainings, the distribution of outreach publications and multi media products, peer-reviewed publications, and presentations at conferences.

Effectiveness: The degree to which an activity, technology, process or person has achieved predetermined objectives.

Evaluation: Evaluation is the systematic collection of information about activities, characteristics, and outcomes of projects to make judgments about the project, improve effectiveness, or inform decisions about future programming.

Formative evaluations: The process by which investigators strengthen or improve the project while it is happening—they help form it by examining the delivery of the program or technology, the quality of its implementation, and the assessment of the organizational context, personnel, procedures, inputs, and so on. Formative evaluations allow a project to make course corrections based on information that is collected during the work period.

Stages of Research: The intellectual phases of a research project, including defining the research question, designing and
conducting research, demonstrating or verifying research, communicating results of research to intended users, and/or linking
research to policy.

Summative evaluations: The process by which investigators examine the effects or outcomes of the project. Application: This processinvolves describing what happens subsequent to the project; assessing whether the project can be said to have caused the outcome; determining the overall impact of the causal factor beyond only the immediate target outcomes; and sometimes
estimating the relative costs.

Intended User: Those people targeted by a research project as the people most likely to use the results of the project to better manage natural resources.

Partners: Organizations or individuals who commit to share responsibility for achieving an agreed upon goal and attendant objectives. All members must dedicate resources to meeting the goal and the partnership should result in outputs such as documents, workshops, funding opportunities, demonstration projects, etc.

Stages of research: The intellectual phases of a research project, including defining the research question, designing and conducting research, demonstrating or verifying research, communicating results of research to intended users, and/or linking research to policy.

Technology: A systematic use of knowledge or tools to better understand or interact with our environment. Engineering designs, best management practices, ideas, instrumentation, protocols, decision support systems, models, and other information-based tools.

Technology development: The process of identifying a problem and then designing, testing, demonstrating or implementing a technical solution.

Transferability: The degree to which a technology or process can be applied in more than one place, in more than one situation, or at more than one point in time.