Tools for Clean Water & Healthy Coasts
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Proposal Guide CICEET has created the following guide to facilitate your submission of a preliminary proposal to the Environmental Technology Development Program. These proposals serve a twofold purpose. First, they allow for an initial review that limits full proposals to concepts that directly address CICEET’s research priorities. Second, they provide an opportunity for comments and suggestions from a panel of experts that may improve the quality of proposals at the full proposal stage. Please note that the term “proposal” in this guide refers to a preliminary proposal, unless otherwise noted.
Funding
Funding
All project funding is contingent on the appropriation of federal funds to CICEET. Please note that projects recommended for funding must undergo a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) review regarding the environmental impacts of the proposed research. Funding is contingent upon compliance with NEPA guidelines. CICEET anticipates that funding for FY 2006 projects will be available by September 1, 2006.
Eligibility
Federal agency personnel—including those from NOAA—are eligible if they can document statutory authority to supplement their appropriations with funds from other federal programs and entities. Such documentation must be submitted with the full proposal, not the preliminary proposal. In some cases, obtaining this documentation can take time, so CICEET encourages such applicants to plan ahead. Federal applicants may not request salary compensation. Private-sector applicants may not include fee or profit in their budget requests.
Making the NERRS Connection
CICEET strongly encourages you to discuss your research plans with staff members from a relevant NERRS Reserve. You will find that that they have considerable expertise in coastal and estuarine research and outreach. Particularly germane to the CICEET mission is the recently-created NERRS Coastal Training Program, which seeks to strengthen ties between the reserve and local/regional management interests. The NERRS national web site provides general information on each Reserve, as well as links to individual Reserve web sites. If you have questions regarding the NERRS requirement for this RFP, or on how to make best use of NERRS resources in planning your proposal, please contact us. Please note: If CICEET selects your preliminary proposal to continue to the “full proposal” phase, we will confirm that the activities in your proposal are feasible at the NERRS you have identified.
The Role of the Advisor
At the preliminary proposal stage, you need only identify potential advisors and justify your choice. At the full proposal stage, you must include a letter from the advisors indicating their willingness to contribute comments to your semi-annual progress reports and final report. Advisors offer comment only; they have no administrative influence on your project. CICEET defines potential adopters as federal, state, regional, and local government employees tasked with managing coastal and estuarine resources, as well as private-sector personnel working as sub-contractors to the public sector. These are the professionals who best understand how existing technologies and methods must be adapted to become more useful. They also understand which technical specifications are required to make developing technologies more effective. By way of example, we offer the following list of potential adopter advisors. This is not intended as an exhaustive list.
Potential producer advisors are those interested in packaging and distributing products that may result from your research. In most cases, though not all, they will be from the private sector. Finding appropriate advisors for your project can be challenging. We urge you to contact us with any questions. Along with clarification, we also may be able to put you in touch with appropriate advisors.
Outreach
For advice on outreach professionals in your area, consider the following resources:
Technology Transfer & Your Project
Often, when a CICEET project’s funding is complete, work remains to facilitate the technology's or method’s application. In cases where researchers have shown a commitment to collaborate with adopters and producers, CICEET may consider investing additional resources to support further development and/or application.
Intellectual Property
Since the dissemination pathway is often not clear at the outset of a project, CICEET strongly suggests that you take the following steps to protect your technology’s intellectual property at the proposal stage. By doing this, you will be able to talk freely about your invention and avoid the inadvertent loss of intellectual property rights. Step 1: Take steps to protect your intellectual property as soon as possible so that you can discuss your research with colleagues in a manner that does not restrict your ability to choose the most appropriate dissemination path. If you receive funding, CICEET will ask you to discuss your research at a meeting with colleagues, coastal managers and industry representatives. Step 2: Do not make assumptions about the commercialization value of your work. In our experience, researchers often make assumptions about the intellectual property process that are inaccurate. Step 3: Talk to your institution’s Office of Technology Transfer, or its Office of Intellectual Property. Determine the proper approach to intellectual property protection for your technology. This could include any of the following: prior-art research and determination of patentability; pursuit of “confidential and proprietary information”; pursuit of copyright; or no intellectual property protection steps whatsoever. (Note: The title page you download from this site comes with a confidentiality statement. Please review it and contact us with any questions.) Step 4: Until talking with one of the specialists recommended in Step 3, do not disclose your idea in a public setting. “Disclosure” entails giving enough information—verbally or in written/graphic form—for a person “skilled in the art” to reproduce your invention.
Proposal Preparation
Narrative
Narrative
1.) Problem Description: Describe the coastal and/or estuarine management challenge that your project will address. 2.) Objectives: Outline your project’s objectives and how they relate to one of the specific, bulleted, priorities described in CICEET’s research focus areas. (For example, "Our proposal directly addresses research priority 2B.") Preliminary proposals that fail to do this will be deemed “non-compliant” and eliminated from the competition. 3.) Methods/Innovation: Describe the methods you will use to meet project objectives. Explain how the approach you propose is truly innovative. Please reference related technologies and/or studies that clearly demonstrate existing alternatives and emphasize your project’s novelty. 4.) Adopters & Producers: Describe the potential utility of the technology you propose to develop from the perspective of potential adopters and producers. What aspects do they view as most useful? What obstacles to application do they foresee? Specifically naming adopters and producers and their affiliations will strengthen your proposal. If you have opted to include an adopter and/or producer advisor as part of your project, identify the individual(s) or entity, and explain why they were chosen. 5.) Regulations/Standards: Please place your technology in a regulatory context. What are the current standards and how will the federal, state and/or local regulatory framework impact the eventual use of this technology? In some cases, adopters and producers can provide this information. Citing specific individuals you have consulted regarding regulations will strengthen your proposal. 6.) Roles and Responsibilities: Describe the roles and responsibilities of the project participants. 7.) Budget Justification: Please provide a brief budget justification that includes total budgets for each year of your project, as well as a cumulative budget [download the file]. 8.) Survey Question: CICEET would like to make its extramural research funding competition as user friendly as possible. Your answer will not impact the assessment of your proposal and will help us improve our RFP for future applicants. On a scale of 1 to 5 (5 being the most favorable score), please rate this RFP document in terms of the following question: Did you have sufficient information and support to prepare your proposal? Additional comments/suggestions are very welcome!
Proposals that Build on Previous CICEET Projects
1.) Provide the previous CICEET project title and name(s) of the principal investigator(s). 2.) List the start and end dates of the previous project. 3.) Briefly describe the previous project’s objectives, related accomplishments, and deliverables, including efforts to transfer technology and disseminate information such as web sites, CD ROMS, stakeholder meetings, training programs, technology tools, and products. 4.) Describe any problems you encountered in the previous project, and how they were addressed. Were there any changes to the original objectives or methods during the execution of the project? 5.) Describe how useful the end products of the project were to coastal management. Identify the end users/adopters and producers of the technology if appropriate. 6.) Provide justification for continued work on the topic. How will the utility of the previous project be improved by the proposed new activities? Does the endpoint of the proposed work represent an incremental step or a final product? 7.) List any presentations, manuscripts, theses, and dissertations resulting from the previous project. The deadline for receipt of your proposal by CICEET is 12:00 P.M., EST, on Monday, November 21, 2005. Please send your proposal as an attachment to an email to submissions@ciceet.unh.edu. There are two acceptable electronic formats: a. A PDF document is highly preferred. This requires Adobe Acrobat or similar Adobe product. (The free Adobe Reader does not allow the conversion of documents into PDF format.) b. Since not all applicants will have software applications that create PDFs, CICEET will also accept the text in Microsoft Word format. After 12:00 p.m. EST, applicants will be prevented from submitting proposals by email. You must also send one signed hard copy of your proposal to CICEET’s administrative offices. The postmark must not be later than Monday, November 21. Please mail this to CICEET’s Program Coordinator:
Justine Stadler
You will receive notification of CICEET’s preliminary proposal decisions by January 13, 2006. The deadline for submissions of full proposals will be February 27, 2006. If you have questions regarding the format and guidelines for proposal preparation and submission, please contact CICEET. CICEET will conduct an initial review of all preliminary proposals. Any deemed "non-compliant" will be eliminated from the competition, and CICEET will notify the applicants. Non-compliant proposals are identified by CICEET as the following:
Preliminary proposals will be reviewed by a panel composed of scientists and coastal managers from institutions and agencies throughout the United States. This panel will evaluate proposals based on the following criteria: 1.) How significant is the problem addressed by this proposal? (15%) 2.) Does the proposed project clearly and directly address one or more of the specific priorities in CICEET’s research focus areas.(15%) 3.) How well does the proposal make the case that the technology/methodology to be developed is novel? (15%) 4.) To what extent does the applicant understand the adopters and producers for this particular technology? Have adopter and/or producer advisors been identified? (15%) 5.) To what extent does the applicant understand the regulatory context for this particular technology? (10%) 6.) Assuming the proposed work is technically feasible, will the project have a significant impact on coastal/estuarine management? (15%) 7.) Are the identified personnel qualified for the proposed work? (10%) 8.) Is the budget appropriate? (5%) 9.) If you have received CICEET funding in the past, your proposal will be subject to an additional criterion: Your current proposal will not be considered until you have submitted all missing progress and/or final reports, in a format deemed satisfactory by CICEET.
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