Then
you have to write the plan for utilization. Plan...
Okay, plan of action is writing better. For utilization of the research outcome.
Now, you have stated earlier that what are the deliverables, what you will ultimately
deliver. Now, the deliverable may be the development
of a specific material or a specific process or it it could be the the the in the obtaining
knowledge about a particular question. Say, I will survey that area of the sky using
a telescope and I will locate the, you know, Cepheid variables, a kind of variable stars.
So that can be a... ultimately you will produce a a a list of the Cepheid variables in that
part of the sky. So, it is a deliverable.
Other people can use that. So, the result, deliverable, can be in the
form of research papers, in the form of a material or a process, or a new invention,
whatever. But, ultimately what you deliver that has
to be utilized. So, what is the plan of action for utilization
-- that has to be stated. If it is simply to write paper that has to
be stated. If it is to... if it is a industrially applicable
invention that you are looking at, then which industries might be interested?
And you might say that “I will contact these industries for commercialization of that process
or product”. If it is a drug that you are trying to propose,
then then it has to go through various processes of drug testing and naturally you will have
to concern the appropriate agencies. So, it's it's not a very long thing; it is
about a half page. Time schedule about this, just just this chart,
it is about a page. Then some projects will have some environmental
impact. For example, if your project envisages using
some radioactive materials then it might have environmental impact.
So, you have to write that carefully. In some cases, you might need ethical clearance.
If your project involves dealing with animals or if it involves having such human subjects
then you might need a, you will need a ethical clearance.
So, whether or not the project is such that it requires a environmental clearance or an
ethical clearance, that has to be or ethical clearance, that has to be stated here.
Because when the project is approved, the money will be released only when these clearances
are obtained. So, you have to very, be very specific as
to whether the project needs this kind of clearances.
Then comes you have to as I said you have to convince the reviewers that you have the
expertise, the group has the expertise to to undertake this project.
So, you have to write the expertise. Now, the the person who is proposing it might
not be alone. It might be a group that is proposing a project.
So, there is a number of people and they are called the principal investigators, principal
investigators, in short the PIs, everybody who are the investigators are called PIs.
So, it is not that somebody is a principal investigator the others are only investigators.
Not like that. Everybody is called the PIs and normally the
leading person is called the principal investigator, PI, and the other people are called the co-principal
investigators co-PIs. Okay?
So, PIs and co-PIs. So, every PI will have some expertise.
A project is well conducted if the PIs have complementary expertise: I am expert in this
area, you are expert in that area, and both are needed in order to get this project to
success. So, we put our expertise together in order
to execute the project. In that case you have to specifically write
what is PI number 1’s expertise, what is the PI number 2’s expertise and so on and
so forth, so that the reviewer can clearly see that, put together, the group has the
expertise to undertake the project. The the expertise also should include the
biodata of the PIs. It should include the...
It should include the list of publication of the PIs, from which the reviewers will
get an idea of what the earlier research carried out by the individual PIs, which will talk
about their expertise. So, these are the components of the ‘expertise’.
And you have also, say you have to say the the roles roles to be played by or responsibilities
of all the PIs. Who will do what.
Okay? So, that way, you specify that this is my
expertise, I will do this. Somebody will go to the field, collect the
samples. Somebody will do the analysis; he is expert
in doing that analysis. And that way ultimately the whole result will
be something that is a proper deliverable. Here you also have to write the publications
of each PI. And so this sort of, these, all these are
part of or. Okay.
These are parts of the ‘expertise’, something that convinces the reviewers that you have
the expertise. Now, after that, you have to state the the
bibliography because you have done a literature survey.
You have to state the references. Now, you might have other ongoing projects,
you might have submitted other project proposals to other funding agencies and the the funding
agency agency to which you are now submitting the project proposal -- that agency would
like to know how burdened are you with various project proposals.
Have you... Are you, are you, are you chewing more than you can swallow, or are you properly
even out? So, this is something that is also seen.
Therefore, you have to, you have to write the list of ongoing projects and and proposals
submitted. This is for all the investigators.
Okay? So, the... You have to assume that the reviewers
are knowledgeable enough to figure out if one of the investigators has a lot of projects,
but another does not. So, it will be assumed that the other person
will carry the bull-work of the the project. So, that is possible.
But you have to state this list of ongoing projects as well as the the the ones that
are now submitted to other funding agencies or maybe even this that funding agency, that
is to be clearly specified. Now, the the agency will assume that the parent
institution will make certain facilities available. And which facilities become available from
the parent institution, which facilities exist in the parent institution -- that has to be
specified. So, this item is the ‘list of facilities’.
A ‘list of facilities’ being extended by the parent institution.
For example, if the project requires additional space to house the equipment that will come
from the project. Then the institute has to commit to providing
that space. The institute has to provide the electricity,
has to provide air conditioning, has to provide computational facilities and things like that.
Apart from that, it may be that the project requires some high-end equipment and that
equipment does exist already in the institution. You are asking for some other equipment, but
you will need the use of another equipment that exists in the institution.
You have to list that: that this this equipment does exist in my institution, I will get access
to that. And finally, you have to write the names and
addresses of experts in the field. They may or may not be the reviewers.
The agency might choose to have them as reviewers, might independently choose the reviewers.
But, you have to specify who are the people knowledgeable in that field from within India.
Now, when you... These are all written in the ‘other technical
details’ part. Now, when you submit the proposal, submission
of the proposal, there there there are certain things that you will have to fill in in the
text boxes. Most important is the project title.
What are you trying to do, just in a few words. The way you have learnt how to give a title
to a paper, in a similar way you have to also give the title to a project.
It is to be brief, if possible catchy, and it should convey the essence of the problem
that we are trying to tackle in a maximum of 500 characters; something like maximum.
So, it has to be less than 500 characters. Then there has to be a summary.
Basically what you have written in the project details: its summary.
What are you trying to do, what will it take, what actually will you do and things like
that. Then there has to be the keywords.
A few keywords using which the agency might search for other people who are working in
the same field. So, you have to provide the keywords of the
problem that you are attacking. Then you have to write the objectives of the
project. In this part whatever you submit are to be
written in the text boxes and it will specify how much, how long can it be or within what
length should it be. Objectives of the project: and normally it
is very briefly stated objective, about 1500 words or something like that.
You do not need to give the technical details because that is already given in the ‘Other
technical details’ file, PDF file. Here you only have to briefly state what you
are trying to achieve and the expected outcome, what are the deliverables of the project.
So, these are the things that have to be filled up in the text boxes.
Finally, the budget. This is a very important component of the
project proposal because you have to estimate what can be the expenditures in, say, equipment,
the consumables, the manpower. So, that contains the following things: equipment,
consumables, manpower, travel, overhead, contingency etc.
Now, equipment, the expenditure, estimated expenditure on the equipment should not be
vaguely stated. You have to actually get the budget, budgetary
quotations from prospective suppliers, and based on that, you have to estimate the the
cost of the equipment. Consumables: Similarly you have to estimate
how much consumables or reagents and other things you will need and accordingly you have
to budget it. So, these two budgetary estimates should be
more or less very carefully specified. There are certain things that you cannot really
estimate: unforeseen expenditures that is not large, but some amount can be kept for
that and that comes under the ‘Contingency’ head.
Manpower: You will be able to either recruit JRFs (junior research fellows) or the senior
research fellows. Normally we recruit junior research fellows
so that they can work for some time and after 2 years they become senior research fellows.
Accordingly they their salaries have to be calculated and manpower has to take into that...
take that into account. Travel: You are not allowed to travel abroad
with any project money and so, this is, this only contains the travel within the country,
maybe one airfare per year or something like that; that you have to specify.
Overhead is by the, taken by the institute because the institute is providing some facilities
and for that the institute does charge. And that is normally varies from institute
to institute, but normally it is 15 to 20 percent of the total project value.
So, this is taken by the institute as ‘Institute overhead’.
All that put together is the budget. And you have to specify the budget and you
have to defend the budget. Remember the people sitting in the in the
Board will be knowledgeable in that field, they would know that each equipment can do
what and whether what you want to do can be done by the equipment that you want to buy
or not. Every equipment has some attachments, optional
attachments. Whether you need certain optional attachments
in order to do what you want to do, or whether you really know what you need to do or not
-- that they will be able to check. So, these have to be very carefully specified
including the optional attachments. So, after you submit the project, this this
whole thing is submitted, along with that PDF file has to be uploaded.
So, that is a submission. It goes to the reviewers.
If you are shortlisted, you are called for a for defending the project.
You defend it, get the money, then the project starts.
When the project starts, you have to do what you have committed to do: recruiting the manpower,
getting the equipment, setting up the lab, getting the consumables, starting the work,
doing the research, writing the papers -- all that has to be done.
But after every year you have to submit a report.
So, executing the project involves informing the Institute first, Institute
or the University. And they will then form they will they
will assign a project number, they will they will keep the accounts of the project.
So, naturally you have to inform the project; project number is assigned, the project formally
starts a particular date and then you have to do the things that you wanted to do.
And every year you have to submit the annual report: What has been done this year, what
have been outcomes of this year, so that has to be done.
Every agency has a format for the annual report you have to submit, but there is... there
are two things that are common to all agencies. These are annual report is a technical report;
plus you have to submit a ‘statement of expenditure’, this is called this SE, and
utilization certificate. A certificate signed by you and the institutional
head. This is called UC.
Unless these two are submitted every year, the next year’s money will not be granted.
So, normally it comes every year. The money comes every year.
First year you execute whatever you wanted to do; on that basis you submit a the SE and
UC and the technical report, and on that basis the second years money comes, on that basis
third year’s money comes and so on and so forth.
Finally, you have to submit a project completion report.
Normally, projects are evaluated. The progress of the project is evaluated periodically
by the funding agency. Sometimes you will be called to defend what
has been done. And finally, after the project completion
report is submitted, you will have to defend that you have delivered what was the deliverable
from the project. So, this is how the project is done and finally,
on the basis of the project completion report you are marked.
Whether you performed excellently or you were just satisfactory or you under-performed.
Whatever you wanted to do, whatever you have committed to do, you did not do, so the money
was not well spent. If the funding agency sees that if the money
that they gave you was well spent, that builds the reputation of the scientist.
Whatever score you get on the basis of the project completion report, that will remain
with you and if it is very good, it is excellent, then the probability of getting the next project
is high. If you have not performed well in one project,
it is you are practically doomed. You it means that you will not get the the
second project most probably, unless you make a very serious attempt to improve yourself.
So, this scientist builds reputation by writing project proposals, executing project proposals
in a way that will be; that will be seen as a money well spent by the funding agency and
that way one builds reputation and then it becomes very easy to get projects.
If you do not perform well in the first few projects then your scientific reputation suffers
and as a result your possibility of getting projects in the future also suffers.
This is how we actually do our research by getting money and by spending the money to
do our research. I will now end here.