Subject: Deadline extension & NOI requirement for ARC post-2008 proposals

From: Ed Turner

Submitted: Fri, 14 Jul 2006 10:54:24 -0400 (EDT)

Message number: 977 (previous: 976, next: 978 up: Index)

Dear Colleagues,

This message announces two changes in the process for ARC's 30 May call 
for proposals regarding post-2008 science operations at APO:

1 - The deadline for receipt of the full proposals is now July 31 rather
    than July 17 as originally specified in the CfP.

2 - All groups planning to respond to the CfP should submit a brief Notice
    of Intent (NOI) by the original July 17 deadline.

Details follow re both changes; please read the entirity of this message 
if you are planning to submit a proposal.

1 - Deadline delay: It has become clear, mostly only within the last 24-48
    hours, that multiple groups planning to submit proposals will not be
    able to prepare them adequately, or perhaps at all in some cases, by
    the original July 17 deadline.  The originally announced timeline was,
    of course, ambitiously fast (especially for the summer months) and
    unknowingly nearly coincided with the NSF Career Grant deadline on
    July 20, so the difficulty in meeting it is understandable.  
    Nevertheless, an extension at this late date is clearly not ideal; it
    will add further pressure to the process of getting a new project 
    selected and ready by mid-2008 and is arguably unfair to those groups
    which have managed, via whatever struggle and with whatever impact on
    other obligations, to have their proposal already finished or nearly
    so.  However, those undesirable consequences of this late change seem
    less severe than the cost of not being able to consider one or more
    attractive options for long term science ops at APO or of not having
    satisfactory proposals on which to base the selection.

2 - The ultimate schedule impact of the extension of the deadline will be
    significantly reduced if we can go ahead and begin lining up the "mail
    reviewers" 2 or 3 of whom will be evaluating the science case for each 
    proposal, as previously announced.  In order to let this process start
    early next week (and before I and others involved depart on August
    travel), a brief NOI for each proposal to be submitted by the July 31
    deadline is required.  It should be emailed to Bruce Gillespie at
    gillespie@apo.nmsu.edu and me at elt@astro.princeton.edu .  An ascii
    text message in any convenient format will be fine.  It should include
    at least the following info: a title; a brief abstract (no more than a
    few sentences) stating the projects major science goals, basic plan
    (i.e., what type of observations with what equipment to obtain what
    sort of data which will be used/analyzed in what way) and overall
    scope (roughly how much telescope time, money, for how many years...);
    and a list of all currently identified participants, individuals and
    institutions.  The idea is not to give many details or allow any
    evaluation of the proposal but only to permit us to go ahead and start
    lining up suitable reviewers.
    
Please accept my apologies for this last minute change in the process, 
which I hope will produce a better and more reliable result for ARC and 
all concerned.

Ed Turner
Chair, ARC Board of Governors


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