FWIW, I want a much more robust definition of success - but I don't have one to offer, so that's not much help. We do track more than hit-rate, though. But you asked about PROPOSAL success, and we do pretty much what you do.
To answer your question about assuming a proposal won't be funded after a certain amount of time - we have no fixed rule. DOE is notorious for taking multiple years to fund something. NIH and NSF are easier to track. If NIH Council Review has past and we don't have any indication that there will be an award, I may not wait until the official notice comes to flip the status - because you're right, they take forever.
Our other metrics of success include things like number of faculty submitting their first proposal or receiving their first award (using Cayuse flags). We are looking to grow the percentage of research-active, funded faculty - so first award, first proposal is one aspect of that. We track as one of our performance indicators the number of people serving as either PI or Co-PI, using an unduplicated count. To get this number, we use the Award side of Cayuse SP to give us that info. We also track the number of graduate students involved on grants. When I started here, that number was surprisingly low and having active labs with grad students enhances the climate of research, so we watch for growth in that number - but I can't remember how we get at it. That one has to come from Fund Manager, or that's the only way I know how to do it anyway.
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Andrea Buford
Director, Office of Sponsored Programs
Oakland University
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Original Message:
Sent: 06-02-2022 16:22
From: Lisa Churchill
Subject: Success rates
Hi intrepid ones!
I was wondering how your institution determines proposal success rates? We happen to be mainly NIH-centric, and NIH has their own metric (which basically counts an original submission and a resubmission as a single entity (whether awarded or not), but usually we prefer to track it one-one (per submission, so yes, that unapproved extra submission may "bring the rate down", but often they'll fall in separate fiscal years so it's more reflective of our actual effort on proposals as well as PI productivity. And over time, if you use the same metric year-over-year, you still get a feel for trends. Thoughts?
Related: NIH is notoriously slow in providing "final" results on proposals (we just received final Decision Not to Fund on applications submitted in Q4 of calendar 2019!). How much time do you allow before you mark an application as Not Approved due to lack of agency feedback (obviously "not discussed" is an immediate NA)? Do you rank the potential viability of pending-yet-reviewed proposals based on score or percentile (what's your crystal ball)?
Best,
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Lisa Churchill
Director, Grants Administration
The Salk Institute for Biological Studies
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