Request for Applications
DEADLINE DATES:
Round One: May 9, 2011
Round Two: December 1, 2011
Website: http://web.laregents.org/sure/
LOGAN: http://laregents.org/cgi-bin/logan/pilogin_new
(This memo contains important information about BoRSF funding limitations and PI/campus responses to funding recommendations. Please read in tandem with the panel reports.)
Chemistry Enhancement panel meets in Baton Rouge
All components of the Board of Regents Sponsored Programs section – the Support Fund, Louisiana EPSCoR, and LaSIP/LA GEAR UP – use an extensive peer-review process to assess, rate and rank proposals submitted to our competitive programs, and to provide funding recommendations for the Board. While the review process is tailored to each program’s specific requirements, all rely on out-of-state reviewers who have been carefully screened for both appropriate expertise and impartiality. The Board has adopted a stringent conflict-of-interest test to assure reviewers bring no personal or professional biases, positive or negative, to proposals. Proposals are rated and ranked based on criteria established by the Board and published in the RFPs.
Discussion of proposals during the Graduate Fellows panel session
After independently reviewing all assigned proposals, subject-area and final panels meet as a group either in Baton Rouge or via online/telephone conferences to discuss preliminary assessments and thoroughly weigh and rank proposals. Some programs even include interview sessions during which reviewers to meet with project teams to discuss proposals prior to making recommendations.
R&D panel in deliberations
Across all programs in all components, each submitted proposal receives a written analysis from expert reviewers which is provided to the Board and disseminated to campuses and project personnel through formal reports or as post-recommendation debriefings. The Regents review reports and making final funding determinations based on consultant recommendations. Emphasizing the objectivity of the process, the Board has never rejected the recommendations of expert reviewers.
On November 1-2, 2010 in New Orleans, the Louisiana Board of Regents and Louisiana EPSCoR program, in partnership with Mississippi and Alabama EPSCoR, hosted a national conference entitled “Collaborative Scientific Research in Relation to the Gulf Oil Spill.” The overriding purpose of the Conference was to promote and sustain interdisciplinary, collaborative research in areas related to the Gulf oil spill and its aftermath. 
To achieve this goal, the Conference was organized around four broadly drawn research strands:
Over 350 people attended the Conference, representing universities throughout the Gulf Coast region and the nation, government agencies, private industry, and community groups. Presentations and discussions across the research strands took place throughout the 
conference, and forty-six posters, many highlighting NSF RAPID-funded research, were presented detailing ongoing research related to the oil spill.
The Conference energized researchers, providing them with a venue to share their work and explore partnership opportunities with scientists from widely diverse backgrounds. The Conference proceedings, to be published in 2011, will further help to broaden understanding of collaborative research in the context of the Gulf oil spill.
More information about the Conference, including speaker presentations, is available at http://web.laregents.org/program-evaluations/oilspill2010/.