>Wow, now I feel stupid for my glib response.  The Arizona State incentive
>plan sounds like a great idea!  Jacquie, is there "hard" evidence to show
>that this policy has increased the timeliness of proposals and/or IDC
>recovery?
>               Phil
_______________________

Hello Phil:
 I can help reinforce Jacquie's response to you.  The answer is an
unequivocal "yes"!  This program definitely increased the PI's
attentiveness to getting the proposal in our office earlier.
 Until about a year ago I was the Director of Research Svcs for the
College of Engineering at Arizona State.  The majority of the faculty would
call me to ask what the "drop-dead" date was so they would not loose their
"Investigator Incentive Award" from the VPR.  (Apparently they've changed
the name of the program....used to be called the Investigator Incentive
Award.)
 The faculty looked forward to having this account set-up in their
name for their use.  The monies did have to be spent for research related
activities, but otherwise was more-or-less discretionary.  The dept chairs
liked having it available also because, for example, it allowed the dept's
travel $$ to go farther; i.e. dept would frequently match the PIs IIA funds
to send them to a conf to present a paper, etc versus having to come up
with all (if any) of the funds.
 All around, it works well and is popular with the faculty, and
certainly made my life easier.  Mind you, some faculty simply never
understood, never got proposals in early and still felt they deserved the
award because "they tried."  It would be denied, they'd appeal, and
occasionally (but rarely) the denial decision was overturned.

 Jean.
________________________

___________________________________________________
Jean N. Humphries
Director, TEES Research Services
Texas Engineering Experiment Station

The Texas A&M University System
College Station, TX 77843-3406

Telephone:  (409) 845-1264
Fax:  (409) 845-9643
Email: xxxxxx@tamu.edu