My idea is to keep it as simple as possible.  Success = more proposals written
 this year over last year.  Success = greater number of external dollars
 generated this year over last year for funded projects.  Success = greater
 number of proposals funded this year over last.

As to counting.  If a proposal is prepared and sent out of the office  - it
 counts.  The same proposal might be sent out a number of times and each counts
 if it is being sent to a new organization.  Keeping track any other way sounds
 like mind-reading to me.  I dont do that very well!  Besides, what if two get
 funded simultaneously - would you then use one file for the whole thing?  It
 gets very murky so I'd count each one separately.

Mary Watson
>We are a small but growing research institution, and we are trying to
>determine the best way to measure our success rate.  We are interested in
>hearing how other universities handle this in general.  Do you measure
>new proposals submitted in a given year against new proposals received in
>that same year regardless of the year submitted?  Do you do a one-to-one
>correlation (e.g., if proposal X is submitted to NIH and is funded, that
>counts as a hit regardless of the year submitted and received)?
>
>A more specific issue that puzzles us is how should we count a proposal that
>is submitted to several different sponsors.  For example, if a researcher
>submits the same proposal to three different sponsors, does that count as
>3 proposals or just 1?  If the submissions would be counted as just
>one proposal, what if the same proposal is submitted to two different
>sponsors, but the researcher modifies the name?  Research administration
>does not necessarily have the technical expertise to know that they are
>the same.
>
>Thanks in advance for any information you may be able to share.
>
>Linda
>(xxxxxx@umbc.edu)
>
>
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Mary H. Watson, Ph.D                                Phone: 912-333-7837
Director, Grants and Contracts                       Fax:  912-245-3831
Valdosta State University                            Co-Owner, Grants-L
Valdosta   GA   31698

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