Mail*Link(r) SMTP RE>Hit Rate This is a very interesting concept. In thinking about it I'm reminded how much we must look at our own institutional culture and mission when making decisions like these. I work at a small institution and our grants efforts are firmly rooted in the concept of faculty development. We've been careful not to measure our success by monetary gain. I've been collecting data on the number of proposals submitted, the number funded and $ amount. We look at the first two very closely since we feel they measure faculty effort better than the $ figure. (It sometimes takes just as much effort, and produces just as much benefit in terms of faculty development, to write a proposal which yeilds $500 as one which brings in $500,000.) I keep a database and keep track of about everything I can think of so that I can, if I want to, track growth in a particular department or school, look at productivity in the terms that Bill talks about etc. etc. I also keep track of things like how many times I research funding for people, how many consultations I have, how many times I provide technical help or help in the actual proposal preparation and writing. All of this information is very useful to me and gives me some data upon which to make decisions. (It really doesn't take any time to collect this data once you have a system set up -- I realize it sounds as though I do nothing but collect statistics!!) As a bonus, it's also handy when people start wondering what it is that I actually do!!! I'm a one-person pre-award office and the information I'm looking for reflects that focus. We also keep track, post-award, of money actually received. I've never been concerned with attempting to reconcile my preaward figures with those. At the preaward level I'm measuring dollars promised which can vary greatly from dollars actually received. (Awards may be multi-year; money can be rescinded, projects may spend less that was anticipated etc.) And, like Mary Watson, I count each time a proposal is sent to a different sponsor as a new proposal. ------------------ Alexandra Thompson Director, Grants Office Armstrong Atlantic State University (formerly Armstrong State College) Savannah GA. -------------------------------------- Date: 7/14/96 2:25 PM From: Research Administration Discus It seems to me that year submitted v year rec'd issue shouldn't matter too much provided you measure it consistently. You're really looking for changes over time. I've been thinking about this general issue for some time, and it might be that perhaps a more meaningful indicator could be "yield". Under this concept one would worry less about the numbers of proposals and "hit rates", and would focus more on something like "cost per $ awarded", or "unit cost per successful grant", "cost as % of average award amount". A hit rate tells me a narrow part of the "success" story; a "yield" fills it in a little more. For example, we may both have 50% hit rates (think big!) but you may be more "successful" if your grants are bigger, or if it's costing you less to process each proposal, or you're submitting a lot more proposals, etc. By using or adding a "yield" indicator you can make more meaning of the hit rate. I think both "hit rate" and "yield" have the weakness of being subject to a lot of year to year random variation, especially when dealing with small numbers of proposals. Bill Kirby NSF 703-306-1102 ______________________________ Reply Separator _________________________________ Subject: Hit Rate Author: Research Administration Discussion Group <xxxxxx@health.state.ny.us> at NOTE Date: 7/12/96 10:52 AM 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) ------------------ RFC822 Header Follows ------------------ Received: by mailgate.armstrong.edu; 14 Jul 1996 14:20:34 U Received: by gate1.health.state.ny.us; Sun, 14 Jul 1996 11:19:47 -0400 Message-Id: <xxxxxx@gate1.health.state.ny.us> Received: by gate1.health.state.ny.us; Sun, 14 Jul 1996 11:19:47 -0400 Received: by gate1.health.state.ny.us; Sun, 14 Jul 1996 11:19:47 -0400 Date: Fri, 12 Jul 1996 14:25:33 EST Reply-To: Research Administration Discussion Group <xxxxxx@health.state.ny.us> Sender: Research Administration Discussion Group <xxxxxx@health.state.ny.us> From: Research Administration Discussion Group <xxxxxx@health.state.ny.us> X-From: Bill Kirby <xxxxxx@NSF.GOV> Subject: Re: Hit Rate X-To: xxxxxx@albnydh2.health.state.ny.us To: Multiple recipients of list RESADM-L <xxxxxx@health.state.ny.us>