Over the course of three and a half months this spring and summer, RCP assisted the University of North Carolina General Administration (UNC-GA) with peer review for two research programs – the UNC Research Opportunities Initiative (ROI), and the Inter-institutional Planning Grant (IPG).
The ROI is intended to support innovative and potentially game-changing research projects by investing in faculty, research, and scholarship in six priority areas: advanced manufacturing; data science; defense, military, and security; energy; marine and coastal science; and pharmacoengineering. The IPG is designed to promote collaboration among UNC institutions and across disciplinary boundaries to increase the system’s competitiveness in attracting external funds, and includes the same priority areas as the ROI, in addition to water and the environment, agriculture, and health sciences.
RCP facilitated the review of proposals at both the pre-proposal and full proposal stage. Following the RCP-led review of the scientific and technical merit of 68 total pre-proposals (including both ROI and IPG applicants), ratings and comments were provided to the UNC-GA, who used them to make an informed decision on which applications to solicit for full proposals. Following this process, the 14 full proposals were sent to RCP and reviewed. In addition to informing and advising funding decisions, the reviews also enabled applicants to receive feedback on their proposals.