Proposal Submission and Review - A Digest

Daniel R. Altschuler

I reprint here some relevant sections of the proposal submission guidelines. The full document can be found in our home page.

Use of the Arecibo Observatory (AO) is available on an equal, competitive basis to all scientists from throughout the world to pursue research in radio astronomy, radar astronomy and atmospheric sciences. Observing time is granted on the basis of the most promising research.

DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSION

The normal deadlines for submission are February 1, June 1, and October 1, although proposals may be submitted at any time. Submission for a given deadline implies that the observations are requested to be scheduled during the four month period which starts four months after that deadline. Proposals have a validity of two 4-month cycles. If a proposal has not been scheduled after this second period, the proposer will be notified and the proposal will not be considered further unless it is re-submitted and receives a favorable review. Proposals involving multi-site experiments, extensive preparations or which for other reasons require a commitment of observing time with a longer lead time than eight months will be accepted in advance at the discretion of the Observatory Director. Clearly, abuse of this option cannot be tolerated and the proposer is advised to provide strong justification.

PROPOSAL SUBMISSION

A proposal is composed of a cover sheet, a summary and a scientific and technical justification. We encourage all potential telescope users to submit proposals electronically. These should be sent to "proposal@NAIC.EDU". A proposal cover sheet may be obtained via return e-mail by sending an empty e-mail message to: "cover@NAIC.EDU". The scientific and technical justification should be e-mailed as a PostScript file attached to the cover sheet e-mail.

TREATMENT OF PROPOSALS

Following the submission of a proposal, the Observatory Administration will notify the proposers of the receipt of the proposal and specify an identification number. If there are no obvious technical problems, the proposal will be sent on to three or more anonymous referees (not NAIC staff) in the field of the proposed research. The referees' recommendations serve to guide the Arecibo Time Allocation Committee (ATAC) in the time allocation and relative ranking of all proposals. This is used as input for the scheduling process. The ATAC will meet as soon as possible after the corresponding deadlines. Subsequently, the corresponding four-month period will be scheduled as far as possible and proposers will be notified of the outcome. Referee comments will be made available to proposers at this time. A proposal which was not rejected by the referees, but does not get scheduled in this four-month period because of lack of available telescope time, will remain in the active-proposal category for the next period (unless the proposer withdraws the proposal). It will compete with all new proposals received by the next deadline. It should be emphasized that because of the special requirements of the different research areas which use our telescope, and the semi-transit nature of the instrument, scheduling is a difficult task which requires interaction with proposers and the flexibility to accommodate what are often conflicting demands. Therefore, it is not always possible to schedule in a "linear" fashion strictly following priorities, nor is it possible to schedule everything four months in advance. Depending on circumstances, some proposals will take longer to be placed on the schedule. As in the past, the Observatory will try to accommodate the requests and needs of its users, taking into account such factors as the need to coordinate projects with other experiments at other institutions, and the relation of a project to a student's career planning. If a proposal fails to be scheduled after the second try, it will not be considered further. Proposers might then wish to submit a revised version for a new deadline.

PROPOSAL APPROVAL

As soon as possible after a deadline, the proposers are informed of the following:

� The referee ratings and comments

Unless the proposal was rejected, time allocated, were the proposal to be scheduled.

The name of the NAIC staff scientist who will act as Liaison Scientist to the project. The visiting scientist is encouraged to contact this person well before arriving at Arecibo to discuss observing details.

Detailed scheduling dates and times are normally arranged later by telephone or electronic mail.

Daniel R. Altschuler
DEADLINES FOR SUBMISSION
PROPOSAL SUBMISSION
TREATMENT OF PROPOSALS
PROPOSAL APPROVAL

NAIC/AO Newsletter, November 1997

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