Call published on the PSP PoC website. 2 deadlines a year.
Detail provided on PSPPoC website to applicants:
- Information for Applicants
- Templates – Application Form and Host Institution support
- Frequently Asked Questions
Eligible candidates can submit only one application per year
Before sending applications to judges the, PSP Coordinator will consider all submitted proposals for completeness. A complete proposal must contain:
- Administrative data and Abstract– pages (not evaluated by judges)
- Full application on Form (max 2,500 words + budget form)
- Host Support Letter (not evaluated by judges)
- Additional information eg ethical statements if necessary
Technical eligibility will be checked by PSP staff. A proposal can be declared ineligible at any stage in the evaluation process and judges informed. The Project, the Principal Investigator and the Host Institution must all be eligible under the criteria provided to candidates.
- Proposals are allocated to judges by PSP Coordinator
- 3 judges will review each proposal
- There must be no discussions of proposals between judges.
- Judges should declare any Conflict of Interest (involvement in the project/engagement with the principal investigator etc)
- Judges should not evaluate the science of the idea; the PoC focus is on the quality of the plans both technical and commercial to achieve the stated outcome of achieving initial steps towards commercial application.
- Please use the evaluation criteria as described.
- Notify PSP Coordinator in case you cannot deliver the recommendations on time
Please remember
- Use dispassionate, analytical and unambiguous language.
- Use grammatically correct, complete, clear sentences with no jargon.
- Provide polite comments.
- Critical comments should be constructive and not offensive. EG NOT “the proposal does not have a plan for IPR protection” but instead “there is a significant lack of detail on how the proposer plans to protect the IPR”.
- Avoid self-declaration of insufficient personal expertise or
- non-confidence in the proposal theory or science – Just decline to evaluate.
- Avoid reference to the applicant’s age, nationality, gender, or personal matters.
- Avoid making reference to scores in the comments.
- Avoid any direct comparison with any other proposal you have seen or other work you are aware of BUT it is acceptable to comment on gaps in the proposal e.g. “The proposal lacks detail on the expected markets for the technology” is appropriate if the proposal has not identified any possible or convincing markets.
- Avoid comments that give a description or a summary of the proposal.
- Avoid dismissive statements about the Principal Investigator or the project but it is acceptable to comment on whether the resources are appropriate for the work proposed.
Proposals which fail a criterion will not be ranked.
If two judges fail one criterion the criterion will be failed and the proposal will not be considered by the Advisory Board for funding.
As illustration of this see this table:
Proposal XX | Criterion 1 | Criterion 2 | Criterion 3 | Result |
Judge 1 | Fail | Pass | Pass | Proposal fails |
Judge 2 | Fail | Pass | Pass | |
Judge 3 | Pass | Pass | Pass | |
Proposal YY | ||||
Judge 1 | Fail | Pass | Pass | Proposal passes |
Judge 2 | Pass | Pass | Pass | |
Judge 3 | Pass |
If there is not enough budget to fund all the proposals which pass all three evaluation criteria:
– those proposals which pass all three evaluation criteria will be sorted by:
– the number of pass marks awarded to criterion 1 (Excellence –
Innovation potential),
– then by the number of pass marks awarded to criterion 2 (Expected benefits to society),
– then by the number of pass marks awarded to criterion 3 (Qualitative features and assessment of the effectiveness of its implementation).
Proposals will be funded in order of the ranking resulting from this 3 – level sorting exercise and if necessary the comments of the judges will be considered in order to differentiate identically ranked proposals.