CRIS Projects

(January 13, 2006 email from Dr. Mark R. McLellan, Dean and Director, IFAS-UF FAES)

Background
All faculty with a research appointment in the Florida Agricultural Experiment Station are expected to be documented under one or more CRIS projects at all times. A grace period of 3-4 months is typical for newly hired faculty before requiring a project be submitted for review.

If your appointment is 30% or more you are required to be senior PI on at least one project. These projects can be: STATE, HATCH, MCINTIRE-STENNIS, MULTISTATE and GRANT. If a unit has no Hatch projects, then no Hatch funding can be shared with the unit.

Proposals for projects must be submitted for review before being established in the CRIS database system. In recent years this review was done by a few faculty appointed by the Dean for Research. Starting January of 2006, we will be using a new process that brings the review process back to the unit leadership where the faculty member is physically housed (home unit).

New Process
All new project submissions will be handled according to the following process:

[1] Faculty will send a proposed project to their home unit leader.

[2] The unit leader will select at least three reviewers, only one of whom can be from home unit of the faculty member.

[3] The unit leader will send out the proposal for review requesting confidential reviews of the proposals.

[4] The unit leader will collect the written reviews and report back to the faculty member with suggested edits, changes or re-drafts that reflect the input of the reviewers including the unit leader’s comments. The unit leader must receive at least two of the three requested reviews before acting on the review.

[5] The Faculty member will edit and resubmit the project to the unit leader for approval.

[6] Upon approval the faculty member will input the CRIS 416, 417 and Assurance forms into the system. http://cwf.uvm.edu/cris/

[7] The unit leader, will email the CRIS Coordinator (Ms. Linda Lilley) and inform her of their approval.

[8] The CRIS coordinator with FAES authorization will assign a CRIS project number and formally release the project into the CRIS system.

[9] On a monthly basis the CRIS coordinator will provide the Research Dean’s office a summary of all projects reviewed and approved including the project abstract.

Expected Benefits
We expect this new process will bring the future development of new projects closer to the mission and focus of the unit responsible for the faculty member. With the closer involvement of the unit leader, we expect a greater connection to the project by unit administration. By pushing responsibility for the review and approval process for projects to the unit level, we expect to empower unit administrators to be more engaged in the quality, integration and maintenance of CRIS projects.

Questions regarding the details of the process should be directed to CRIS Coordinator, Ms. Linda Lilley (Email: lilleyl@ufl.edu Tel: (352) 392-3150).

Excerpt From “Instructions For The Preparation Of Project Statements”
UF/IFAS Internal Management Memorandum 6C1-6.120-3

The Project Statement should contain the following components:

1. Objectives: A clear, complete and logically arranged statement(s) of the specific objectives of the research to be conducted. The objective(s) should adequately cover all the work outlined in the procedures.

2. Justification: A short statement of the problem giving its importance in science, agriculture, environment, rural life and consumer concerns. The following questions should be addresses:

1. What is the importance of the problem to agriculture and natural resources and urban or rural life of the state or region? This should insofar as possible be answered in terms of acres, tons, people, cattle, plants, dollars, or other specific items. When possible, mention the dollar value of the industry. References in support of these items should be cited.

2. What are the benefits which may result from the proposed research? Express this is terms of new varieties, reduced labor costs, increased production, larger net returns, or other appropriate specific results.

3. What will be the dollar value of losses caused by the problem? Acres, tons, or other measures may be used if a dollar evaluation cannot be made. The above information is important whether the research in question is applied or basic in nature. The question may be more difficult to answer for basic research, but the importance of the problem and the reasons for undertaking the work should be clearly pointed out in either case.

3. Related Current and Previous Work

1. What has been done? (Literature Review) Should be a brief summary covering pertinent research on the problem. References should be included indicating what was found and its significance.

2. What needs to be done? (Hypothesis, rationale) Should be a summary statement placing emphasis on the research currently needed in this area of work. This paragraph should also contain an outlook statement, i.e., the PIs appraisal of what may be accomplished by this project.

4. Procedures: A statement of the essential working plans and methods to be used in attaining each of the stated objectives. There should be a numbered statement of procedures to correspond with each numbered objective and follow the same order. Whenever possible it should be presented in enough detail to serve as a guide for project PIs and to enable the reviewer and other readers to obtain a clear concept of the research to be done. For each objective, one or more experiments, or examples of the types of experiments) should be described that will seek to fulfill that objective.

5. Literature Cited: Literature references within the text should be given by author and year. Full citation of these references should be included in a “Literature Cited” section at the end of the Statement with the format: author(s), year, title, publication, volume, and pages.

Checklist of Materials to Accompany a FAES/CRIS Project

Essentials of a Project Proposal

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