The Office of Research and Engagement (ORE) plans to adapt the limited submissions process for specific recurring funding opportunities in order to improve outcomes for proposal submissions. The selected opportunities are considered to have strategic significance to the institution in the execution of its research, teaching, and outreach mission, thus requiring their prioritization. These changes will result in earlier identification of potential University of Tennessee, Knoxville differentiators to maximize the proposal development timeline and will generate stronger proposals with improved chances of success. ORE hopes to provide these priority opportunities with up to a full year of proposal development support.
For priority opportunities, limited submission changes will include:
- Earlier call for proposals and internal competitions, resulting in earlier identification of cleared applicants.
- Revised reviewer guidance that shifts the internal competition away from identifying the best pre-proposals and toward identifying the best ideas with the most potential to become UT differentiators.
- More time and more support to develop stronger proposals. Cleared applicants who commit to begin working with Research Development proposal managers immediately after the limited submission competition will be approved to submit to the next two proposal deadlines, for a total of two cleared submissions.
This shift will begin with the next NSF Major Research Instrumentation competition. The call for notifications of interest for that opportunity will be sent out Monday, June 7th. ORE will keep an updated list of the priority opportunities here to ensure our limited submissions process remains transparent.
Please note that these changes will only affect these specific priority opportunities. Other limited submission opportunities will go through the usual process.
Please send questions, comments, or concerns to limitsub@utk.edu.