What are the criteria for winning a grant?
The first is “intellectual merit.” Basically, what’s the new science here? What new knowledge will this research develop? The second criteria is “the broader impact [of this research] beyond answering what [the researcher] is very interested in: How will it affect the rest of the world?” How are the studies used? Awardees produce annual and final reports. Also, they publish results of their research projects in academic and research journals, which are available to the broader community. Equally important, says Deshmukh, “most of these projects involve undergraduate and graduate students. The knowledge that is developed gets disseminated through these students and into the industries and organizations they work for or later join. What if a proposal doesn’t win funding? Whenever a proposal is reviewed, funded or not, the panelists’ reviews are sent to the researcher(s) submitting the proposal. If the proposal is rejected and depending on the feedback from the manufacturing community, ma
