Request for Proposals
Although proposals to the Climate Center can be submitted at any time during the year*, the official Requests for Proposals are announced twice a year: April and October. The change to April/October from January/June was made in order to accommodate the winter and summer field seasons.
The RFP announcement is generally made during the last week of preceding month (i.e., end of March for the April RFP and end of September for the October one) and proposals are due during the last business day of the RFP month (~ April 30 and ~ October 31). The deadline for receipt of proposals is a FIRM DEADLINE and must be received by Moanna St. Clair via email or in hand (Room 405/The Gary C. Comer Geochemistry Building) by 5 pm of the due date.
The Climate Center Committee usually renders its decision within two to four weeks after the deadline.
The deadline for the October 2008 RFP
is Friday, 31 October.
A copy of the official RFP is attached below. Please note that the budget limit per request has increased from $6000 to $8000.
*Only proposals where time is of an essence (i.e., you must receive a response prior to either the April or October RFPs) will be considered.
To: LDEO and GISS Scientific Research Communities
From: Ed Cook, chairperson of the Climate Center Committee
Date: October 1, 2008
Subj: Requests for Proposals
The Climate Center Committee is once again requesting proposal submissions. As you may know, the Committee has decided to move the biannual Requests for Proposals from January/June to October/April in order to accommodate the winter and summer field seasons. The deadline for the 2008 October RFP is Friday, October 31.
In general, the money is used for four major purposes:
1. To fund each semester a visit by a prominent scientist (the Climate Center Lecturer).
You may submit nominations to Ed Cook (chair) via Moanna St. Clair.
Larry Edwards (University of Minnesota) was the Fall 2007 Climate Center Lecturer and Thure Cerling (University of Utah) was the Spring 2008 Climate Lecturer.
The following persons are currently under considerations for the upcoming semesters:
- Trenberth, Kevin E. (National Center for Atmospheric Research) - 17 to 20 November 2008
- Van Loon, Harry (National Center for Atmospheric Research) - Spring/Fall 2009 (dates have not been set yet)
2. To fund one or two miniconferences each year.
3. To fund undergraduate research projects in a Climate-related field.
4. To fund start-up research projects aimed at leveraging government sponsored research grants.
List of Past Awards is under FUNDED PROJECTS section of the Climate Center web site.
The majority of our moneys go into the latter of these four initiatives.
The rules are simple. In order to fulfill the wishes of our benefactors, the projects MUST BE CLIMATE RELATED. Normally, we provide no more than $8,000 for any single project. We have a policy not to provide money for salaries or travel for off site conferences. The money granted is placed in the proposer's account with the proviso that we will not take responsibility for any cost overruns. Proposals can be made by anyone on the scientific staffs (i.e., graduate students, or post docs or staff scientists, etc.) at LDEO and GISS. The proposal letters are to be addressed to Ed Cook and the Climate Center Committee, but submitted to Moanna St. Clair (15 Geochemistry/LDEO) who will immediately send copies to the members of the committee for review. Please note that we prefer to receive submissions via email , but will accept paper copies.
Once again, please note that the deadline for the October 2008 RFP is Friday, October 31 and must be in Moanna's possession by that date. Electronic submission of proposals are prefered (in either Adobe PDF and/or Microsoft Word formats). The committee will adhere strictly to the two-to-three page limit for the proposal; this includes text, budget, figures, tables, etc. The font size should be no smaller than 10-point. Finally, the budget must be itemized or we will be unable to consider your request; the $8K limit does not include the overhead charges (i.e., administrative fees), which we will add on to the request.
If you need further assistance or have additional questions, please contact Moanna St. Clair directly (845-365-8300).
Thank you, Ed Cook on behalf of the Climate Center Committee