I've had a great deal of experience with reviewing EPA STAR (Science to Achieve Results) Grant and SBIR proposals, so I offer here my explanation for the 98% reject rate. The funding rate for these is usually about 15%, but within individual categories that means that of 8 proposals submitted, only 1 will be funded in that category, similar to those for university research grants. So the competition is usually category specific.
The tendency for both DOE and EPA is to fund proposals that appear to have commercial viability. This pretty much limits the landscape to existing companies that have a proven track record for success in either producing commercially viable products or processes or in winning funding. Both are usually considered by the "400" as they are part of the evaluation criteria and especially by the government, which makes the final decisions on awards. Thus, high risk ideas are often sent hurtling down the reject chute. In this particular procurement, "awards of $500,000 to $10 million" are to be made. "The ARPA-E awards are specifically targeted at development-stage companies, and are intended to help these companies cross the proverbial "valley of death" between identifying a promising technology and developing it to the point where key risks are abated and commercial adoption is possible." The quoted text is from one of your links. I haven't read the procurement details, but the language certainly sounds like the intent was to fund existing work and not startups or concept companies of which there is never any shortage. I would also bet that of the 3500 proposals, less than a third made any sense whatsoever. Thus, the reject letter was probably more kind than accurate. Many proposals fall into several readily identifiable categories. The non responsive proposal. The idea that has no chance proposal, e.g. cold fusion. The started off OK, but couldn't explain how they would actually do it proposal. The we have already exhausted all of the funding from other government agencies and will now try to extract some from this one proposal (a very common approach). The one man company with no resources except a checking account proposal. Once these are disposed of, it does get a little tricky in trying to pick winners and I have some sympathy for all parties involved. I would note in regard to the recommendation to apply for SBIR grants that the SBIR program has similar criteria with a phased tier of funding, so some of the proposals that failed to win the ARPA "powerball" might make it with the SBIR "scratch off" lottery. But I wouldn't bet on it. ----- Original Message ----- From: "Andrew Revkin" <[email protected]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, August 03, 2009 8:47 AM Subject: [geo] Is this what an energy revolution looks like? > > Here's an ARPA-E rejection letter. 98% of those pursuing energy > breakthroughs rejected by DOE: http://bit.ly/EnergyRejection in first > round... > -- > Andrew C. Revkin > The New York Times / Environment > 620 Eighth Ave., NY, NY 10018 > Tel: 212-556-7326 Mob: 914-441-5556 > Fax: 509-357-0965 > http://www.nytimes.com/revkin > > > --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "geoengineering" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/geoengineering?hl=en -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
