Letter dated 27 October 2009
from the Secretary, Research Grants Council
to Heads of UGC-funded Institutions
Public Policy Research Funding Scheme 2010/11 (8th Round)

I am writing to invite applications for the Public Policy Research (PPR) Funding Scheme 2010/11 and to provide details of the procedures to be followed.

Definition of Public Policy Research

A broad definition of "public policy research" is adopted to cover academic research that will have explicit policy implications on public policy development in Hong Kong. To provide information for the evaluation of the proposals on their policy implications, applicants are required to state clearly in the application forms the explicit policy relevance of the proposals on public policy development in Hong Kong.

Commencement and Completion of Research Projects

Duration of the research projects should normally range from six months to a maximum of three years.

As timeliness is important for public policy issues, the Principal Investigators (PIs) of the approved PPR projects must commence work within three months of announcement of funding results in June 2010. Completion reports should be submitted within three months of project completion. It is expected that, in general, some results of the research should be available for public access as possible input to policy formulation before the submission of completion reports. PIs of projects longer than one year should plan for early release of some results for public access midway in the projects.

Electronic Submission

The PPR Electronic System (PPRES) is now available for submission of PPR applications and all applications must be submitted through the electronic system. Applicants may use the electronic system to prepare and submit their applications starting from today.

Deadline for Submissions

Applications should reach the UGC Secretariat through the electronic system by 8 January 2010.

Research Areas

The research areas as indicated by the Central Policy Unit (CPU) in this round are at Enclosure I. Applicants are allowed to submit proposals on research areas not on the list. The same assessment criteria shall be applied to the applications in the research areas indicated by the CPU and bottom-up proposals from applicants. Academic quality and the relevance of the proposal to the needs of Hong Kong are the primary considerations in evaluating research proposals.

Support of Staff Time

In view of the general expectation that public policy research projects should be completed as quickly as possible, funding may be provided to support staff time (on the basis of teaching replacement), if the cases so warrant, so as to allow the PIs to concentrate on their research. In this connection, Section 3 of Part II in the Explanatory Notes PPR2 and the Supplementary Notes for Applicants for Public Policy Research Funding Scheme for Individual Research at Enclosure II should apply.

Access to Government Data & Records

To help investigators in conducting the research, the CPU will perform a liaison role between the Government and PIs. For example, CPU will help PIs gain access to Government data and records and arrange meetings with Government officials. Please contact Miss Patricia W S WOO of the CPU (Tel.: 2810 2378) if such assistance is required.

If access to Government or official data and records is critical to the proposed project, the applicant concerned should provide evidence in the application that the government department(s) or official agency(ies) has/have been approached for approval of access to the related data/records and subsequently provide confirmation of such approval on or before 30 April 2010.

Intellectual property right

The Government and the Research Grants Council (RGC) does not claim copyright or other intellectual property right of the output produced. However, to ensure timely dissemination of the research results for the reference of the Government, PIs are encouraged to pass to the CPU a copy of any disseminable output (for example, working paper, report, journal paper, conference paper, books etc.) through the UGC Secretariat (Attn.: Mrs Alice Sham) as soon as it is available. The CPU may circulate these outputs to relevant Bureaux/Departments/statutory bodies of the Government for reference. It may also consult PIs concerned on other matters relating to the study, for instance, if it wishes to release such outputs in the public domain.

Funding Threshold for Applications

The threshold limit for applications is $150,000. There is no upper limit, but the applicants/institutions would appreciate that given the considerable competition for the limited funds available, justifications for projects costing over $1 million will need to be particularly well argued and supported.

Quotas

The RGC does not impose any institutional quota on applications. It is however important that institutions should satisfy themselves that the applications are of sufficient quality before they are submitted to the RGC for consideration.

Nevertheless, under the prevailing policy of the RGC, no applicant should submit more than one application as the Principal Investigator (PI) in any one round of PPR exercise. Institutions should also check and confirm that the PIs meet the eligibility requirements.

Update of Proposals

Applicants are requested to provide a brief update setting out any essential changes to the applications, including the eligibility of the PIs, declaration of relationship with nominated reviewers, any significant change of scope, content, personnel, budget etc. through the electronic system by 30 April 2010. Hard copies of the updates should be attached to respective proposals and delivered to the Secretariat on or before 7 May 2010 so that these changes can be brought to the attention of panel members or be followed up in good time prior to the Public Policy Research Sub-Panel meeting to be held in mid June 2010. Such updates should be confined to the essential parts of the original proposals, and applicants should not use the opportunity to hand in a substantially changed proposal.

Hard copies

In parallel, a limited number of hard copies will also need to be made available for contingency purposes. The Secretariat will provide each institution with a CD containing the electronic copies of all the submitted proposals for the purpose of printing of the hard copies. The hard copies should reach the Secretariat by 7 May 2010 (the Secretariat will confirm the exact number of copies required for the second batch in March 2010).

To help reduce the cost of processing and save paper, applicants are requested to keep the length of proposals and attachments to the minimum and institutions should use double-sided printing/photocopying when reproducing the form.

Explanatory Notes

Applicants must read the Explanatory Notes (PPR2) carefully before completing the application form. A full set of the Explanatory Notes will be mounted on the RGC Homepage (URL: http://www.ugc.edu.hk/rgc).

I would like to draw the particular attention of the applicants and the Research Offices to the following issues:

(a) Both the applicants and the institutions are required to indicate on the application forms that appropriate approvals have been or are being obtained for projects involving experiments on human or animal subjects or requiring ethics or health and safety clearance. RGC has the final say on whether a research proposal requires ethics approval. If the institution/PI declared that no ethics approval was required but the RGC or its Panel has turned out to think otherwise, the related application runs the risk of being disqualified.

(b) The RGC encourages grant applicants to nominate external reviewers in their proposals for consideration by the subject panels. In nominating reviewers, PIs and all Co-Investigators (Co-Is) are required to declare their full relationships with the nominated reviewers. Failure of PI and/or Co-Is to disclose fully or accurately the relationship will result in disqualification of the application, which will also be taken into account by the RGC as part of the track record of the concerned PI and Co-Is when assessing future applications from the same PI/Co-I in the capacity of PI. The RGC reserves the ultimate right to reject or disqualify future applications in serious cases.

(c) The Research Offices of the institutions should take a more active role in ensuring that the applications conform with the requirements as set out in the Explanatory Notes, especially those on budget and allowable items.

(d) Applicants should comply with the page limits and word limits specified in various sections of the application form. Supporting documents are allowed in Section 14 of the application form to cater for the needs of documents such as letters of collaboration or research ethics/safety approval. Supplementary materials such as research papers, manuscripts, publications or detailed research work should not be submitted. Applications will be disqualified if the proposals are found to have exceeded the allowable page and/ or word limits in various sections or have abused the purpose of the "Supporting Documents" in Section 14 of Part II of the application form.

Enquiries

If your staff have any enquiries about the application procedures or other aspects of this circular, please call Mrs Alice Sham, Assistant Secretary-General (Research) 1 (Tel.: 2844 9996 or email: asham@ugc.edu.hk) or Mr Brian Lip, Senior Research Administrator 2 (Tel.: 2844 9959 or email: blip@ugc.edu.hk).