Letter dated 3 November 2011
from the Secretary, Research Grants Council
to Heads of UGC-funded Institutions
Public Policy Research Funding Scheme 2012/13

I am writing to invite applications for the Public Policy Research (PPR) Funding Scheme 2012/2013 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.

Quotas of Applications

The Research Grants Council (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 in any one round of PPR exercise. Institutions should also check and confirm that the Principal Investigators meet the eligibility requirements.

Deadline for Submissions

All applications must be submitted through the PPR Electronic System (PPRES) to the UGC Secretariat by 13 January 2012. The funding decision will be announced by end June 2012. The UGC Secretariat will liaise with the Research Office for the number of hard copies required.

Application Procedures

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.

Update of Proposals

Applicants are requested to provide a brief update setting out any essential changes to the applications, including the eligibility of the Principal Investigators, declaration of similar / related research work on which working papers, conference papers and journal papers etc. have recently been published, declaration of relationship with nominated reviewers, any significant change of scope, content, personnel, budget etc. through the electronic system by 30 April 2012. Hard copies of the updates should be attached to respective proposals and delivered to the Secretariat on or before 4 May 2012 so that these changes can be brought to the attention of panel members or be followed up in good time prior to the PPR Sub-Panel meeting to be held in mid June 2012. 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.

Access to Government Data and Records

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 2012.

To help investigators in conducting the research, the CPU will perform a liaison role between the Government and Principal Investigators. Please contact Mr Desmond S L CHENG of the CPU (Tel.: 2810 2378) if such assistance is required in the course of conducting the research.

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 Principal Investigators 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.

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/eng/rgc/form/form.htm).

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

(a) The RGC encourages applicants to nominate external reviewers in their proposals for consideration by the PPR Sub-Panel, especially for very specialized disciplines. In nominating reviewers, Principal Investigators and all Co-Investigators are required to declare their full relationships with the nominated reviewers. Failure of Principal Investigators and / or Co-Investigators to disclose fully or accurately the relationship will result in disqualification of the application and debarring from applying for future UGC / RGC grants up to two years.

(b) Applicants should provide detailed and sound justification for the items requested. Failure to provide justification will result in the budget items not being considered. For purchase of services / equipment costing over HK$200,000, the Principal Investigators should provide quotations to support the estimates. The Research Offices of the institutions should take an 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.

Commencement and Completion of Research Projects

Duration of the research projects should normally range from six months to a maximum of three years. 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, justification for projects costing over $1 million will need to be particularly well argued and supported.

As timeliness is important for public policy issues, the Principal Investigators of the approved PPR projects must commence work within three months of announcement of funding results in June 2012. 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. Principal Investigators of projects longer than one year should plan for early release of some results for public access midway in the projects.

Intellectual Property Right

The Government and the RGC do 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, Principal Investigators are encouraged to pass to the CPU a copy of any disseminable output, for instances, working paper, report, journal paper, conference paper, books etc. through the UGC Secretariat 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 the Principal Investigators concerned on other matters relating to the study, for instance, if it wishes to release such outputs in the public domain.

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).