General Comments

• Some proposals are premature and not well prepared. In particular, proposals of experimental research are having issues of acceptability, feasibility and poorly prepared methodology.
• The overall quality of the Early Career Scheme proposals under Humanities & Social Sciences Panel has declined this year. Principal Investigators (PIs) are encouraged to better prepare their proposals before submission.

Application Stage

• PIs should illustrate in the “Pathway to Impact Statement” the process for achieving the research impact as claimed in the research proposal.
• The abstracts of some proposals are full of jargon and very opaque. PIs are reminded that abstracts are meant to be written for non-experts.
• PIs should observe the requirements of declaration of related / unrelated projects and be reminded of the consequences of not complying with such requirements. PIs should also provide an update on the related research work in April of the following year. Only with such related requirements fulfilled, PIs may commence their projects before RGC’s approval is granted.
• PIs should ensure that their literature review as a proposed activity in the proposal is specific, deliberate, and focusing on updating and literature mapping, rather than a review of a general or routine nature.
• PIs should explain clearly how they would be able to take up the proposals if funded while maintaining the research quality, if the number of ongoing projects held by them exceeded the thresholds stated in the application form.

Project Management Stage

• It is observed that some PIs have changed the objectives of the approved projects without seeking approval from RGC. PIs are reminded to submit project change requests to RGC if they wish to revise the project objectives.
• PIs are reminded that virement between approved budget items under one-line vote within the same project does not require RGC’s approval according to the “Disbursement, Accounting and Monitoring Arrangements for Funding Schemes Administered by RGC”.

Project Completion Stage

• PIs are reminded to include only the information related to the project in the completion report. For example, the students trained in some of the projects are not related to the funded projects.
• PIs are encouraged to submit papers to reputable journal in the respective research fields and to avoid low-quality outlets and predatory journals.
• PIs are encouraged to summarise their projects’ short-term impact when submitting the completion report.