The proposal should accomplish several goals:
Identify an unresolved scientific
The proposal should accomplish several goals:
Identify an unresolved scientific question, relevant to global environmental change science and to policy.
Describe the scientific background in sufficient detail (a justification section) to motivate the proposed research question, and show command of the subject and methods, and familiarity with recent relevant research.
Propose in detail a strategy to address this question via a methods section: What type of experiment, observation, modeling, etc. will you use to ‘answer’ your research question.
Discuss the broader implications of the proposed research with respect to environmental policy. How will your answers be used? A conclusion or ‘discussion’ section
The proposal should contain the following sections:
1. A stand-alone Project Summary (1 paragraph…MAX). The summary should be readable in isolation from the rest of the proposal, and should give a concise statement of the research question, the methods you will use to address it, and its significance; (in National Science Foundation grants, the project summary is made publicly available)
2. Main Text (5-6 pages MAX not including figures), with the following sections:
Introduction & Justification that gives sufficient background to place the research in scientific and societal context (1-2 pages, double-spaced);
Project Description/Methodology of the proposed work (how you will address the problem–methods, 1-3 pages, double-spaced), (be sure to mention deliverables) and
Conclusion that describes the significance of proposed research and expected outcomes (including how your work will affect policy or societal issues, 1/2 page).
3. Budget. (2-3 sentences on how much you believe it would cost to carry out the study).
4. References section. (no page limit, also not included in the page count). Your proposal should draw on original scientific publications and not just websites, although high-quality websites can be cited. The paper should be fully referenced in scientific format — that is, not with footnotes but by the author’s name and year of the publication. Example: (Schlesinger, 1999) or Schlesinger (1999) depending on whether the author’s name is used explicitly in the sentence. You can include 2-3 relevant figures that illustrate key points and ideas (also IN ADDITION to the page text length). These should be specific to your proposed work – not general global change figures, but data that support your ideas or maps with relevant information. Note that the project summary is 1 paragraph single-spaced; the remaining lengths are based on double spacing.