Hi Kavita,
At the Doris Duke Foundation, we have used scores more as a guide than to identify a hard cutoff for funding decisions. Similar to what Vanessa described, there is often a natural cutoff above which there is across the board agreement about the quality/excellence of the proposal. Then there is a next cutoff which creates a “bubble” of proposals. For this bubble, the lower score reflects disagreement for one or another reason rather than true concerns about quality. Similar to AASM, we consider additional in making recommendation decisions about proposals in the bubble. A factor considered, for example, is whether the concerns constitute fatal flaws. Unlike AASM, we resolve those outstanding questions as part of the pre-award process. The number of awards made in a given cycle has been determined in different ways. One is based on available funding (e.g. available budget allocation). Another is based on opportunity (e.g. how many meritorious proposals we assess there are in the pool). Using the latter method can result in greater or lower number of awards than originally projected.
Sindy
Sindy Escobar Alvarez, PhD (she/her)
Program Director for Medical Research
Doris Duke Foundation
444 Madison Ave., Fl. 10
New York, NY 10022