date: Thu, 24 Jan 2002 13:43:07 -0000 from: "Steve Juggins" subject: MUPPETS to: "Steve Juggins" , "Gerard Aalbersberg" , "Keith Alverson" , "Rick Battarbee" , "Jacques-Louis de Beaulieu" , "John Birks" , "Keith Briffa" , "Dan Charman" , "Basil Davis" , "Michael Diepenbroek" , "C. Mark Eakin" , "Sandy Harrison" , "Michel Hoepffner" , "Karin Holmgren" , "John Keltner" , "Atte Korhola" , "Stein-Erik Lauritzen" , "Andre Lotter" , "Simon Patrick" , "Jef Vandenberghe" Hi Everyone Apologies for keeping you waiting for news on the oputcome of our MUPPETS proposal. Unfortunately the news is bad. The project failed at Stage 1 and didn't make it to the shortlist for consideration for funding. I attach the Consensus report. To summarise: 1. The project passed Step 1 (Block 1) - Scientific evaulation - scoring 3 out of 5, but only just passed as 3 is the minimum score required to proceed to the next step. Basically they liked the idea of the project, and the innovative ideas of common data formats, software and numerical method development, but they were not convinced of the following: i. Data owners would submit data. ii. There we not enough management resources for the project. iii. That we could ensure data quality. iv. That we could not develop a common data format that would encompass all data types. The project was evaulated by an Infrastructure panel, not EESD, so maybe the reviewers were not so aware of the developments that have already taken place in DB development and data sharing across Europe. Anyway, although we did list key datasets that we were assured of getting I obviously did not make point (i) explicit enough. It is difficult to see what level of assurance would satisify the reviewers. I don't know why they include point (ii) in the science review. Point (iii) was addressed in the proposal but again did not satisfy the reviewers. Point (iv) shows the reviewers ignorance of the work already done by the PANGAEA group in harmonising disparate data types in their database. 2. The project fell over at Step 2 - resources, partnership and management, scoring only 2.5 out of 5 which was not enough to proceed to step 3. Criticisms here are: i. Not enough resources for the coordinator. I have to accept responsibility for this, but I think we had enough! ii. They did not think we would get the necessary data submitted, despite us stating that we had obtained assurances from owners of the major datasets that these would be available. iii. They thought that one lab for each proxy was not enough to collate data. This shows the reviewers ignorance of the work already done by EPD, GLSDB, MPDB etc. iv. Workpackage leaders are incorrectly specified and contradictory information given in Parts B & C. I have carefully checked the proposal and the only mistake I fould was that I put the wrong partner number for the the leader of WP6 in the workpackage table. A small mistake given the complexity and volume of the forms - I would have hoped the reviewers would have made allowances for such trivial typos. I did omit WP10 from the WP diagram - my mistake. v. They were not convinced of the sustainability of the DB, despite a clear statement that PANGAEA is a WDC and has separate institutional core funding to ensure longevity. vi. We didn't include a satifactory demonstration / consultation mechanism with users. This was covered by linking MUPPETS to HOLIVAR witht he later providing interaction with users - and especially the modelling community. I probably did not make the explicit enough. I suppose we can argue with many of these criticisms but even if we had got through the "management" evaulation we had probably not scored highly enough to secure funding. Finally, thanks again to everyone for you help in producing what I thought was a reasonably strong MUPPETS proposal. The only encouraging sign is that the project is seen as desirable and we are encouraged to try again (maybe they say that to all failed projects?). I know little of opportunities in the 6th Framework but will start to look. Best wishes, Steve Attachment Converted: "c:\eudora\attach\MUPPET_Consensus_Report.pdf"