Q & A

Will the peer reviewers have a background in the area of the proposal being evaluated?

There is a slight possibility that the peer reviewer would not be a specialist in the exact field of specialization, but that they definitely are in the general academic field of the research proposal. - The peer reviewer is allowed to return the proposal if he/she feels that the area is outside his/her competence to evaluate. UREP will then send the proposal to another peer reviewer immediately Modify date: 09/28/2011 14:14:29

Could you describe the peer review process?

Each proposal will be reviewed by three independent peer reviewers. - Each reviewer will score each of the four evaluation criteria. They will also be asked to write a comment or technical advice on the project.  The  median of the three peer reviewers, for each of the four evaluation criteria, the final grade, their comments and the result of the evaluation will be emailed to the faculty members and students of the proposal. - The peer reviewers are a mix of experts of the community in Doha but not working for any of the educational institutions participating in UREP, mostly Arab expatriate scientists and some international scholars. Modify date: 09/28/2011 14:13:37

Is there a minimum score to qualify for a grant?

For each cycle, the threshold grade for awarding the grants will be determined by QNRF to reflect the required quality of the submitted research proposals and is limited by the allocated budget. For example, this threshold score was set 83% for the past two cycles (7th and 8th), and 80% for the four cycles before that. Modify date: 09/28/2011 14:12:48

Will the peer reviewers have a background in the area of the proposal being evaluated?

Yes, they definitely are qualified in the general academic field of the research proposal. -Furthermore, the peer reviewer is required to return the proposal if he/she feels that the area of expertise is outside his/her competence to evaluate. UREP will then send the proposal to another suitable peer reviewer Modify date: 09/28/2011 14:11:37

How much time should the students spend on the project? What is a significant amount of work?

Flexibility is left to the faculty member(s) in determining the work schedule and the timely execution of the project. -However, it is expected that at least several number of hours per week is assigned for each undergraduate student to spend on the project and a few hours per week are also allotted for the mentoring of the student's work by the faculty member. These hours should be clearly stated in section G. Timeline/Milestones in the proposal as the peer reviewers will give a score for this criterion Modify date: 09/28/2011 14:10:50

How will the 25 points for the participation of the student be assessed? Is there a certain number of hours to be mentioned in the proposal

The following are the guidelines for the peer reviewers in evaluating this criterion: - Overall time schedule to complete the research work - Estimated time duration of each of the anticipated tasks or each student and the student's role in the project - The estimated time for submitting the final research product - Mentoring and Evaluation plan or each student or team of students - A short description of the final outcome of the research product - Once the faculty member outlines the tasks and the number of hours per week that the student is expected to work on the research proposal and the faculty member's number of hours for mentoring, then it is left for the peer reviewers to decide upon the details provided by the faculty member in the research proposal. - We didn't want to give a set format or rules to follow as different projects may have different requirements according to their fields of specialization Modify date: 09/28/2011 14:07:21