Review Process

Proposals received by the Chevron Student Initiative Fund will be reviewed by a diverse panel consisting of committee members from many different divisions of the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences. Committee members will be appointed on a volunteer basis, with additional members being requested to fill any existing gaps in an effort to encourage balance and fairness in the review process.

The review process will take place in two stages. First, committee members will receive copies of the proposals. Each proposal will be thoroughly reviewed and assigned a numerical score based on the Review Criteria (see Proposal Guidelines). Scores and comments from each committee member will be emailed to the Chair, who will compile the comments and tabulate the rankings for each proposal.

When all members have submitted their rankings and comments, the Chair will convene a meeting to review the proposals. In principle, the number of proposals funded will be the sum of the budgets of the top ranked proposals that fit within the maximum amount available during the proposal period ($5000 at time of writing). However, the final decision is left to the committee to discuss and agree upon. The committee may elect to partially fund proposals although the preference is to fully fund the proposals with the highest rankings.

In the event of a tie-breaker, or when two proposals have very similar merit and the budget can not accommodate both, the committee may prefer to fund a new applicant over one that has been previously funded, and travel for science/research/field work over travel for conferences or workshops, etc.

Committee members are eligible to apply in the same period as their service. In this case, the applicant will not participate in quantitative rating. If their proposal is among the top-ranked, they will recuse themselves and the remaining members will affirm or alter the quantitative rating.

The Committee will unanimously confirm the quantitative rankings and determine the number of funded proposals considering the overall budget. If there are disagreements with the outcome, discussion will be arbitrated by the Chair. An effort should be made to reach a consensus. However, if a unanimous decision cannot be reached, the committee members will vote on the contested proposals. The outcome and the details of the decision process will be strictly confidential