“Applicant fit: Is the person who submitted the proposal the right person to do this project?
How competent are they? Do I think they can execute this proposal well?
What do their references look like? How strongly do people they’ve worked with endorse them?”
I have few thoughts:
“Is the person who submitted the proposal the right person to do this project?”—I believe that it is difficult to say that, so if I was making grants, I would invest in many projects a small number of money (because of diminishing returns) rather than to invest a lot of money in someone who has good credentials. I think it’s a mistake to reject people who don’t have good credentials.
″ What do their references look like? How strongly do people they’ve worked with endorse them?”—I don’t think that references are reliable way to judge that. People don’t have almost any incentive to be honest when giving references, and people are self-interested. Additionally, often people who worked with them don’t have information how likely they would succeed at a project. For example, people who worked with a person as a software engineer don’t know if that person would do well as a founder.
″ Is the person who submitted the proposal the right person to do this project?”—it’s way more difficult to judge whether a person will do a good job than it is to tell if a person did a good work. That’s why people should switch to retroactive funding instead of normal funding.
“Applicant fit: Is the person who submitted the proposal the right person to do this project?
How competent are they? Do I think they can execute this proposal well? What do their references look like? How strongly do people they’ve worked with endorse them?”
I have few thoughts:
“Is the person who submitted the proposal the right person to do this project?”—I believe that it is difficult to say that, so if I was making grants, I would invest in many projects a small number of money (because of diminishing returns) rather than to invest a lot of money in someone who has good credentials. I think it’s a mistake to reject people who don’t have good credentials.
″ What do their references look like? How strongly do people they’ve worked with endorse them?”—I don’t think that references are reliable way to judge that. People don’t have almost any incentive to be honest when giving references, and people are self-interested. Additionally, often people who worked with them don’t have information how likely they would succeed at a project. For example, people who worked with a person as a software engineer don’t know if that person would do well as a founder.
″ Is the person who submitted the proposal the right person to do this project?”—it’s way more difficult to judge whether a person will do a good job than it is to tell if a person did a good work. That’s why people should switch to retroactive funding instead of normal funding.