NRAO Proposal Policies

Plan of Dissertations

NRAO implemented a new policy as part of the support for PhD dissertations using NRAO facilities beginning with the (07C) proposal deadline on June 1, 2007.

The policy states:

"Students planning to use an NRAO telescope for their PhD dissertation (particularly if more than one proposal will be required) should submit a "Plan of Dissertation Research" of no more than 1000 words with their first proposal. This plan can be referred to in later proposals. At a minimum it should contain a thesis time line and an estimate of the level of NRAO telescope resources needed. The plan provides some assurance against a dissertation being impaired by adverse referee comments on one proposal, when the referees do not see the full scope of the project. This requirement applies to all three of the NRAO major instruments: VLA, VLBA and GBT. The Plan of Dissertation must be submitted using the NRAO Proposal Submission Tool. The student must be registered in the tool and the plan may be uploaded either while preparaing a proposal or within the student profile."