RFC: Limiting grant duration
I am thinking about adding this to the grants operation rules:
If the grant does not finish within three times of the proposed duration or within two years, the grant will be considered a failure.
First of all, it should be noted that it won't affect most grants (see the reason 2).
Reason 1: Budget structure & allocation to new grants
TPF does not allow over-allocation of the budget. If we have 3 x $3,000 grants running and our budget is $9,000, no more grants can be funded.
If a grant worth $3,000 is running for five years, this $3,000 is stuck in the TPF safe. Even if we get good proposal, we cannot fund it using this money.
The aim is to increase liquidity of the fund.
Reason 2: If a grant runs more than a year, chance of failure increases
During 2009-2013, we managed 17 grants. Here is the breakdown:
Grant | Result | Proposed | Actual |
---|---|---|---|
A | Success | 4 | 4 |
B | Success | 6 | 7 |
C | Success | 4 | 12 |
D | Success | 3 | 5 |
E | Success | 6 | 9 |
F | Success | 2 | 5 |
G | Success | 3 | 3 |
H | Success | 4 | 2 |
I | Success | 1 | 11 |
J | Success | 3 | 8 |
K | Success | 2 | 5 |
L | Success | 4 | 9 |
M | Failure | 3 | 12 |
N | Failure | - | 13 |
O | Failure | 7 | 41 |
P | Failure | 3 | 26 |
Q | Failure | 3 | 32 |
(Proposed/Actual: Duration in months. The grant N did not estimate duration)
Statistically, all the grant failed if they ran for more than a year. And except for the grants C and I, all of them failed after running more than 2.5 times of the proposed duration.
Would like to have your feedback.