Executive Committee Meeting - Cycle 1
Dated material
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The Executive Committee comprises the panel chairs and at-large TAC members, chaired by the TAC Chair†. They review the larger-scale proposals (Large, Treasury, AR Legacy) following the same processes used by the panels. Merging TAC members submit preliminary grades that are used to provide an initial ranking of the proposals, with the higher ranked proposals marked for in-person discussion. The triage list will be made available to the panel members prior to the meeting. A limited number of triaged proposals may be raised for discussion during the meeting by unconflicted reviewers.
Each proposal is assigned a Primary and Secondary reviewer who are responsible for leading the discussion of the proposal in the review meeting. In addition, proposals receive external reviews from community members, providing expert advice to non-specialists on the Executive Committee. All panel members should ensure that they have read all proposals flagged for discussion ahead of the meeting, including those they did not read for preliminary grading. Each proposal will be discussed following the same procedures used by the panels. After the discussion, each proposal will be graded, with every unconflicted panel member voting on each proposal. Further guidance for grading proposals is given here.
Once all proposals have been re-graded, the ranked list will be compiled by the Panel Support Scientist (PSS) for review. The cutoff will be set by the time allocated to the Merging TAC; archival proposals generally need to lie above that cutoff to be considered for for acceptance. The Executive Committee can re-rank proposals to take account of factors such as programmatic balance; they may also choose to re-distribute the time allocation between the panels and the larger-scale proposals.
Once the ranked list is finalized, the Executive Committee will be given the opportunity to review the team expertise submissions, but only for the proposals recommended for implementation. Panelists should raise specific proposals for discussion. If there is consensus that there are clear, compelling deficiencies in the expertise required to achieve the science goals, those deficiencies should be documented for the Director's consideration. Proposals can only be eliminated; removal will not elevate a proposal below the allocation line. Once this review is complete, the Executive Committee may choose to review team expertise submissions for the 4-5 proposals immediately below the allocation line. This validates those proposals should it be necessary to adjust the final allocation based on other factors, such as scheduling issues.
Every proposal, including triaged proposals, receives feedback comments that should reflect the primary selection criteria. The Primary and Secondary reviewers are responsible for collating those comments; primary and secondary reviewers should enter their preliminary comments into the reviewer tool in advance of the panel meeting. There will be an opportunity to modify and adjust those comments during and after the meeting, but only limited time is available. Comments are sent verbatim and should be couched in an appropriately respectful manner.
† JWST Cycle 1 will have two TAC Chairs.
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