Proposal Development for Research Funding
Applications
Professor Horace H S IP
City University of Hong Kong
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Research & Research Funding
Preparation of research proposal
The review process
CityU-AIMtech @2015
In
Teaching
Transfer existing knowledge
In
Research
Generate new knowledge
CityU-AIMtech @2015
In
Teaching-Research Nexus
Research informs Teaching
Inquiry-based Learning boosts Research
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Why
Research Funding (grants)
$ for students / $$ RAs / $$$ post-docs
$-$$$ for equipment
$ for travel / time-off
$-$$$ Subsidizing salaries (eg. USA)
Generate new knowledge
CityU-AIMtech @2015
?
Sources of
Research Funding
Research Grants Council (RGC)
EGC / GRF / CRF / TRS
Competitive Research Funding Schemes for the Local Self-financing
Degree Sector
IDS / I-IDS / Faculty Development Scheme (FDS)
Innovation and Technology Commission
(ITC)
ITF / ARF
Education Bureau (EDB)
QEF / EDF / SCOLAR
Food & Health Bureau (FHB)
Health care & Promotion Fund
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Organization of a Research Proposal
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Major Sections of a Research Proposal
Part I: Summary of Research Proposal
•  Project title
•  Primary Field / Secondary Field
•  Keywords
•  PI and Co-I / Project duration & summary of budget
•  Abstract of Research
Part II: Details of the Research Proposal
•  Project Objectives
•  Background of Research
•  Work done by others
•  Work done by you
•  Research Plan and Methodology
•  References
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Project Title
Defining a research problem
&
what new knowledge to be generated
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Spectrum of New Knowledge
1.  Invent or develop new technique / insight / interpretation for a
new problem / topic
2.  Extend or modify existing techniques / insight / interpretation
for a new problem / topic
3.  Invent or develop a new technique / insight / interpretation for
an existing problem / topic
4.  Apply existing techniques / insight / interpretation for a new
problem / topic
5.  Extend or modify existing techniques / insight / interpretation
for an existing problem / topic
6.  Apply existing techniques / insight / interpretation for an
existing problem / topic
1 high impact and high originality -> 6 low impact and low originality
Source: Adapted from Dr. A Chan, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
When choosing a research problem….
Problem in a new area
vs problem in a “well-researched” area
Ask yourself:
Have you worked on the problem/topic or a related problem/topic
before?
Are you familiar with the methods/techniques to be used or
extended?
Do you have any track-record (ie. Publications) in related areas?
If all the above are negative, not likely to be successful for external
competitive grant.
Adapted from Dr. A Chan, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Major Sections of a Research Proposal
Part I: Summary of Research Proposal
•  Project title
•  Primary Field / Secondary Field
•  Keywords
•  PI and Co-I / Project duration & summary of budget
•  Abstract of Research
Part II: Details of the Research Proposal
•  Project Objectives – long term impact + objectives
•  Background of Research
•  Work done by others
•  Work done by you
•  Research Plan and Methodology
•  References
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Project Objectives
Long-Term Impact
State broad impact to society / HK / world
Issues that lay-men would care about
(eg. potential $ / lives / time saved / quality of life changed)
Examples:
Medical - early detection of a disease
•  save $$$ on medical expenses on cure
•  save millions of lives
Internet - phishing (fake webpage) detection
•  Save potential loss of $$$
•  Save potential loss of privacy
Computer Vision - Crowd movement analysis
•  Early detection of dangerous situation
•  Save police time and effort
•  Save lives
E-Health – safety bell
•  Save lives
•  Improve quality of life for old people
•  Save $$ on medical / home care
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Project Objectives
Long-Term Impact
•  Why it is important?
•  Why it is difficult?
•  Is there any existing or
relevant work ?
•  What is the
disadvantages /
weaknesses of existing
work?
Adapted from Dr. A Chan, CityU
Examples:
Medical - early detection of a disease
• 
Symptoms not obvious during early phrase
• 
Symptoms similar to a less serious disease
• 
No existing work or a solution to a related
disease exists
Internet – anti-phishing (fake website detection)
• 
Look very much like the real one
• 
Multi-lingual issues
Computer Vision - Crowd movement analysis
• 
Human body detection
• 
Insufficient image resolution
• 
Many moving person
• 
Existing work too computationally intensive
E-Health – safety bell
• 
Ergonomic issue – inconvenient to carry around
• 
Difficult to decide immobility
• 
Existing work gives too many false-alarms
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Project Objectives
Long-Term Impact
On the goal of the project
•  State clearly what is new
•  “ The main objective of the project is to investigate
and develop new…, specifically we will focus on ….”
•  “…will tackle fundamental challenges in … through …
a new approach”
•  “The proposed approach is expected to overcome
existing weaknesses in…”
•  “The project will contribute towards the state-ofthe-art… in the following ways…”
Adapted from Dr. A Chan, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Project Objectives
Objectives of the project gives the overall
approach (series of steps/tasks) to achieve
project goal:
“ To achieve these goals, we will …
(i)…
(ii) … ”
Objectives should be
• 
• 
• 
• 
Clearly defined
Achievable
Itemized
Interconnected
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Background of the Research
Objectives and long-term impact
An example write-up:
“Tubular tree-like objects are structures commonly found in in-vivo organisms, such complex
structures are of particular interests to cardiologists, neuroscientists and developmental
biologists. Extending and developing novel deformable model for tubular tree-like structures
with a complex image background context is a big challenge but, at the same time, an open
but exciting research problem for segmentation, registration and quantitative analysis of this
class of objects.
It should be noted that most deformable models in the past have been designed mainly either
(a) to represent a single 2D or 3D object with relatively simple geometry… (b) to represent
objects with a few non-intersecting components, … Such deformable models often failed for
tree-like structures with twisty and mutually intersecting tubular branches…
The main objective of the project is to investigate and develop deformable models that are
particularly suitable for segmentation and morphological analysis of tubular tree-like objects.
We will focus on developing a deformable model that incorporates geometric as well as
texture features and a hierarchical deformation strategy to guide the model…”
Source: from Horace Ip, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
How do I prepare what to put down…
1.  Your knowledge of the research problem / field - to identify what
are the (open/contemporary) problems in an area, who are the key players
(research groups)
2.  Your background studies of the selected research problem -
literature review, critical analysis of the existing solutions/interpretations
to identify weaknesses/limitations of existing solutions/arguments
3.  Your brainstorming (or work) with fellow researchers,
collaborators and research students – to come up with feasible
approaches / solutions / preliminary results
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Major Sections of a Research Proposal
Part I: Summary of Research Proposal
•  Project title
•  Primary Field / Secondary Field
•  Keywords
•  PI and Co-I / Project duration & summary of budget
•  Abstract of Research
Part II: Details of the Research Proposal
•  Project Objectives – long term impact + objectives
•  Background of Research
•  Work done by others
•  Work done by you
•  Research Plan and Methodology
•  References
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Background of Research
Work done by others
•  Result of your literature review - critical
evaluation of previous/existing work/solutions
•  Literature references must be relevant & up to
date
•  Mention their weaknesses and disadvantages
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Background of Research
Work done by others
• 
Weaknesses of existing solutions may be due to
• 
• 
• 
Not able to deal with certain type of data / new situations
Performance efficiency or not scalable
Require certain prior conditions / constraints to be met for them to
work
Examples:
New situations:
face recognition solutions (frontal, lighting, face angles, wear glasses or
not, noise level, occlusion, image resolution, with gesture/neutral)
Performance:
Iterative solutions, computational complexity O(N**3) solution not
scalable, lack of closed-form solution,
Prior condition/constraints:
Motion tracking solution (direction of motion, speed of motion), require
manual setting solution parameters, need many training samples
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Background of Research
Work done by others
An example write-up:
“A flexible contour and surface model [KK, 2011*] was proposed based on
hierarchical Fourier parametric descriptors… which can be used to segment 3D
structures from tomographic brain images. However, they consider only surface
of single object with spherical topology. More recently, an Adaptive-Focus
Statistical Shape Model (AFSSM) has been reported for segmentation 3-D
brain structures [SS, 2013]. This method is adaptive in that it initially focuses
on the most reliable structures and then shifts focus on other structures.
However, this model is not so suitable for tube-like branches since the affineinvariant geometric vectors…
… a model with bend central axis curve coupled with vessel wall surface by
Frangi et al [FF, 2010]. However, most of them use very complex parametrical
equation therefore can only have the ability to represent few of vessels….”
*Reference dates are arificially set to demonstrate the needs for recency”
Source: from Horace Ip, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Background of Research
Work done by you
•  Show your track-record in the field / research
problem
•  Summarize your past contributions in relevant
areas with citations of your publication
•  Highlight your recent work in relevant area
•  Show your preliminary results, if any, for the
proposed method
•  State how these work form a sound basis /
strong foundation for this project
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Background of Research
Work done by you
An example write-up:
“The PI has pioneered some of the early work on affine-invariant active
contour. The AI-snake developed by the PI in [Ip, et al., 1998] yields a new
area-based shape representation scheme for active contour…
More recently, the PI and his team have conducted preliminary research on the
segmentation, registration and reconstruction of the 3D vasculature of the
zebrafish embryo. We have developed an algorithm to enhance zebrafish
vasculature structure from image sequences from confocal fluorescence
microscope [Ip, et al. 2010a] and also proposed an automatic method to
segment blood vessels of the caudal portion by digitally dissecting the
volumetric set from multi-orientations [Ip, et al. 2012c]. An initial framework
from data acquisition to 3D reconstruction and visualization has been designed
[Ip, et al. 2012b].
*Reference dates are artificially set to demonstrate the needs for recency”
Source: from Horace Ip, CityUCityU-AIMtech @2015
Background of the Research
Work done by you
An example write-up:
“Although this approach produces some initial successes, however, it is
clear that a more general and robust approach is needed for segmenting
and analyzing complex tubular tree-like structures derived from different
imaging sources. Particularly, the technique has to be scalable for running
large experiments involving thousands of object samples in a typical
genomic study.”
“This motivates our current proposal to extend and develop statistical
deformable model for tubular tree-like structures to provide a more
efficient and robust segmentation process… Furthermore, these models
are expected to support quantitative comparison of the shape or location
changes among the branches within such structures.”
Source: from Horace Ip, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Major Sections of a Research Proposal
Part I: Summary of Research Proposal
•  Project title
•  Primary Field / Secondary Field
•  Keywords
•  PI and Co-I / Project duration & summary of budget
•  Abstract of Research
Part II: Details of the Research Proposal
•  Project Objectives – long term impact + objectives
•  Background of Research
•  Work done by others
•  Work done by you
•  Research Plan and Methodology
•  References
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Research Plan & Methodology
The most important section of your proposal
(make or break of a proposal)
•  State clearly the goals of the project
•  “The main goals of this project is (a)…, (b)…, (c)…”
•  “The main trust of this project will focus on (a), (b), (c)”
•  “To achieve these goals, the work plan will compose of N tasks
that follow the research objectives…”
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Research Plan & Methodology
An example write-up:
[Our project Goal]
“Though extensive hashing schemes have been put forward to rapidly returning approximate
nearest neighbors, the performance of these paradigms is insufficent… especially the search
accuracy for the huge collection real world images . Hence, we propose to investigate novel
hashing paradigms so as to help bridge the gap between high performance and large scale
datasets.”
[Our research tasks]
“The project consists of four tasks to accomplish the project goal: (1) low rank learning for
hamming space from pairwise relationships consistency and nonlinear embedding con- tent
consistency; (2) low rank representation of shared subspace learning for large-scale multi-label
oriented constructions of binary codes; (3) hashing with Cauchy graph; (4) apply these new
hashing paradigms to challenging million-scale image collections. The details for these tasks
are described below…”
Source: from Horace Ip, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Research Plan & Methodology
• 
• 
Describe the task for each objectives
•  What is your methodology for this task?
•  When you will do this task?
•  Why choose this methodology for this task?
•  You may break a task further into K sub-tasks
For each task state:
•  Motivation
•  why is the task? what is the goal?
•  Number of subtasks for this task (if any)
•  For each task / subtask say:
•  Proposed Research
•  what will you do?
•  Preliminary Results (if any)
•  Eg. Show figures or result tables
•  Expected Contributions
•  impact to the specific field
•  impact to other areas or fields (model can be reused)
•  other useful outcomes: dataset, published code
Adapted from Dr. A Chan, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Research Plan & Methodology
An example write-up (Tasks / Sub-tasks description)
“The project consists of the following research objectives: 1) new probabilistic model for
generating…; 2) new methods for fusing…; 3) relaxing the bounding-box input to achieve…; 4)
applications of our algorithm to various problems in computer vision….”
“Task 1 - Probabilistic Segmentation Model: The first task is to develop a probabilistic segmentation
model. By using a Bayesian approach, we create a probability distribution….. This enables…”
“Task 2 - Hypothesis Fusion via Similarity Voting: In this task, a new method, which we call similarity
voting, will be developed to…. One possible implementation of similarity voting is to combine….. Figure 5 shows an example, where 15 different loose bounding boxes are tested…..”
“Expected Contributions: The proposed project will make several contributions to fundamental
problems in computer vision and machine learning. First, Task 1 results in a novel probabilistic
model…. For Task 2, the proposed similarity voting could be applied to other machine learning
problems. Task 3 will demonstrate that semi-automatic segmentation can be converted to a fully
automatic procedure… “
Source: from Dr. A Chan, and Horace Ip, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Research Plan & Methodology
General Comments
•  Goal is to convince experts that the proposed approach
will work
•  Can discuss alternate solutions to show you have
considered other possible approaches
•  Show preliminary results, eg. figures, tables from trying
out a simplified version of the approach on simplified
dataset
•  Convince reviewers that the approach IS FEASIBLE
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Major Sections of a Research Proposal
Part I: Summary of Research Proposal
•  Project title
•  Primary Field / Secondary Field
•  Keywords
•  PI and Co-I / Project duration & summary of budget
•  Abstract of Research
Part II: Details of the Research Proposal
•  Project Objectives – long term impact + objectives
•  Background of Research
•  Work done by others
•  Work done by you
•  Research Plan and Methodology
•  References
CityU-AIMtech @2015
References
General Comments
•  Cite relevant papers of others
•  to show you have solid knowledge and strong understanding of the
background of the research problem
•  Cite recent papers of others
•  To show you are up to date with the literature, know the latest
work and latest results (state of the art)
•  Cite your own relevant papers (recent and old)
•  To show your track-record in related areas
•  Old papers => long term contributions in field
•  New papers => an active researcher in the field
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Track-record, Track-record, Track-record
What if I am new to the area or junior?
•  Seek internal seed funding to do preliminary work to
build up creditability
•  Seek Collaborator(s) (Co-I) to supplement the missing
skills
•  Work with students on preliminary work
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Project Budget
General Comments
•  SRA vs RA
•  PhD, Master, postdoc
•  How many
•  2 yrs vs 3 yrs
•  Depend on the tasks, consistent with the plan
•  Equipment
•  For general equipment, make sure it is not available already at
your institution
•  Specialized equipment
•  Similar for software and dataset purchase
•  General Expenses
•  Conference registration and travel
•  The goal is to show cost-effectiveness
CityU-AIMtech @2015
The Review Process
CityU-AIMtech @2015
The Review Panel
RGC has 5 subjects Panels for GRF
1.  Biology and Medicine
2.  Business Studies
3.  Engineering
• 
Subpanels: Computer Science, Electronic Engineering,
Mechanical, Civil & Materials Engineering, System Design
4.  Humanities & Social Sciences
• 
5 sub-panels
5.  Physical Sciences
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Major Sections of a Research Proposal
Part I: Summary of Research Proposal
•  Project title
•  Primary Field / Secondary Field
•  Keywords
•  PI and Co-I / Project duration & summary of budget
•  Abstract of Research
Part II: Details of the Research Proposal
•  Project Objectives – long term impact + objectives
•  Background of Research
•  Work done by others
•  Work done by you
•  Research Plan and Methodology
•  References
CityU-AIMtech @2015
The Review Panel
RGC has 5 subjects Panels - implications
•  Important to allocate your proposal to the right
(sub-)panel
•  Choose the right primary field / secondary field & code
•  Otherwise your proposal will be reviewed by someone who
may not appreciate your work
•  Do you wish your proposal to be treated as an
inter-disciplinary proposal (ie. Different primary
and secondary fields)
•  If inter-disciplinary, proposal will be evaluated by
multiple panels (or a joint inter-disciplinary panel)
CityU-AIMtech @2015
The Review Process (GRF)
•  Panel chair assigns your proposal to 2 panel members
•  1 panel member selects external reviewers from
reviewers database (categorized by field) & other
reviewers as s/he sees fit (choosing the right keywords
are important here)
•  Based on reviewers’ reports, each panel member assign
a score (2-5) to your proposal, with comment
•  The two members scores are averaged as the final
score for your proposal
•  Panel meeting discusses your proposal score and
comments and gives final decision
CityU-AIMtech @2015
The Review Panel 2013-2014 - FDS
RGC has 1 Panel (12 members) for FDS
•  2 from Biology and Medicine
•  2 from Business Studies
•  2 from Engineering
•  Subpanels: Computer Science, Electronic Engineering,
Mechanical, Civil & Materials Engineering, System Design
•  2 from Humanities & Social Sciences
•  5 sub-panels
•  2 from Physical Sciences
•  2 from self-financed institutions
CityU-AIMtech @2015
The Review Process (GRF)?
•  Panel chair assigns your proposal to 2 panel members
•  1 panel member selects external reviewers from
reviewers database (categorized by field) & other
reviewers as s/he sees fit (choosing the right
keywords are important)
•  Based on reviewers’ reports, each panel member assign
a score (2-5) to your proposal, with comment
•  The two members scores are averaged as the final
score for your proposal
•  Panel meeting discusses your proposal score and
comments and gives final decision
CityU-AIMtech @2015
External Reviewer’s considerations
•  Research plan and methodology
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
• 
Is it clearly defined and well organized?
Do the tasks adequately address the research objectives
Is it too aggressive or not sufficiently ambitious given the project time frame / the current
field of development?
Does it build upon the state of the art?
Is the evaluation methodology (clearly described and) adequate to demonstrate the
performance of the proposed method?
Is the dataset to be used in the evaluation relevant for the problem?
•  What are original or novel aspects of the proposed work?
•  Does the proposal have potential of pushing forward the
state of the art?
•  What are the proposals strengths and weakness?
•  The creditability / track-record of the PI
•  Is the proposed budget reasonable?
•  Is the proposed research FEASIBLE?
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Reviewers’ comments
An example:
“The research plan and methodology of this proposal is well organized and clearly defined, but
given the large potential of improving image search performance on such direction, I think the
PI can set up a more aggressive goal in the 3-year time frame. For example, in section 3.1, rather
than using MRF which has been studied extensively in this context, the PI can consider more
advanced and better-performed approaches including discriminative…
[Comment from another reviewer for the same proposal]
“Strength:
a. The proposed approaches to extract multiple visual features at high-level and their integration,
b. The previous research achievements on the key issues related to content-based image retrieval
including feature extraction, indexing and searching.
c.The PI’s profile of leadership in research and technology development
Weaknesses:
…..Although progress has been made and reported, there has been no such an applicable
comprehensive system developed which offers fully automated functions for semantic image
understanding. It would be more convincing if this proposed project provides details of
quantitative measures for its success to achieve the ambitious plan.”
Source: Horace Ip, CityU
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Shall I recommend external reviewers?
Whether to re-submit?
CityU-AIMtech @2015
How to improve your chances of success?
•  Submit research proposal in an area that you know
about
•  Choose research problem in a new area, if possible
•  Give yourself plenty of time to prepare for the
proposal
•  Seek critical comments on your proposal draft
(internally or externally)
•  Use of professional editing services?
•  Make yourself visible in the international
community (at conferences/editorial board, etc.)
CityU-AIMtech @2015
Thank You & Good Luck!
Contact:
Prof. Horace IP
[email protected]
CityU-AIMtech @2015