Darft for Phase II Moore funding in 2021

Author: hamogu

finance/proposal-calls/Moore_2021.md

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+# Call for Astropy ideas / proposals to be funded in 2021
+
+## Proposal goals
+Proposals shall improve the Astropy Project. This includes code for the core repository, for coordinated or affiliated packages, infrastructure (e.g. testing, CI), tutorials, workshops, notebooks, community engagement, inclusion, diversity and empowerment, travel to conferences or meetings, talks, menotring, and anything else broadly Project related.
+
+Proposals shall foster the Astropy Project goals of community, shared work, and cooperation and shall be proposed and executed in this manner.
+
+Total funding for this call is coming from the Moore grant and 200,000 $ are available in total in the period spring 2021 to spring 2022.
+
+Proposals need to clearly identify what the funding is used for (e.g. "pay YYY $ to add Klingon Standard Time to astropy.time" or "organize astropy workshop to engage amateur astronomer community in Antarctica")
+
+## Proposal details
+
+- Source of money: Moore grant
+- Specific area of proposal: Most of the money can be distributed to any area deemed important to the community. A specific fraction is reserved for work related to spectroscopy (22500 US $) and mentoring (15000 US $).
+- Restrictions: This is a world-wide call, open to all current and future contributors to the Astrop project. (The only restriction is that money cannot be transferred to countries that the United States does not allow banking transaction with, e.g. North Korea).
+
+## Proposal process
+Proposals should be posted as pull requests to github.com/astropy/astropy-project/ with the initial title text "Funding 2021:".
+The goal is to make this process as easy as possible on everyone, so we impose a limit of 100 lines assuming 80 char/line. We provide a template below.
+We envision a two stage proposal process to enable the community to comment and improve ideas, teams with similar ideas can merge to avoid duplicated work, etc..
+
+- 2021-02-28: Draft Proposal Deadline (after this date, no new proposals)
+- Two week discussion period during which proposals can be modified
+- 2021-03-15: Finalized Proposals are due
+- Finance Committee reviews for compatibility with legal conditions
+- 2021-03-25 to 2021-04-10: Discussion and voting
+
+*Rationale: We aim to achieve community consensus before the vote. Proposers may combine ideas and teams or withdraw proposals during the discussion period.*
+
+On 2021-03-15, the text for the proposals is frozen but comments are still allowed. Within 7 days of this deadline, the Finance Committee will review all proposals to ensure they are compatible with the terms of the currently available funding sources and should be included in the proposals to be voted on.
+
+Voting: Voting is done by simply adding a "thumps up" to the proposal PR. Any number of proposals can be voted up by a single person. Proposals are ranked by number of "thumbs up". The finance commitee reserves the right to discount "thumbs up" from github accounts without any contributions to Astropy repositories.
+
+The CoCo and the Finance Committee will select proposals following the ranking taking into account the requirements of the available grant funding (e.g. if none of the highest ranking proposals deals with spectroscopy, this money reserved for spectroscopy can be awarded to the highest ranking spectroscopy proposal, even if that means that other, higher ranked proposals won't be executed).
+
+*Rationale: This is similar to how e.g. ESO or HST proposals as awarded. Technically, the TACs suggest a list of proposals for the director, who is free to pick in any way they like. However, the TAC ranking is followed unless there are strong reasons against it (e.g. a scheduling requirement cannot be accommodated). This process is well accepted in the community and thus it makes sense to follow it here.*
+
+## Who will be paid to do work?
+Money can be used for travel, infrastructure, equipment etc, but in many cases, money will be used to pay people to do work for Astropy. In that case, the following approaches can be used:
+
+- Proposals can list one or more people who will perform the work and any needed budget to support the work.
+- The proposers can alternatively not commit to the work themselves, but promise to organize a job search, accept applications, and select a candidate within 6 months of the proposal being accepted. Contact details of the selected person are then forward to the Finance Committee. The proposing team is not paid for work time associated with the search.
+
+In either case, the Finance Committee will take care of the formal process of setting up statements of work, signing contracts, and reviewing invoices. Other funding strategies that we have not anticipated will also be considered.
+
+Note: The Finance Committee realizes that this process may lead to a number of parallel, possibly competing searches by different groups of people. We expect all searches to follow the code of conduct with respect to fairness, non-discimination etc. Any violation should be brought the finance committee or the Astropy Ombudspersion ([email protected]). If these procedures are violated, funding for that specific project will not be granted. Proposals planning to do a search should include the cost of job listings in their budget.
+
+
+## Template for proposals
+
+### Title
+
+### proposing team
+
+### Proposal Summary
+How does this benefit Astropy packages / users/ community / ...? Short summary.
+
+### Proposed project / work
+Details here as needed for Astropy community members to understand what is planned.
+
+### Budget
+currency: US $
+
+Include overheads, fringe etc. if money is paid as sub-grant (note that the Moore grant caps overhead at 15%).
+
+Include all costs (travel, work, conference registrations etc.)