Priorities

Certain project features will tend to move a proposal in or out of the program scope for RIT. If your project has more of the following qualities, it is likely to be more appealing to us.

• Serves an AWMF traditional constituency. To be a serious candidate, a proposal must document service to one or more of our constituencies. For some of the nuances of our understanding of our constituency, see the explanation of AWMF traditional constituencies. In particular, note that K-12 and teacher-training are out of scope for RIT. While we do fund projects worldwide, funding for projects benefitting only institutions located outside North America is uncommon.

• Meets a large or critical, unmet need. Our Board of Trustees expects us to invest funds in ways that reap maximal benefits for our traditional constituencies. We do not generally fund projects for the benefit of only one institution.

• Makes intellectual property widely and freely accessible.  See our licensing policy for details. Projects that attempt to control access to intellectual property or otherwise limit its free use are unlikely to appeal to us.

• Delivers an innovative, technology-based solution. RIT's primary mission is to fund software development. We prefer projects with software deliverables; we generally do not fund operating costs or the costs of simply acquiring existing hardware or software.

• Has a sustainability plan. We will not ordinarily fund a project in the absence of a well-thought-out strategy for achieving sustainability within a reasonable time-frame. This sustainability plan must be consistent with our other program priorities, such as the furtherance of open-source software and the requirement that intellectual property be freely available.

• Has an interoperability plan. We expect projects to understand the institutional contexts in which they will be implemented, and to make provision for integrating and interoperating effectively, by means of open standards and interfaces, with other software systems and services commonly found in those environments. Note that our assessment of project costs and benefits is focused on the sustainability of the entire IT ecosystem in our constituent institutions, not on individual projects in isolation.

• Is developed through a multi-institutional collaborative process. For reasons of market penetration and sustainability, we strongly prefer that software be designed and build on a collaborative model, and governed by the communities that the server. Project plans of the "if I build it, everyone will come" philosophy are substantially less appealing.

• Leverages existing technology to create innovative technology. We value projects that build on prior art, and that concentrate energy into existing projects rather than diffusing it among multiple near-copycat initiatives. We avoid "me, too" projects and the reinvention of wheels. Strong proposals will invariably include surveys of existing technology that could be of use in solving the problem(s) at issue in the proposal, and plans for using those technologies to improve the project's efficiency and productivity.