Open Grantmaking

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Case

Beth Noveck:

The Department of Labor in partnership with the Department of Education announced two billion dollars in grants to support educational and career training programs for workers. Known as the “Trade Adjustment Assistance Community College and Career Training Grant” – or TAA CCCT,


"TAA CCCT reflects an international trend toward opening up access to work created with public funds. The National Institutes of Health open access policy requires: “all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine’s PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication.”

Beginning this week, the National Science Foundation requires that every applicant submit a data management plan with her application. NSF doesn’t demand that grantee work product be open access. But they are taking a step in this direction by making the disposition of data a factor in consideration of the application. During my time there, the White House ran an online consultation to solicit input on public access policy. The Department of Education recently awarded $350M for the Race to the Top Assessment program, and not only required that the materials developed in the program be free, but that they must also be interoperable, so that no one vendor can create a platform for the free materials and force everyone to use it.


Open Grantmaking Before

Openness in grantmaking is not limited to ex post. There are exciting innovations before and during. The Commerce Department’s National Telecommunications and Information Administration created Broadband Match, “an online tool that allows Recovery Act grant recipients and other communities developing broadband projects and programs to connect with a variety of potential partners. The goal of Broadband Match was to connect large-scale telcos with small-scale community organizations to write better grant applications together. BroadbandMatch used simple technology of the kind you find on many dating websites to “allow individuals and communities pursuing broadband projects to search for and connect with potential partners in specific locations and with appropriate areas of expertise, including small socially and economically disadvantaged businesses.”


Open Grantmaking During

The Department of Education’s Investment in Innovation (i3) grants program gave away $650 million last year to support those with a record of improving student achievement, close achievement gaps, decrease dropout rates, increase high school graduation rates, or increase college enrollment and completion rates through innovative practices.

In addition to the winning applications, the Department makes transparent narratives, scores, and technical review forms of the unfunded applications submitted under its competition for the biggest grants ($50 million). In addition, the Department partnered with twelve major foundations to give applicants the option of using the federal grant application to compete for $500 million in foundation funds.

In every case, openness in grantmaking is not simply transparency for its own sake. Rather, openness is a means to the end of fostering greater collaboration among potential applicants; improved accountability and grants management during the process; and greater ability for the public to access work products produced with grants.

We don’t have a lot of empirical experience yet with how much openness is optimal nor where it should be applied." (http://cairns.typepad.com/blog/2011/01/open-grantmaking-in-practice-not-just-in-principle-1.html)