R856-1-7. Application Evaluation Criteria

  (1) Letter of Intent

  (a) The administrative criteria to review letters of intent will be published in advance.

  (2) The review panel will use a scoring system to evaluate and rank grant applications and recommend grant amounts.

  (a) The scoring criteria will be made available during the application period.

  (b) The scoring system will be designed to assess and compare each applicant across several categories, which may include:

  (i) technical merit of proposal;

  (ii) strength and maturity of company and management;

  (iii) potential for economic impact, as measured by:

  (A) job creation;

  (B) product sales;

  (C) potential revenue due to expansion of current business or development of new businesses; and/or

  (D) projected time to revenue or job creation;

  (iv) Commercialization plan/ market need;

  (v) reasonableness of cost proposal (i.e. size and allocation of budget is appropriate for the work proposed and matching funds available);

  (vi) reasonableness of proposed milestones and timelines; and

  (vii) any other factor indicative of applicant's ability to produce measurable and timely impacts on the state in areas related to the economic development performance metrics used to evaluate USTAR's activities.

  (3) TAP Grants must be used to accelerate the development and commercialization of a technology and project proposals must identify specific technical milestones leading to the proposed outcome.

  (4) Examples of acceptable milestones must be specific to the project may include:

  (a) research and development activities;

  (b) proof of concept;

  (c) product validation; and,

  (d) product development.