Policy & Guideline

Guidelines for Research

Eligibility for Research Proposal Writing

  1. Full time staff members of BiT except M.Sc. students
  2. Expatriate staffs who have a renewed contract of at least 6 months more from end of the research project.
  3. Researchers who successfully finished and submitted all previous BiT and BDU funded research projects, in case if s(he) had a research funded from previous calls.
  4. Researchers who achieved either of the following results from previous BiT funded research projects
    1. Published (or show unconditional acceptance of an article) on a peer reviewed journal or
    2. Attended and presented on international conference and their research, as part of the proceeding, is published on the a peer reviewed journal/publisher or
    3. Technology transfer to the society (proof is needed from the appropriate office) or
    4. Have patent for the research finding (proof is needed from the appropriate office)\
  5. A researcher, who fulfilled 3 but failed to meet 4, will only have one last opportunity after one year (a year after submission of the previously funded report)
  6. Two or more BiT staffs paired with a co-researcher out of academia/BiT (Collaborative research)
  7. A researcher/staff who submitted an original/non plagiarized research output from previously BiT funded research projects.
  8. A researcher who fully met the research agreement from previously BiT funded research projects

Research Requirements

  1. The proposal shall involve two or more researchers (for Mega project Six or more)
  2. A researcher will be a Principal-investigator (PI) or Co-investigator only for one research project. However, they can be member of the research team not assuming PI or Co-PI roles
  3. Research proposals must be within the thematic areas identified by BiT(https://bit.bdu.edu.et/srgs/content/research-area)
  4. The written proposal must be according to the format provided (https://bit.bdu.edu.et/srgs/biology), and the total duration of the project shall not be more than two and half years for multidisciplinary projects and one year for conventional research projects

Proposal Submission

  1. The proposal should be screened, pass a preliminary evaluation and approved by the chair holder at faculty/ center level based on the format and criteria provided by the Research office 
  2. Soft copy (Ms-word format) and hard copy of the proposal shall be submitted to the School of Research and Graduate Studies before the due date of annual research call to repubbit@gmail.com/Bit.Research@bdu.edu.et
  3. The proposal should be written according to the format provided by Research Director Office.

Proposal Evaluation

Once the proposal is pre-evaluated and submitted to the school with in the given deadline, it will take one and half months to finalize the proposal evaluation. To get the research fund from the office, the proposal must pass through the following three basic steps:

Prescreening by the Office

  • Fulfillment of section eligibility ,requirements and proposal submission will be checked
  • Priority will be given to interdisciplinary, collaborative and applied researches
  • Prescreening result notification about the status (both Rejected and Preliminary accepted) of the proposal will be send via PI email with Justifications.

Evaluation

  • Three Reviewers (preferably two internal and one external reviewer) will be assigned to each proposal. For each proposal, three internal and two external
  • Potential reviewers, with a rank of Assistant Professor (or equivalent) and above, shall be recommended by the research and publication committee in consultation with the respective Chair-holders.
  • The proposal will be send to the assigned reviewers anonymously
  • The reviewers technically and financially evaluate the proposal according to the format provided by the office
  • A proposal must get at least 50% from each reviewer to be conditionally accepted.
  • If a proposal got less than 50% from either of the reviewers, the final decision will be made by the research and publication committee.

Notification of Evaluation Result

  • A proposal rejected by the evaluators will be announced to the researchers via PI’s email together with the reviewers’ comments.
  • Conditionally accepted proposals with minor or major comments /modifications/of the reviewer will be send to the PI for amendment.
  • The PI is responsible to correct the research proposal according to the reviewer’s comment and submit back to the SRGS within 20 days to the maximum from the date of receiving reviewer’s comment.

Presentation

  • The Researcher must incorporate all the comments/modifications from the reviewer while preparing his/her presentation based on the presentation template (link should be provided) 
  • The researcher will have 15 minutes of public presentation and 15 minutes of questions and discussion
  • The school in collaboration with respective chair holder of the PI will prepare presentation schedule.
  • The presentation schedule/program will be disseminated by faculty chairs to their member staffs and by SRGS for entire BiT staff.
  • The proposal presentation shall be chaired by the respective chair holder. In case the chair holder is PI or co-investigator for the scheduled presentation, he/she shall assign one person from chair members.
  • The presentation will be evaluated by the internal reviewers (Internal Proposal evaluators) based on format provided by the office and the reviewers have the power to reject the whole proposal even after presentation.

Research Planning
The following research related logistics shall be handled through communication between SRGS and PI

  • Discussion and agreement on detail cost breakdown, financial management procedures, and other resources managements.
  • All comments and modifications should be incorporated on the final research proposal submission. One in person signed hard copy and soft copy (via repubbit@gmail.com) of final research proposal should be submitted after 5working days from the presentation day.

Research Fund

The research proposal is considered as unconditionally accepted only after the school and the researcher are agreed as per the agreement format. The research fund will be released in two installments and it is the responsibility of the researchers to use the fund according to the approved research proposal cost breakdown. Any budget transfer from one budget category to other must be officially requested by the PI and should be approved by the SRGS. Besides, any budget changes including transfer shall officially communicate to the finance office for amendments.

Signing Agreement
A research agreement will be signed between the office and the investigators (both PI and Co-PI) based on the agreement format provided by the office

Release of the 1st installment
 Half of the approved budget will be released to the respective PI at the end of September.

Progress Report and Presentation

  1. The researcher will submit a progress report using the format in hard and soft copy till the beginning of February of each year. Additional progress presentation date shall be arranged for exceptional projects.
  2. The school in consultation with respective chair holders will prepare presentation schedule.
  3. The report presentation shall be 15 min of presentation and 15 min of discussion
  4. The report presentation schedule/program shall be disseminated by the school and faculties’ research coordinators to faculty staff members.
  5. The school will assign an evaluator to appraise the report and the presentation
  6. The researcher shall present his/her progress findings to BiT Staffs based on the given Power point format for 15 minutes and evaluated by the assigned reviewer
  7. The report presentation shall be chaired by the respective chair holder. In case the chair holder is PI or co-investigator for the scheduled presentation, he/she shall assign one person from chair members.
  8. The evaluation result of the progress report presentation shall be either of the following decisions:
  • Recommended for release of second payment: Prior to the release of the second installment, the researcher must incorporate all comments/modifications given during the presentation and submit the revised progress report to the school in soft copy
  • Needs to show more progress before releasing the second payment: The Researcher must conduct further works to strengthen his/her results and meet the progress requirement. The researcher shall resubmit the revised progress report by incorporating all his/her new results, comments/modifications given during presentation to the school in soft copy (reppubbit@gmail.com).
  • Unsatisfactory to release the second payment: If the research failed to show any progress, the school will not release the second installment and the researcher is obliged to resubmit his/her work done by the first installment based on the format and the office provide one month to resubmit the progress work with a warning letter. If the researcher shall not progress with the given period , he/she shall be obliged to reimburse the 1st payment
  • For the first and second situation, prior to the release of the second installment, the expected progress will be evaluated by the office and the evaluator respectively

Release of the 2nd installment
 

  • Researchers shall submit a financial clearance, for both 1st installment, to the office (Supported by an approval by the respective chair holder/dean, and request letter for the 2nd installment after successful progress defense
  • Half of the remaining research fund will be released to the PI

Final Research Report Submissions and Evaluation

  1. The Researcher shall submit a summary of up to 12 pages of his/her final research work within one month after the completion of the project using the given template, in addition to the final report (max of 50 Pages).
  2. The Researcher shall notify the school with evidence if the research findings are submitted for publication, conference participation, for book chapter preparation or applied for community service. The school will take the status in to consideration during the reviewing process.
  3. The submitted report will be evaluated by two anonymous reviewers (one internal and one external), selected by BIT- Research and Publication Committee (RPC), based on the outlined evaluation criteria. 
  4. The comments of the reviewer will be sent to the researcher for correction, via the PI email. The minor and major comments/modifications by the reviewer shall be communicated via email and official letter respectively
  5. The research output is accepted if both reviewers agree to accept the result with Minor or major revisions or without revision. However, if the research output is rejected by either of the reviewers, the report shall be send to a third external anonymous reviewer, whose decision shall be final.
  6. The Researcher must incorporate all comments/modifications given from the reviewer and submit the revised final report to the school in soft copy within a month
  7. The researcher must give seminar presentation of his/her findings to the faculty members based on prepared schedule from respective chair holder and present the finding on a scheduled annual research day of the university. If the researcher is unwilling or fail to give seminar, he/she will be suspended for one year from getting a fund for newly initiated research proposal call of BiT.
  8. The rejection of the research output due to unsatisfactory work and/or plagiarism shall be communicated via official letter with further consequence as stated below
  9.  The office only assume the completion of the research after the researchers submit the final corrected version of his/her article.

Consequence of Breach of the Research Agreement

  • If the researcher fails to submit a progress report and presentation (and also for final report), he/she shall notify the office in written form for the reason of
  • failure and if the reason is accepted by the office, the researcher in consultation with the school, should propose a presentation and submission date (both
  • progress and final) in a month time from the respective schedule stated by the school.
  • If the researcher is not able to present the office a satisfactory reason for failure of undertaking the activities of the research, presenting the progress and
  • submitting the final report, he/she should pay back any expenses used for the research work.
  • Failure to submit the final report and research summary for more than one month after completion of the research without accepted reason will cause an
  • automatic suspension of the PI and Co-PI, from BiT research fund for one year
  • Failure to submit the final report and research summary for more than three months after completion of the research cause an automatic suspension of the
  • PI and Co-PI, from any BiT research fund for two years
  •  Failure to submit the final report and research summary for more than six months after completion of the research cause an automatic suspension, of the PI and Co-PI, from any BiT research fund for Three years
  • If the submitted final research work is rejected by two reviewers, due to unsatisfactory result or any inappropriate procedures, the school will give the researcher a maximum of one month to correct the research findings according
  • to the reviewers’ comments. If failed to do so, the researcher (PI) should reimburse all the research fund taken from the institute and
  • If the submitted final research work is rejected by only of the one of reviewers due to plagiarism, the report shall be sent to a third anonymous external
  • reviewer. The final decision shall be made by the school based on the recommendation of the third reviewer and in consultation with the research andpublication committee.
  • If the submitted final research work is rejected due to plagiarism, the researcher should payback with additional 10% penalty fee, all the research fund taken
  • from the school and cause an automatic suspension, of the PI and Co-PI, from any BiT research fund for Three years. In addition, a discipline measure shall
  • be taken as per BiT- academic staff discipline rule and regulation.

Intellectual Property Rights

  • The researcher and BiT jointly own the research results.
  • After the completion of the research, any equipment, or materials, acquired from the research shall be the property of BiT, and all the research equipment and/or materials shall be returned to the SRGS.

Financial Utilization and Clearance

  • During data collection and financial clearance, the researchers shall perform all the following duties.
  • Researchers funded by BiT shall report and get approval from their corresponding chair holder, before going for data collection
  • If the PI is the chair holder, he/she shall report to the dean of the Faculty/Center and get approval, before going for data collection
  • All receipts, labor payment and per diem allowance days should be approved by the researcher's chair holder/dean based on allowance approval form before submitted to the  Research director office.
     

Publication and Community Service

  • A research result from BiT fund must fulfil any of the following and if the researcher fails to meet the following, he/she will not get fund for newly initiated proposals.
  • Published on a peer reviewed journal or
  • Attend international conference for oral presentation and the paper published on a peer reviewed conference proceedings
  • Technology transfer and provide community service to the society (proof is needed from the appropriate office) or
  • Get patent from the research finding (proof is needed from the appropriate office)
     
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