Selecting a group of dissimilar projects for funding

Federal Agencies carry on a variety of mission-oriented programs. A common type of procurement in such programs involves the issuance of a Request for Proposals and the selection of a number of projects for funding. The proposals may address the development of different components of a system or different components in an overall research program. Factors such as the relative importance of the different components in the overall effort, compatibility of the funded projects with each other, budgetary constraints, and programmatic issues add to the complexity of the problem. This article presents a methodology for evaluating and selecting a group of such dissimilar (or nonhomogeneous) proposals. The procedure has been successfully applied to the selection for funding of several groups of proposals addressing the development of solar energy systems, and in selecting bridge and road segments for improvement in Kansas. The presentation of this paper is based on one of these applications — selection of R&D proposals addressing the design and manufacture of the components of solar photovoltaic arrays.