Items for planning Cycle 8 proposals

Published: 10 Feb 2020
alma-eight_close

The ALMA call for Proposals for Cycle 8 is soon approaching. ALMA is strongly committed to ensure that the proposal review process is as fair and impartial as possible. Analysis of the proposal rankings in previous cycles has identified systematics that may signify the presence of biases in the review process (see Systematics in the ALMA Proposal Review Rankings). In an effort to reduce biases as much as possible, ALMA will use a dual-anonymous proposal review process starting in Cycle 8.

 

In a dual-anonymous review, the proposal team does not know the identity of the reviewers and the reviewers do not know the identity of the proposal team. While proposers will still enter their names and affiliations in the ALMA Observing Tool (OT), this information will not appear on the proposal cover sheet, nor in the tools used by the reviewers. It is the responsibility of the proposers to ensure anonymity is preserved when writing their proposals. Detailed guidelines are given here.

The ALMA configuration files to be used in simulations for Cycle 8 proposals are the same as those provided for Cycle 7, noting that the longest baseline configurations C43-9 and C43-10 will not be offered. Any remaining questions regarding the planning for Cycle 8 proposals can of course be asked via the ALMA Helpdesk.