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It is STScI's responsibility to ensure that the community has equal access to HST, regardless of past experience. All accepted HST proposals are assigned a Program Coordinator (PC) who works with the PI and team to finalize the Phase II submission. The PCs are highly experienced and will flag particularly challenging proposals for further technical review. In addition, all proposals with PIs who are new to HST are assigned a Contact Scientist (CS) from the appropriate Instrument Division support team; the CS will provide both technical and scientific advice as necessary. If a program proves to be infeasible, it will not be executed.

As a reviewer, how can I be sure that the proposers are being ethical when discussing their expertise and/or access to other facilities? What if we allocate time to the wrong people?

It is a misconception that the review panels and the TAC allocate the time awarded for HST observations. The TAC makes recommendations to the STScI Director on which programs they feel are most worthy of observing time. The Director, as the selecting official, makes the final determination in coordination with appropriate members of STScI staff, including the Science Mission Office (SMO), HST Mission Office, ESA, and operations/scheduling staff. Proposals will be anonymous only to the review panels and the TAC, not to appropriate STScI staff or the Director, who will know the full proposal team. These recommended programs are also reviewed during both the Phase II and Budget submissions by STScI staff and the Financial Review Committee (FRC). Any egregious ethical violations or misrepresentations will be brought to the attention of the Director, as well as the host institutions of the proposal team, and, if necessary, the broader community. Any such proposals will be sanctioned and are subject to cancellation of the observations.

How do the reviewers assess the proposers' responsible use of funds that are allocated with each science program?

The job of the reviewers is to evaluate the scientific merit of the proposals, and issue a recommendation to the Director on whether or not the proposed program is a worthwhile use of our most finite resource: observing time on HST. The funding of accepted proposals will remain, as it has always been, a separate part of the process, completely independent of the review panels and the TAC. Budget proposals will be reviewed by the Financial Review CommitteeFRC, and will not be anonymous.

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Panelists will flag proposals that contain identifying information as non-compliant for review by staff in the Science Mission Office ( SMO). Non-compliance may affect the outcome of the proposal. Proposals may be downgraded or rejected. STScI reserves the right to disqualify any offending proposals. Feedback will be provided to the authors of the proposal when the reviewers comments are returned after the TAC has concluded and the Director has made the selections.

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