A few quotes from those who have been in the "theory to practice trenches" for a long time:


Craig McEwen: I would prefer to reach someone by phone as I develop a research proposal. Written feedback is often delayed, cryptic, or off-the-point. It is hard to take the time to read, to figure out what to say, how to say it, what frame of reference to use....Many of these problems are overcome or ignored in a phone conversation. That could be followed by an agreement to send something in writing, but only if it makes sense to both sender and receiver. Thus, I think you should essentially ask whether or not people would be willing to receive calls......Stuff like gender and age and ethnicity are not likely to be important in most cases. Don't get too elaborate.


Robert Dingwall: Lead-time on grants is as long as a piece of string. Some funders have well-advertised closing dates which are known up to 12 months ahead of time and give us scope. Other opportunities come up with very tight deadlines, sometimes as little as 3-4 weeks. In these cases, what we really need is someone on the end of a phone or a fax, who we can call for a more or less instant 'how does this sound to you' kind of conversation. With these projects, any draft that is mailed or even faxed for comment is likely to be out of date by the time that comments come in - even a next day turnaround may be too late. Maybe we need to be better at sharing with practitioners which is which.... I would certainly find it helpful to have age, gender and ethnic background information, especially if I wanted deliberately to call people who were less well known.


Deborah Hensler: Timing depends! If one were preparing a proposal for NSF, there might be a long gestation period, with lots of time for interaction with colleagues and practitioners. But if one were responding to an RFP or any other opportunity that arose externally, one might be on a very short time line. Generally, in that mode, one needs to gear up very fast and if I were looking for a practitioner to involve, I'd want to make a few phone calls and get someone involved by phone and email in discussions.....I'd say for the typical RFP that comes our way there's at most a month for proposal development and more frequently only a couple of weeks. And lately the pace of everything is faster so we have even had a few RFPs recently that asked for responses within a week.


Peter Adler: (I hope) a great many practitioners will be flattered to be asked an important and thoughtful question by a researcher provided (a) it does not consume lots of hours; (b) it stays confidential; (c) they will see the results; (d) they get thanked for helping. Is that a testable hypothesis?