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Automated Grant Feedback
Looking for complementary feedback on your next funding application?
Using Automated Feedback
To use automated grant feedback, you must:
- agree to the Data Protection, Confidentiality & Privacy policies;
- be the Principal Investigator (PI) on the application; and
- have permission to use Automated Grant Feedback (AGF) from all co-investigators.
Western is pleased to pilot automated grant feedback through an AI tool that supports grant writing by "predicting" reviewers' critiques.
Quick Facts
- The purpose of the automated grant feedback pilot is to provide an additional opportunity to preemptively identify potential weaknesses prone to decrease an application’s ranking.
- The pilot is not intended to replace or circumvent any current departmental, faculty or institutional supports or processes.
- The tool models reviewer critiques from past competitions as benchmarks for analyzing draft applications.
- Automated grant feedback is an "on-demand" tool—an optional, self-serve resource to bolster application competitiveness.
Collaboration
The automated grant feedback prototype is a unique and proprietary "made-at-Western" resource, built in collaboration with faculty members and research officers across campus.
Automated grant feedback is under continual development. To contribute to the project, contact James Shelley for more information about how you can help improve the tool.
Data Protection, Confidentiality & Privacy
We understand and appreciate that funding application data is extremely valuable and sensitive.
Our aim is to pioneer and experiment with frontier technology with an unwavering commitment to responsibility, security, transparency, and institutional policy compliance.
Towards this end, all data privacy, confidentiality, protection, and retention policies are described below.
Microsoft OneDrive
Our AI-powered review process begins by adding your file to a Microsoft OneDrive for Business folder in Western University’s Microsoft 365 tenant. The file will be automatically deleted when the review is complete, which means, as per Microsoft’s file retention policy, it will be completely removed from the platform in 93 days.
Microsoft Power Automate
The content of the file will be processed using Microsoft Power Automate, which is part of Microsoft’s Power Platform. Just like your Western Outlook account, we use Power Automate within Western’s corporate Microsoft tenant. Power Automate complies with the same data protection agreements that oversee all use of Microsoft 365 at Western. All internal Power Automate history logs (used for development and troubleshooting) are deleted in 28 days and removed from administrative audit logs in 90 days.
Cloudmersive
To efficiently process data, we use an encrypted connection with a third-party vendor called Cloudmersive to handle various aspects of data format conversion. Pursuant to their Terms of Service and Digital Processing Agreement, Cloudmersive APIs (Application Programming Interfaces) are stateless, which means that they do not store or retain payload data or copies after data conversion is complete.
The LLM third-party vendor is Google. Our use of Google’s Cloud, API, and AI products are governed by their General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). All third party vendors are compliant with the European Union’s General Data Protection Regulation.
Technology Risk Assessment Committee (TRAC)
The Automated Grant Feedback (AGF) tool has passed Western University’s Technology Risk Assessment Committee (TRAC) pre-assessment and is approved for internal use. (TRA-208)
Contact Us
For more information about or how best to use Western's automated grant feedback pilot, please contact James Shelley.