The C-TAG Meeting

At the meeting, itself, the proposals are listed by rank, and every proposal is discussed. The first and second assessors speak first and second, respectively, followed by open discussion. C-TAG members must leave the room during discussion of their own proposals. It is usually straightforward to grant time to the most highly ranked proposals, and the discussion centers more around the number of shifts to assign, rather than whether or not time should be granted. The committee then works its way down the list, assigning shifts until all shifts are allocated. Generally, more shifts are assigned at this meeting than are estimated to be available, in the event that there are further adjustments later (e.g. if less engineering or international time is actually required). In practice, it becomes less straightforward to assign shifts as the middle or lower ranked regions are approached, especially if a number of proposals have very similar grades but rather different rankings. For example, a proposal graded at 3.5 might be several positions down from a proposal with a grade of 3.3 - just enough to put it out of the running for observing time, but not so much that it could be considered significantly poorer than the one above it. At this point in the discussion, it is the scientific idea and (if relevant) the technical feasibility which are focused upon, rather than presentation, i.e. content generally wins over style. However, in the event of a ``tie" on scientific merit, the proposal which is well written and free from technical errors could very well win the day. Committee members can argue for or against (often for) lower ranked proposals, and are given an opportunity to adjust their grades, if it becomes obvious during the discussion that something has been missed. Proposals which have a wide range of grades are also identified for extra discussion. Obviously, the goal of the proposer is to aim for a high ranking, so that C-TAG members will only have to argue about how many shifts to allocate.