Specifications include, but are not limited to: The lead proposer shall take primary responsibility for managing the team members included in his/her proposal and for implementing and evaluating the behavior pilot(s) funded under this solicitation. The proposer may subcontract the implementation of the proposed behavior research pilot team and/or the evaluation work, but all team members should be included in the proposal. Upon the discretion of NYSERDAs Project Manager, program funding may be used for, but not be limited to, staff time and overhead charges, incentives, metering, feedback devices and software, and development of intervention materials. NYSERDA funding may also be used for foundational research, pre-pilot/focus group activities. Draft evaluation plans will be reviewed by an independent evaluation expert retained by NYSERDA who will also assign participants to treatment and control groups. The final evaluations will also be reviewed and validated by a desk top evaluation performed by the same independent evaluation expert. Depending on the nature of the pilots proposed, the budgets of the pilots are expected to range from $35,000 to $100,000, but cannot exceed the budget cap of $100,000 per proposal. A final report and case study summary for each of the pilots will be required. The final report and case study summary will document the pilot experimental design, the theoretical foundation and behavior intervention(s) as designed, the research conducted including any deviations from the original experimental design, lessons learned, energy savings (and/or other metrics such as waste avoided, participation rates, and participant satisfaction/comfort), and recommendations for scaling the pilots to program level (if appropriate). The final report and case study should be included in the project budget.
