• Program Planning
  • FY08 POP
  • FY09 ABR

The NCAR Annual Budget Review

To guide decision-making at a high, strategic level, NCAR develops, with NSF and community partners, a strategic plan every five years that sets the overall direction and priorities for the institution. Within this strategic framework, NCAR performs an annual budget review of its operating program to ensure progress towards NCAR's strategic goals.

The Annual Budget Review (ABR) process is a budget and program review of each NCAR laboratory with the goal of setting working budgets for the next fiscal year and planning targets for the following year. This process was established to more proactively plan for a range of funding possibilities and to anticipate problems well in advance of actual receipt of our operating funds. NCAR generally receives its final operating budget late in the third quarter of each fiscal year. With a backlog in congressional appropriations, it has become increasingly important to realistically plan for a range of budget levels. This proactive process allows UCAR to be more nimble through contingency planning within an increasingly ambiguous funding environment.

Elements of this process include the review of each laboratory's activities within the framework of the NSF Merit Review Criteria, and how they map with NCAR's strategic plan; progress and accomplishments to date in meeting NCAR Strategic goals; plans for the next two years to make progress towards these goals, and long term plans for next five years. They are also asked to address within their priorities, institutional goals such as diversity, mentoring, cross-interdisciplinary research, and integration of research and education.

Laboratories are asked to provide qualitative evaluation measures to map progress towards NCAR's strategic goals. These measures include:

  • Planned Inputs (staffing, development or deployment of equipment, theoretical or laboratory or field studies, modeling and analysis of data, meetings, and publications)
  • Milestones
    • Targets and Objectives (specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timed)
    • Outputs (deliverables)
  • Expected Outcome of the Project (results produced by the use of the outputs by the beneficiaries such as the community, the agency, policy makers, and other stakeholders)
  • Impact of the Project (effect of the outcome on long-term societal, economic, or environmental consequences)

Along with qualitative evaluation measures described above, laboratories provide a set of quantitative metrics to document progress towards strategic goals. Examples of quantitative metrics that are included in this review are:

  • Visitor and collaborator trends
  • Peer reviewed publication trends
  • Mass storage system usage trends
  • Research data set usage and growth
  • Computer service response times
  • Climate Simulation Laboratory and community user usage
  • Observing facility developments
  • University users w/demographics
  • Users of the data management system w/demographics
  • Students participating in field programs

In this review, laboratories are also asked to describe problem areas and special opportunities and their plans to address these issues.

If you have any questions regarding the ABR, please contact Rena Brasher-Alleva at ext. 1116 or email her at rena@ucar.edu.

The FY 2008 NCAR Program Operating Plan

FY 2009 Annual Budget Review

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