APE for how funds are used in Astropy

[hamogu]

This APE aims to provide guidance about spending Astropy Project funds by formulating a set of principles about what to pay for and who to pay. It will also touch on how expenditure decisions are made, how funds get administered, and a principle of strong transparency around these topics. It is heavily inspired by Numpy’s NEP 48 (https://numpy.org/neps/nep-0048-spending-project-funds.html).

[mhvk]

Just read the whole document and I think it all makes good sense -- as I guess is the intent, to formalize good sense!

[hamogu]

@dstansby I think I've commented on your suggestions, can you let me know what you think about my thoughts? Since the two week comment period is over I don't think we'll get many more comments, but I'd like to agree with you on the thoughts you had. Ideally, we can work out wordings that we both agree to and then I can do all the changes in one go; it's just easier for me than updating this PR every other day with just one word ;-)

[dstansby]

Sorry, I was away for a couple of weeks, but have just replied and will be more responsive in the current short term 😄

[hamogu]

@bsipocz I see an email notification that you commented like this, but I can't find the comment in the web-interface. I probably merged a change in the line this was commented on: You wrote:

+Restricted / earmarked funding sources
+^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
+Much of the Project’s funding comes from specific grants from private foundations and government agencies. In these cases, the fundable activities are explicitly described in the proposal text. Such funds must be spent following the proposed plan and often come with further restrictions on who can be funded. For example, NASA funding can only go to individuals or institutions in the USA and EU funding is generally restricted to institutions or individuals in the EU or associated countries. The Finance Committee should make these restrictions clear to the community so that they may submit funding requests aligned with the existing grants.

This is factually untrue. Promises were made to step away from the America first approach, yet here is another example of it.

I don't think I understand how that is factually untrue. Of course, the rules are different for different grants we we do not know what funding opportunity Astropy might apply to in the future. But many funding opportunities do carry geographic restrictions. Here is an example from NASA (for funding in certain grants that are given through STScI)

In accordance with the General Grant Provisions (GGP), Section 3, Eligibility for STScI Grant Funding: “STScI funding shall not be used in any way to support non-U.S. investigators or their activities. All program personnel including but not limited to PI’s, Co-I’s, postdocs, students, visitors, other research personnel, and support staff, must meet the eligibility requirements of a U.S. investigator.” STScI funding cannot flow from a U.S. investigator to support the activities of a non-U.S. investigator.

Here is an example from the EU (in this case ERC funding):

Researchers from anywhere in the world can apply for ERC grants provided the research they undertake will be carried out in an EU Member State or Associated Country.

Here is an example from the UK (from https://www.ukri.org/our-work/collaborating-internationally/getting-funding-for-international-collaboration/):

Eligibility is different for each funding opportunity. For example, for some grants the principal investigator must be based in the UK [...]

Germany (here from one exemplary DFG research opportunity):

Eligibility Requirements

Researchers who have already achieved their doctorates and who are working in the German scientific system may apply.

Of course, the exact rules depend on the funder and the funding opportunity, but geographic restrictions are common. Thus, I'd appreciate to know what in this sentence you believe to be "factually untrue".

To your second point, just giving two examples from two of the largest funders for astronomy research (NASA and ESA or NSF and the EU, or some combination of that) is, to me, not an "America first" approach, but an "picking the examples from the largest and most well-known funders in the field". The point here is to demonstrate by example that geographic restrictions are common (but not ubiquitous) and specifically to have more than one example so that it's not an America-only list. I welcome suggestions for other wording, if you have a better idea on how to say that.

[bsipocz]

ESA is not a government agency. Neither the EU. If language matters, then make it so and don't put factually untrue sloppy sentences into policies. This is not the first instance where the setup of education/funding/etc in the USA is taken for granted and applied as a global truth.

[hamogu]

My understanding is that they are “inter government” as opposed to “intra government”. I wrote that sentence and I’m not a native speaker, nor do I have a degree in international relations.

This is how wikipedia introduces ESA: The European Space Agency (ESA; French: Agence spatiale européenne pronunciation (help·info), ASE;[4][5] German: Europäische Weltraumorganisation) is an intergovernmental organisation of 22 member states[6] … The EU commission explains itslef on its website as “The European Commission is the EU’s politically independent executive arm.” Both of those sound a lot like a “government” to me. Maybe I leave editing of astropy documents outside of my core expertise to native speakers in the future… but that’s exactly why it’s a draft - so that other people can check and give feedback, so thank you for pointing that out.

Given that this critique is entirely about an example that was meant to illuminate, not to obscure the intent behind that sentence, it's probably best to just remove it. I'll take @jdswinbank 's suggestion.

[hamogu]

@dstansby You had the most comment. Do you want to check that I addressed everything appropriately? Otherwise, I think this is good to go.

[dstansby]

All looks 👍 - thanks for taking the time to reply to all my queries!

[hamogu]

Thanks to everyone who commented for looking over this carefully. That's exactly why the APE process asks for community discussion on every point!

I'll bring this to the Coco and suggest that community consensus has been reached and this can be accepted.

[jdswinbank]

Could one of the proposers please accept or comment on the suggested changes?

Thanks, @adrn , for your careful reading! Although I'm one of the proposers I can't accept these suggestions, because I don't have access to @hamogu 's repo (from where the PR originates). However, I agree with basically all of your suggestions.

[kelle]

I also agree with all of Adrian's grammatical suggestions.

I think the only remaining thing to resolve is the APE title. See the inline discussion.