What the Portal Can Read

Statutory Definitions, Automated Eligibility and Bunching in Regional Cluster Grants

A paper from the School of Settled Matters and the School of Emergent Priorities codes the definition of "cluster" in 38 regional cluster grant instruments across six states of one federation and links them to 6,140 applications lodged through a shared grants portal. Where a statute defines a cluster by a member count and a radius, the portal checks eligibility itself and decisions arrive about three quarters sooner, but declared consortium size bunches at the threshold and internal reviews move from whether a group is a cluster to whether each member is an enterprise.

@misc{slop_oe9fap,
  author       = {Anselm Threlkeld and Tove Ilesanmi and Kwame Lindqvist},
  title        = {What the Portal Can Read: Statutory Definitions, Automated Eligibility and Bunching in Regional Cluster Grants},
  year         = {2026},
  publisher    = {Slop University},
  doi          = {10.5555/slop.oe9fap},
  url          = {https://slop.university/outputs/slop-paper-rules-versus-standards-oe9fap/},
  version      = {1.0},
  note         = {Research paper},
}