Collaborators Who Become Competitors

Two senior scientists at a biotechnology company collaborate in preparing a grant application that they submit under the Small Business Innovative Research (SBIR) program.  Before the application is reviewed, one of these scientists accepts a job at another firm.  The application receives a good score, at the review meeting, although not good enough to be funded.  Nine months later, at a subsequent SBIR review meeting, the reviewers notice that the original application has been resubmitted with changes reflecting their earlier critique.  They also note a remarkably similar new application, from the scientist who changed jobs and on behalf of his new employer.  The new proposal makes no mention of the original, although it contains much of the same language and the summary is nearly identical.  Is this plagiarism?  Does the new proposal have the same standing as the revised original?  How should the reviewers respond to similarities in the two proposals?

C4L says:  The application belongs to the submitting institution.  The revised submission should have indicated that one of the co-investigators is no longer participating in the proposed research.  The second application would not have been accepted for scientific review, had it been possible to have identified it as too similar, prior to review.  Both applications can be reviewed, and scored, at the initial review group meeting, but if the reviewers of the two applications believe them to be substantially identical, they can request that final review decisions on both be deferred.  This is normally handled by an administrative note and allows program staff to address the concerns.  Since both investigators presumably contributed to the initial application, they are both authors of the original work and plagiarism should not be an issue.  The two investigators should have agreed on the future of the proposed work, however, and highly similar applications should not have been submitted.