I'm sure it's been noted here before that the NEH Scholarly Editions  
and Translations guidelines (http://www.neh.gov/grants/guidelines/editions.html 
) recommend TEI conformance for electronic publication:

"For electronic publication, describe the technical standards and  
formats used by the project and include URLs or sample screen displays  
whenever possible. Applicants are encouraged to use open standards and  
markup conforming to the Text Encoding Initiative (TEI), and to employ  
current best practices in creation of electronic editions."

I can't speak for the granting agencies, but as someone who's been on  
funding panels, I would definitely want justification for a project  
that was doing text markup and didn't want to use TEI (or, I suppose,  
DocBook -- depending on what they were aiming for).  There's almost no  
reason to roll your own document schema in this day and age.  So I'd  
say TEI is accepted and probably does not require justification unless  
you have reason to believe your audience is unaware of it.  Quite the  
opposite.

Best,
Hugh

On Nov 16, 2009, at 5:10 PM, Birnbaum, David J wrote:

> Dear TEI-L,
>
> I am writing to ask whether any of you have any information about  
> the role that TEI conformance may or may not play in the success of  
> grant applications. Many of us have participated in different grant- 
> related capacities, whether as applicants, referees, recipients and  
> administrators (principal investigators), funders, or something  
> else, but although I've played several of those roles myself, I  
> don't know what role TEI conformance actually plays in the grant  
> process. Does TEI conformance increase the likelihood of obtaining  
> funding? Should it? Under what circumstances? If an applicant  
> considers the TEI framework to be optimal for his or her project, do  
> grant agencies expect the applicant to justify and document the  
> reasons for that decision in the case of the specific project?  
> Should they? If, conversely, an applicant considers an alternative  
> technology better suited to the goals of his or her project, is it  
> nonetheless important for the success of an application to justify !
> explicitly the decision not to use TEI? Should it be? Are grant  
> agencies neutral with respect to technological frameworks, requiring  
> in all cases that the applicant describe his or her chosen framework  
> and justify that decision? Is TEI favored? Disfavored?
>
> Since the TEI Consortium plays no official role in the grant  
> agencies, this question is addressed not to the TEI Board or  
> Council, but to all members of the humanities computing community  
> who have an interest in the TEI (which is why they are reading this  
> list) and need to decide the role it should play in their projects  
> and, more narrowly, in their grant applications.
>
> Thanks,
>
> David
>