Strategies and Resources for Funding in the Natural Sciences Mark A. Arnold Department of Chemistry & Center for Biocatalysis and Bioprocessing CLAS New Faculty Orientation, 8/19/15

Issues to Consider  Current funding climate  Strategies and resources  Internal proposals  External proposals  Developing a strategic plan

Current Funding Climate – ASME.pptx – ASME.pptx

Current Funding Climate — NIH – ASME.pptx – ASME.pptx

Current Funding Climate Source: Source:

Strategies and Resources (Internal Proposals)  Submit as soon as proposal is viable   funding-initiatives-ifi funding-initiatives-ifi funding-initiatives-ifi  Provides funding for preliminary results  Provides informative feedback  Provides mechanism to crystallize ideas  Clear explanation of significance  Clear description of experimental design  Challenge of explaining to an audience of non- specialists (avoiding jargon)

Strategies and Resources (External Proposals)  Submit as soon as proposal is viable  Until funding is established, don’t let a deadline pass without submitting  Learn what has been funded recently    Note special Requests for Applications (RFA’s)   Look for special opportunities for young investigators  

Developing a Strategic Plan  Preliminary results and manuscripts  Work on building your visibility  Meet program officers at agencies  Conference participation  Meet your competitors  Discover your supporters and detractors  Invite key players in your field to Iowa for a seminar  Develop your research niche  At tenure time, need to have an identifiable research program  Don’t ignore the mission-oriented agencies such as DOE, DOD, NASA  Important to develop contacts at Government labs

 Consider a mix of collaborative and individual work  Collaborative projects can be an important component of a research program  Allows bigger problems to be tackled  Important to be able to demonstrate your own contribution Developing a Strategic Plan