Creating/Sustaining Your Research Enterprise Stephanie G. Adams, Ph.D. Associate Dean for Undergraduate Studies Virginia Commonwealth University Former NSF Program Officer and Assistant Dean for Research

Said Another way Chasing Money Strategies!!

Some Sources of Research Funding  NSF, NIH, NASA, DOD, DOE, ONR, ARMY, NAVY  State agencies  Private and Public Foundations  Industry, Businesses, and other agencies  NOTE: List yourself with the Community of Science Bulletin

What NSF says about ARRA  NSF portion of ARRA = $3 billion  $2 billion available in Research and Related Activities  for proposals already in house and will be reviewed and/or awarded prior to Sept. 30, 2009  Grants will be standard grants with durations of up to 5 years. Fact Sheet: American Recovery & Reinvestment Act

ARRA Priorities  Funding of new PIs and high-risk, high-return research  CAREER and IGERT awards  Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) Program and an Academic Research Infrastructure (ARI) Program  Proposals declined on or after October 1, Fact Sheet: American Recovery & Reinvestment Act

ARRA Priorities  Science Masters Program  Robert Noyce Scholarship program and the Math and Science Partnership program  NO supplements to existing grants Fact Sheet: American Recovery & Reinvestment Act

Other Options

EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER)  Supports exploratory work in its early stages on untested, but potentially transformative, research ideas or approaches.  Work may be considered especially "high risk-high payoff"  PI(s) must contact the NSF program officer(s) whose expertise is most germane to the proposal topic prior to submission  Requests may be for up to $300K and of up to two years duration

Grants for Rapid Response Research (RAPID)  Used for proposals having a severe urgency with regard to availability of, or access to data, facilities or specialized equipment, including quick-response research on natural or anthropogenic disasters and unanticipated events.  Contact the NSF program officer(s) whose expertise is most germane  Only internal merit review is required  Requests may be for up to $200K and of one year duration

Other NSF EHR  DUE  CCLI, STEP, SSTEM, ATE, Noyce, SFS  REC  REESE, DR-12  DGE  IGERT, GK-12  HRD  Advance, GSE ENG  EFRI  BRIGE, IEECI, RET, REU, NUE CISE  BPC OISE  IRES, PIRE

5 Simple Rules to Obtain Funding 1.Always write an “excellent” proposal 2.Discuss your idea with someone knowledgeable in the subject/funding area 3.Think of your proposal as 5 required sections – ALL of which are important 4.Reviewers are people too 5.Prepare a credible budget Modified from Bevlee Watford

RULE #1 Always write an “excellent” proposal  Read the solicitation and formulate an outline of the proposal, giving them what they ask for  Format the proposal exactly as they tell you to format it  Write simply and professionally  Get at least TWO reviews of the document contents

RULE #2  Discuss your idea with someone knowledgeable in the subject/funding area  Listen to ALL feedback  Trusted experts in the field  Someone who knows nothing about what you are doing  Contact someone at the funding source and get feedback on your idea

How Could a Meeting Help?  Your program director can:  Give advice on proposal submission  Help you understand a review of a previous proposal  Point you to resources you can use to help write a better proposal next time  Give general guidance on good proposal writing  Give you ideas for collaborations Program officers look forward to constructive meetings with PIs

Meeting the Program Officer  Send a short (1-2 pages) white paper prior to the meeting  Be prepared to listen (you don’t learn by talking)  Be prepared with questions or previous reviews  Remember, the program officer is not the panel

RULE #3  Think of your proposal as 5 required sections – ALL of which are important  Goals: This is your great idea  What are you trying to accomplish?  What will be the outcomes?  Rationale: The World needs your stuff  Why do you believe that you have a good idea?  Why is the problem important – who cares?  Why is your approach promising?  What evidence can you provide that this approach will work  What are the potential problems or limitations?

Rule #3 continued  Project Description: Details of exactly what the “stuff“ is and how it will be developed  What are the specific project tasks?  What is the timeline for each task?  Evaluation: Proof that stuff works  How will you manage the project to ensure success  How will you know if you succeed?  Dissemination: Describe “stuff“ using conference papers, journal articles, and web site  How will others find out about your work?  How will you interest them?  How will you excite them?

RULE #4  Prepare a credible budget  It should be consistent with the scope of the project  Each line item should be clearly explained  Each line item should have clearly stated relevance to the research

RULE #5  Reviewers are people too  Identify the target audience for the proposal –who are the reviewers?  Don’t talk down, don’t talk over  Make the proposal easily readable (font, words on a page, length of paragraphs…)

The Reviewer  Make his/her life easier!  Highlight key points  Repeat things you want them to be sure of  tell em what you’re going to say, say it, tell em what you said  Use figures/graphs where they can help make an obscure point understandable  space is limited, but this is worth it!  is in a somewhat related field, not an expert directly in your area;  serves as a reviewer over and above normal job duties;  conducts reviews in “bits-and-pieces” (evenings, weekends, etc.);  doesn’t always read the entire proposal.  A typical reviewer (on a panel) is reading a lot of similar grants in a short amount of time

21 The Reviewer Reviewers have  Many proposals  Ten or more from several areas  Limited time for your proposal  20 minutes for first read  Different experiences in review process  Veterans to novices  Different levels of knowledge in proposal area  Experts to outsiders  Discussions of proposals’ merits at panel meeting  Share expertise and experience

Strengths & Weaknesses Identified by Reviewers  Pretend you analyzed a stack of panel summaries to identify the most commonly cited strengths and weaknesses  List what you think will be  The four most frequently cited strengths  The four most frequently cited weaknesses Predict the results of our analysis

Most Common Strengths

Most Common Weaknesses

Final Thoughts  Look for other applications of your research  Partner with the Medical School

Questions The only dumb/stupid question is an unasked question!!!