Creating/Sustaining Your Research Enterprise

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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

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Said Another way. . . .
. . . .Chasing Money Strategies!!
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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

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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.

www.nsf.gov Fact Sheet American Recovery
Reinvestment Act
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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, 2008.

www.nsf.gov Fact Sheet American Recovery
Reinvestment Act
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ARRA Priorities

• Science Masters Program
• Robert Noyce Scholarship program and the Math and
  Science Partnership program
• NO supplements to existing grants

www.nsf.gov Fact Sheet American Recovery
Reinvestment Act
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Other Options
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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

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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

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Other Initiatives _at_ NSF

• EHR

• ENG

• DUE
• CCLI, STEP, SSTEM, ATE, Noyce, SFS
• REC
• REESE, DR-12
• DGE
• IGERT, GK-12
• HRD
• Advance, GSE

• EFRI
• BRIGE, IEECI, RET, REU, NUE

CISE

• BPC

OISE

• IRES, PIRE

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5 Simple Rules to Obtain Funding

• Always write an excellent proposal
• Discuss your idea with someone knowledgeable in
  the subject/funding area
• Think of your proposal as 5 required sections
  ALL of which are important
• Reviewers are people too
• Prepare a credible budget

Modified from Bevlee Watford
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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

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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 

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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

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Meeting the Program Officer

• Send a short (1-2 pages) white paper prior to the
  meeting
• Be prepared to listen (you dont learn by
  talking)
• Be prepared with questions or previous reviews
• Remember, the program officer is not the panel

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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?

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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?

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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 

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RULE 5

• Reviewers are people too
• Identify the target audience for the proposal
  who are the reviewers?
• Dont talk down, dont talk over
• Make the proposal easily readable (font, words on
  a page, length of paragraphs) 

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The Reviewer

• A typical reviewer (on a panel) is reading a lot
  of similar grants in a short amount of time

• Make his/her life easier!
• Highlight key points
• Repeat things you want them to be sure of
• tell em what youre 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.)
• doesnt always read the entire proposal.

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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

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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

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Most Common Strengths
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Most Common Weaknesses
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Final Thoughts

• Look for other applications of your research
• Partner with the Medical School

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