What can grant funding do for you?

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Sarah L. Keller Associate Dean for Research
Activities for the College of Arts and
Sciences University of Washington, Seattle
One of my tasks is to assist groups of AS
faculty who are applying for large,
interdisciplinary grants.
What can grant funding do for you?
Your summer salary Your travel to conferences
or archives Increase your research productivity
and scholarly stature Grad student funding
Postdoc funding Your salary buyout from
teaching Hosting individual speakers at UW
Hosting workshops and conferences at UW
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What can grant funding do for your department?
Attract impressive postdocs and grad
students. Increase your departments funding
because a portion of your grants indirect costs
return to the department that administers the
grant. Raise your departments national profile
as a research unit. Raise your departments
stature within the Provosts Office, which uses
funding as one metric to evaluate departments.
Enable some types of collaborative projects that
would otherwise not go forward.
NOTE The Philosophy Departments last 10-year
review noted special opportunities for funding
in - environmental philosophy -
philosophy of science Other areas that have
relatively strong funding opportunities are
science studies and medical ethics.
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Where might faculty in Philosophy apply for
funding? (Results of a Google search)
National Endowment for the Humanities
www.neh.gov/grants/index.html American
Philosophical Society http//www.amphilsoc.org/gra
nts John Templeton Foundation www.templeton.org
/what-we-fund/grant-search/results/taxonomy3A5
Spencer Foundation (Philosophy in Educational
Policy) www.spencer.org/content.cfm/philosophy-in-
educational-policy-practice
NOTE The Philosophy Departments last 10-year
review noted special opportunities for funding
in - environmental philosophy -
philosophy of science Other areas that have
relatively strong funding opportunities are
science studies and medical ethics.
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Who might fund Philosophy of Science research?

• NSF Science, Technology, and Society (STS)
  program www.nsf.gov/pubs/2012/nsf12509/nsf12509.ht
  m, due Feb. 1, Aug. 1 annually
• STS considers proposals for scientific research
  into the interface between science (including
  engineering) or technology, and society. STS
  researchers use diverse methods including social
  science, historical, and philosophical methods.
  They will produce outcomes that address pertinent
  problems and issues at the interface of science,
  technology and society, such as those having to
  do with practices and assumptions, ethics,
  values, governance, and policy.
• The program especially welcomes proposals that
  focus on
• How ethical issues and values interconnect with
  science and technology, and how norms and values
  institutionalized in science and technology
  engage with society.
• STS provides the following modes of support
• Standard Research Grants and Grants for
  Collaborative Research,
• Scholars Awards and Postdoctoral Fellowships,
• Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement
  Grants,
• Conference and Workshop Support

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Where might you apply to fund Philosophy of
Science and any ethics research related to
sciences? (Slide 2)
NSF Ethics Education in Science and Engineering
(EESE) www.nsf.gov/funding/pgm_summ.jsp?pims_id13
338 Opportunity for exciting curriculum and
program development the primary focus is on
improving ethics education for graduate students
in NSF-funded fields, but the proposed programs
may benefit advanced undergraduates as well.
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Where might you apply to fund bioethics
scholarship?
Gates Foundation www.gatesfoundation.org/grantse
eker/Pages/default.aspx Greenwall Faculty
Scholars Program greenwallfsp.org The Greenwall
Faculty Scholars Program in Bioethics is a career
development award to enable outstanding junior
faculty members to carry out original research
that will help resolve important policy and
clinical dilemmas at the intersection of ethics
and the life sciences. National Institutes of
Health http//grants.nih.gov/grants/oer.htm
National Science Foundation www.nsf.gov/funding/
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
www.rwjf.org/programareas/
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What about foundations? (e.g. Mellon Foundation)
Federal agencies bring in indirect costs, which
is good for your department. You can also
investigate funding from foundations, which are
not likely to bring in indirect costs, but may
still be beneficial to your research.
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Where do you even begin? Start early.
1. Will you apply solo, or with collaborators?
Need a subaward? 2. Make a list of your
deliverables. A manuscript? A conference? A new
course? A policy paper? 3. Write a budget. Have
a fiscal specialist look at it. Link to
instructions and sample budget from Office of
Research www.washington.edu/research/guide
/budget.html Link to UW numbers for indirect cost
rates, tuition, benefits rates
http//collaborate.artsci.washington.edu/sites/dro
pbox/Shared20Documents/Grants20and20Contracts/G
rants20and20Contract20Proposal20Preparation20
Factsheet.htm 4. Write your proposal. Make it
painfully clear what your activities will be in
your work plan. Write for an audience of tired
reviewers who previously read 15 similar
proposals. 5. Get help from colleagues who have
funding. They can read your proposal and help you
navigate the system. 6. Did you miss the
deadline? Try at next cycle (4 mo.)
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Your program officer is a valuable resource.
Call the program officer in charge of awarding
funds at the agency to which you are applying.
Talking to a program officer is very different
from talking to an editor at a journal. The
program officer wants to talk to you about your
good ideas that is his/her job. The better
your proposal turns out to be, the better he/she
looks when explaining how money was spent.
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Why bother writing a grant proposal if the
probability of being funded is not high?
The funding rate for the NSF program that funds
me is 13. I apply many places to land one
grant. I also expect to try, and fail, and
try again. It is worth it for me. You will
get feedback from experts on your work. If you
dont get a grant, then Turn your
proposal around and submit it to the next
round at the same agency, or somewhere
else. You will have done the conceptual
groundwork toward the completion of a
project and publication (This is a
huge advantage of the field of philosophy over
fields in experimental natural
science!)
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Why not write a grant proposal?
I have no time. I have no training in grant
writing I dont know how to write a budget.
Ive never navigated Fastlane/Grants.gov or
UWs SAGE or e-GC1 forms No grant agency would
fund my work. Ill have to find a staff person
who can help me assemble my proposal. Ill
have to find a staff person who can help
compile end-of-year summaries of my spending
for reporting purposes. I dont need grant
funding in order to get tenure.
Same constraints as natural sciences.
Maybe, maybe not.
Maybe, maybe not. I assemble my own.
UWs Grants and Contracts office does this for
you.
Advantage or disadvantage?