Grant Chat 5: Development of year-long grant preparation calendars (4/25/2008)

 

Meeting summary: Preparing for a major grant takes considerable time and planning depending upon where you are in the process.  This chat presented materials to help plan a timeline depending on the needs of the proposal.  Resources include example timelines, links to find opportunities, links to find currently supported projects, MURC contacts and tips.

Handouts/Resources: 
Grant Chat-Timeline presentation

Grant preparation time from University of Texas at Arlington

Grant Award search engines:

NSF Awards Search

NIH Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP)

NASA Human Research Program Task Book

NASA Past Solicitations and Selections

USDA - Active NRI Project Reports by Program Name

The Higher Education Policy Commission / WV-EPSCoR offer a Proposal Review Service that will review grant proposals at any stage of their development.  Any discipline can be reviewed; typically this service is offered for federal grants.  They must receive your proposal in plenty of time to review it – at the minimum you must submit proposals to the review group at least 3 weeks before the proposal deadline.        

Research Opportunities:

NASA

NSF

NIH

USDA National Research Initiative (NRI) Information

 

MURC Pre-Award Assistance:

All grants applied for at Marshall are routed through the Marshall University Research Corporation (MURC).

-Alert MURC as soon as possible that you are submitting a grant proposal.  By allowing optimal time, MURC will investigate the funding agency and will look through the proposal guidelines.  This will help to ensure that MU faculty are eligible to apply.

-MURC typically offers two grant writing workshops/seminars per year. 

-MURC offers budget assistance.

-MURC subscribes to the Community of Science Workbench – the COS allows you to plug in key words that are related to your research and it automatically sends you grant announcements. 

Contacts:

-Chris Schlenker – handles the College of Science pre-award needs (696-4307 / Schlenker@marshall.edu).

-Amy Deborde – handled the School of Medicine pre-award needs (696-4845 / adkins387@marshall.edu).

-Jan Morgan – handles social sciences pre-award needs (696-2468 / morgj@marshall.edu).

Additional Tips:

-You should contact the Program Manager/Program Director at the funding agency about your grant proposal. Program Managers/Program Directors want to be contacted.  Also, if you establish rapport with your Program Manager/Program Director, your chances to get funded increases 20-30%. 

-Remember, you can request to see grant proposals from PIs.

-Always have your CV ready – in case a grant opportunity or collaboration might come up.

-Discuss your proposal with other people.  This helps tremendously in clarifying points in your proposal.   

-Collaborations with Community and Technical Colleges can be used as good tools for Outreach.    

-Learn about upload procedures affiliated with your funding agency.

-Submit your proposal 3-4 days early so that you can avoid times of mass overload.