Small Grant Workshop: Grant Writing Capability Enhancement
A workshop on small grant opportunities was held on January 5, 2007, in the Memorial Student Center at Marshall University. This event was sponsored by the Marshall ADVANCE Program, the Office of the Vice President for Academic Affairs, and the Marshall University Research Corporation. The focus of the workshop was to introduce faculty to funding opportunities from the NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium and the WV EPSCoR program. The goal was to provide valuable direction in the practice of grant preparation and writing in order to clarify the overall process.
Dr. Majid Jaraiedi, the Director of the NASA West Virginia Space Grant Consortium and NASA WV EPSCoR, presented an overview of the programs’ many funding opportunities for research infrastructure improvement, education, and public extension and outreach. Dr. Jan R. Taylor, Senior Research Fellow and Deputy Program Director at WV EPSCoR, presented an overview of WV EPSCoR’s mini-grant and international innovations grants programs. Additional funding opportunities that were discussed included small grants from the WV Department of Natural Resources.
Panel members Chuck Somerville (Biological Sciences), Eric Blough (Biological Sciences), Anita Walz (Geography), Rudolph Burcl (Chemistry), Tom Pauley (Biological Sciences), and Ron Schelling (Moderator, MURC) discussed their experiences preparing small grant proposals. They provided insight regarding pitfalls, general good advice for new grant writers, and grant-preparation resources available at Marshall.
The grant writing discussion included an overview of the in-house routing requirements, a checklist of grant-proposal preparation, and a demonstration of a group peer-review that is a useful aid during the writing process. For this presentation, an interdisciplinary group of faculty representing Marshall University Faculty Writing Groups discussed the elements of their strategy, then demonstrated the process by reviewing the a small portion of an actual grant proposal.
Faculty interested in more information about this workshop or small grants opportunities should contact either Marcia Harrison, Biological Sciences, Marshall University, at (304) 696-4867 or harrison@marshall.edu; or Ron Schelling, Marshall University Research Corporation,at (304) 696-6249 or schellin@marshall.edu.
