CEPS Roundtable on Research Proposals

On Tuesday UNH CEPS faculty gathered for a roundtable discussion on navigating the process of submitting research proposals to various federal agencies. The event was organized by Janet Campbell, Associate Dean for Research, and it featured eight panelists. Each panelist was charged with saying a few words about successful strategies for getting funding from a particular federal agency. Janet invited me to be a panelist and address proposals to the US DOJ as our Project54 funding comes primarily from this agency.

The event was very interesting as all of the panelists had interesting observations and suggestions. Julie Bryce talked about proposals to NSF. She pointed out that faculty should pay attention to the divisions of undergraduate education (DUE) and of graduate education (DGE). Funding through these divisions is a natural match for folks like us who wear two hats: educator and researcher. Julie also recommended using the customizable NSF email updates which provide information on upcoming solicitations, deadlines, events, etc.

Ben Chandran discussed submitting proposals to NASA. He emphasized that the proposal has to convince the review panel that the problem addressed by the proposal and the proposed approach are valid and important. He pointed out that, while review panels consist of specialists in the general area of the proposal, none of the people on the panel are likely to be specialists in the exact area the proposal addresses. We as proposal writers have to take this into account as we are to convincingly argue for funding.

The final panelist of the roundtable event was Beth Turner, a program manager at NOAA. In addition to providing a slew of practical advice for the aspiring grant recipient, I’m happy to say that she confirmed my suggestion that having a good presence on the web is important - this is a good way to get yourself onto a review panel for example. Beth also talked about the value of poster sessions for networking.

Other panelists participating were Amitava Bhattacharjee who discussed DoE funding, Denny Chasteen, who has a perfect record (!) with NIH funding, Tom Lippmann, who talked about working with ONR and Jo Daniel, who I have to catch up with in order to get her advice on DoT funding.

The event was very well attended (30+) and I certainly enjoyed it a great deal. Thanks Janet for organizing! Also, you can find more pictures from the event on Flickr.

Andrew Kun