New Faculty Lunch Seminar Series: Competitive Grant Writing Strategies for New Investigators - Starts Sept. 18, 2008

Date and Time: Each seminar will be held from noon to 1 pm on Thursday and repeated on Friday. Lunch will be provided.

Location: Seminars will be held in the Jack Williams Administration Building (the stately building with the columns at the end of New Main) in Room 310 (turn right out of the elevator, go through the double doors at the end of the hall; first door on your left.

Registration is required for each seminar at least 2 days prior to that seminar. (Faculty may attend one, two or all seminars, depending on their interest.)

To Register: Send an e-mail to opd@tamu.edu with the title and date of the seminar in the Subject heading, and include your name, department and phone number in the body of the e-mail.

Questions? Call Libby Pasciak at 845-1811 or e-mail at libbyp@tamu.edu

Seminar 1: "How To" Strategies for Finding Research Funding

September 18, 2008 (Thursday); repeated September 19

Overview of types of university research and educational proposals funded by federal agencies; how to begin the process of finding funding opportunities to match your research interests; how to identify agencies that may fund your research; developing funding search skills that allow the researcher to: 1) 1dentify research opportunities that have regular grant cycles within a particular agency; 2) identify new research opportunities and investment directions at funding agencies; 3) expand the base of potential research funding sources; and 4) use funding email alerts and RSS feeds.

Seminar 2: Analyzing the RFP & Its Role in Proposal Development

Overview of the RFP (request for proposal); strategies for analyzing the RFP to enhance proposal competitiveness; role of the RFP in developing the proposal narrative; understanding the RFP as it relates to the research interests of the agency; distilling key information from the RFP needed to write a proposal that is fully responsive to an agency’s research objectives and review criteria; understanding the RFP in its entirety.

Seminar 3: Analyzing the Agency Culture, Mission and Research Priorities

Overview of strategies for analyzing the funding agency’s mission, strategic plans, research culture, investment priorities, and the rationale behind them, in order to weave this background information into a more compelling and competitive proposal narrative; how an understanding of agency-specific knowledge allows you to more convincingly describe how your proposed research is relevant to the research objectives spelled out in the solicitation, which, in turn, will advance the agency’s larger strategic plan; how well you convince reviewers that your research can play a key role in advancing the agency’s objectives, thus contributing to the success of the larger strategic plan, will be a determining factor in the decision whether to fund your proposal; how to differentiate between basic research agencies and mission-focused agencies, as well as to differentiate between hypothesis-driven research and needs- or applications-driven research at the agencies.

Seminar 4: Understanding the Review Process & Writing for Reviewers

Overview of understanding the review process used by various federal funding agencies; strategies for convincing reviewers that your research will play a key role in advancing the funding agency’s research objectives; understanding how the reviewers will evaluate your proposal; and an overview of the core questions program officers and reviewers need answered and how best to address them:

What do you propose to do?

Why it is it important?

Why are you able to do it?

How will you do it?

How does it contri

Seminar 5: Overview of How to Write a Competitive Project Summary and Proposal Narrative

Overview of strategies for writing a compelling project summary and competitive proposal narrative; role of the proposal narrative as an incubator of ideas; characteristics of a competitive proposal narrative:

Synthesizes ideas and detail

Connects ideas to performance details

Develops order, logic, transitions, and connectedness

Helps the timing, logistics, and collaborations of proposal development

Integrates collaborators

Makes ideas accessible to others, and more.