- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
Starting this month, Contracts and Grants will begin featuring a blog series, ANR ADVISE$, aimed at sharing effective grant-writing practices and perspectives across the organization.
This first blog posting highlights advice from Dr. Jeremy James.
Dr. James joined ANR in 2012 as the Director, Sierra Foothill Research & Extension Center (SFREC). In this role, Dr. James has successfully conducted a number of federally funded projects related to rangeland management. We recently inquired with Dr. James to find out how and why he has had such grant writing success.
"In my experience, there are a couple of lessons I have learned around grant writing. Below I outline my top 5 points that seem to be useful to me:
1. No two proposal development processes are the same. Understanding early on everything you can about the program can be really helpful, including why the program exists, what they have recently funded, how the review process is handled, as well as program budgets over the last few years.
2. Just like everything else, relationships are key. Usually calls for proposals have very short time windows giving you almost no time to assemble a team. Having an established network of colleagues that could mobilize quickly around an opportunity can be helpful.
3. Researching potential calls for proposal ahead of time can be useful. Many programs put out a regular annual call for proposals. If you find one that fits your research interests you can began to work on solidifying ideas and collaborations way ahead of the call, sometimes years ahead if preliminary data are required or helpful.
4. Being able to stylize your most important ideas is helpful. Often the research ideas we propose to pursue in a research proposal are not that easy to describe. If you can stylize your idea or main concepts in a sophisticated way it could really help reviewers understand the value of what you hope to do.
5. Remembering it is not about you, it is about them. Here the “them” refers to the funding program and the proposal reviewers. While as researchers we bring the expertise to funding agencies, the proposals are there to address funding agency needs and goals and the panel reviewers help to make sure the agencies are best meeting their goals. Structuring your proposal with this in mind can help connect what you offer to the program."
We greatly appreciate Dr. James sharing these important five points on planning and developing a successful grant proposal.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The University of California, Davis is hosting Interdisciplinary Research Catalyst: Conversations in Community & Citizen Science, a workshop dedicated to a full day of learning, discussion, and networking activities amongst faculty members and researchers, sponsored by the UC Davis Office of Research, Strategic Initiatives Group. The event will take place on Monday, May 7th at the Manetti Shrem Museum.
Confirmed keynote speaker is Dr. Raj Pandya. Pandya is the Program Director of Thriving Earth Exchange, an initiative of the American Geophysical Union, focused on helping volunteer scientists and community leaders work together to use science, and a Founding Board Member of the Citizen Science Association.
Attendees will also learn about funding opportunities, build collaborations, and explore how you can incorporate citizen and community science into your research as a powerful tool for science, outreach, and engagement.
If you are interested in participating in the workshop, you may register to attend as well as receive additional updates about the agenda: https://www.eventbrite.com/e/irc-conversations-in-community-and-citizen-science-tickets-43941303622
Register today as space is limited.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The application window is now open for the 2018 CREDITS Team Science Retreat.
Academics, researchers, and post-doctoral scholars from UC are invited to apply to attend The Center for Research, Excellence and Diversity in Team Science (CREDITS) retreat, to be held September 28-30, 2018 at the UCLA Lake Arrowhead Conference Center in Lake Arrowhead, CA.
Collaborative, interdisciplinary team science-based research has become increasingly central in scientific discovery. Team science garners more funding, and more impactful research and publications. Having a strong network of collaborators and mentors is critical to a productive and successful academic career. CREDITS is an integrated research and training program to increase and enhance Team Science (TS) and collective intelligence capacity, effectiveness, and excellence in California. Diversity on teams is known to have positive effects on creativity, innovation, and productivity. Apart from its contribution to scientific breakthroughs and grand challenge problems, TS has beneficial impacts on individual research careers. Diverse TS projects garner more funding, and yield greater publication productivity, and higher impact publications.
In a small group environment, the CREDITS Team Science Retreat will promote team science competencies and leadership capacity across the campuses of the University of California and Cal State University systems. The three interrelated core activities are: 1) Annual TS Leadership and Team Formation Retreats; 2) TS and Institutional Change Training/Seminar for UC and CSU Administrative Leaders – Provosts, Deans, Chairs, etc.; and 3) Research and Evaluation that will increase our knowledge about TS and diversity and inform CREDITS programming.
Who Should Apply?
- Your research or programmatic interests should be in a Science, Engineering, or Math (STEM) field, including Social Science.
- CREDITS is especially interested in candidates who can contribute to the diversity and excellence of the academic community through research, teaching and service.
DEADLINE to apply is Friday, May 25, 2018 at midnight. If you have questions about your eligibility or application procedures, please contact John Crockett, Senior Director, Research Project Development at San Diego State University, jcrockett@foundation.sdsu.edu, (619) 594-3176.
More information and the link to the application is here: https://oru.research.ucsb.edu/teamscience/
This program is funded by the NSF, the Elsevier Foundation, and the UC Office of the President.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The Ray C. Anderson Foundation seeks proposals for currently existing or new programs that would measurably reduce the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, measured by metric tons (or “tonnes”) of carbon dioxide equivalent (CO2e), either by preventing the emission of those gases or by sequestering gases presently in the atmosphere. The NextGen program will award a single grant of $90,000 to fund work in the 2019 calendar year.
The program will primarily judge proposals on the amount of estimated offset carbon, the quality of the calculations, and the likelihood of success at achieving the estimated carbon reductions. The program will secondarily consider the collateral environmental and social benefits of the project. According to an Ecosystem Marketplace report, the average price per metric ton of CO2e offsets in voluntary markets in 2016 was $3 (though with wide variability ranging from less than $1 to more than $50 per metric ton).
At $3 per metric ton, $90,000 would purchase 30,000 metric tons of CO2e offsets. Proposals should be competitive with or exceed this amount of projected offset carbon. Strong proposals must also demonstrate high-quality estimations of CO2e reductions.
Additional information regarding this opportunity can be found at the program's website, http://www.raycandersonfoundation.org/nextgen-2018-grant-call-for-proposals
Applications are due by June 11, 2018.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
- Author: Kathleen P Nolan
Dear Colleagues,
The National Science Foundation, Innovations at the Nexus of Food, Energy and Water Systems (INFEWS) program is accepting applications with a proposal deadline of 9/26/2018.
The INFEWS program seeks to support research that conceptualizes FEW systems broadly and inclusively, incorporating social and behavioral processes (such as decision making and governance), physical processes (such as built infrastructure and new technologies for more efficient resource utilization), natural processes (such as biogeochemical and hydrologic cycles), biological processes (such as agroecosystem structure and productivity), and cyber-components (such as sensing, networking, computation and visualization for decision-making and assessment). Investigations of these complex systems may produce discoveries that cannot emerge from research on food or energy or water systems alone. It is the synergy among these components in the context of sustainability that will open innovative science and engineering pathways to produce new knowledge, novel technologies, and innovative predictive capabilities.
The overarching goal of the INFEWS program is to catalyze well-integrated, convergent research to transform understanding of the FEW Nexus as integrated social, engineering, physical, and natural systems in order to improve system function and management, address system stress, increase resilience, and ensure sustainability. The NSF INFEWS activity is designed specifically to attain the following goals:
1. Significantly advance our understanding of the food-energy-water system of systems through quantitative, predictive and computational modeling, including support for relevant cyberinfrastructure;
2. Develop real-time, cyber-enabled interfaces that improve understanding of the behavior of FEW systems and increase decision support capability;
3. Enable research that will lead to innovative and integrated social, engineering, physical, and natural systems solutions to critical FEW systems problems;
4. Grow the scientific workforce capable of studying and managing the FEW system of systems, through education and other professional development opportunities.
INFEWS NETWORKING/ INFORMATION SESSION:If you are interested in learning more about this program, you are already planning to apply, or are looking for proposal partners and collaborators, we are inviting you to join us for an Information Session on Friday, May 11th. The session will be hosted by the UC Davis, Office of Research in Room 129 Office of Research, located at 1850 Research Park Drive.
We will be joined via remote conferencing by program officers from NSF and USDA/NIFA:
- Rachel Melnick, National Program Leader, USDA/NIFA
- Brandi Schottel, Associate Program Director, NSF
Lunch will be provided. Please register for the information session here: https://ucdinfewsinfo.eventbrite.com
Additional information regarding this funding opportunity can be found at the program's website, https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2018/nsf18545/nsf18545.pdf
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)
