Research universities and the federal government partner to foster societal, scientific, and technological advancements, but the federal research grant process is criticized for its procedural inefficiencies. Principal investigators and research administrators lament losing time to bureaucratic regulations, unwieldy processes, and burgeoning…

Emerging Research Institutions (ERIs) are notably one of the most impactful organizations in a state system for addressing social mobility, workforce development, and economic growth of a region. Cultivating research at ERIs often requires the faculty to expand their skill sets beyond basic research to engage students and communities. Faculty…

Measuring the level of institutional capacity for grantsmanship within higher education informs administrators about the needs of their organization and where resources and institutional supports can be implemented to support faculty and staff. Receiving grant funding can lead to implementing cutting-edge programming and research support, which…

Many funding agencies require researchers to include a data management plan with their grant applications explaining how they intend to make the data generated from the research publicly accessible. University administration and campus service providers could potentially leverage the content of data management plans to facilitate compliance and…

Research development in higher education is a service-delivery system. In any service field, when choosing appropriate services, practitioners should reach for 'evidence-based practices.' Limited empirical research has addressed the preferences of research faculty regarding research support services. In this project, we sought to provide research…

Background: The content presents a conceptually powerful and attractive framework for understanding the proposal development process to capture the complexity of the steps that contribute to successful grant writing. Based on experiences from 15 years in research administration and using real-life examples, the author juxtaposes the diverse roles…

Problem Statement: Early-career science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) faculty members are often challenged when identifying authentic diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) goals, objectives, and tasks for their research grant proposals. Advancing DEI has not been one person's job but rather the responsibility of a highly organized…

Much of the literature on grant writing does not explicitly identify the skills needed to be an accomplished grant writer, or how these skills are acquired. This paper reviews literature on grant writing and argues the need to identify key grant writing skills to improve the quality of grant applications. The ability to persuade, to weave a clear…

An award as principal investigator (PI) is an aspiration for many post-PhD researchers. However, we know little of the actual journey from PhD graduation to achieving this goal. Using a qualitative narrative approach, this study explored how eight science, technology, engineering, mathematics and medicine post-PhD researchers (on contracts and…

The national need for higher education research has increased over the years with the growth of societal issues. Funding for this research is often acquired through competitive grant proposals due to the lack of internal funding in most universities. The skills required to write the grant are sometimes lacking and represented in current literature…

Each application to the National Science Foundation (NSF) must contain a Broader Impact (BI) strategy. Similarly, grant applications for most research funders in Canada and the UK require strategies to support the translation of research into impacts on society; however, the guidance provided to researchers is too general to inform the specific…

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) established the Building University Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) initiative to increase engagement and retention of undergraduates from diverse backgrounds in biomedical research. Portland State University, in partnership with ten other academic institutions, received a BUILD award and…

This paper illustrates how a university-based project management office (PMO) can provide focused support across the entire grant project lifecycle within a European research context. In recent years, EU (European Union) research and innovation grant programs have increasingly shifted to support multidisciplinary consortia composed of industry,…

While Elizabeth Barrett Browning counted 25 ways in which she loves her husband in her poem, "How Do I Love Thee? Let me Count the Ways," we identified only eight ways to evaluate the potential for success of a federal research grant proposal. This may be surprising, as it seems upon initial glance of the review criteria used by various…

Academic careers and institutional reputations are closely linked with the ability to secure funding and publish work. In today's competitive environment, it is essential for research to be clearly communicated. In our experience, many researchers need assistance with communication skills, and institutions that offer professional services in…