In 2004, all national universities in Japan, which had previously been legally subordinate to the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT), became separate National University Corporations. With this change, the importance of securing competitive funding increased significantly, and university researchers have had to…

A system implemented at the University of Wisconsin-Madison's medical school department of microbiology and immunology to track grant proposals before submission is described. Stress associated with proposal deadlines has been drastically reduced. Strategies used include a new submission process, development of an ideal timeline, and use of a…

Large collaborative grant applications, typically involving researchers from varied disciplines and proposing a lengthy work span, can be stressful for researchers and research administrators. The research office of the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston helps plan and develop these complex applications. Resources and services are…

The University of Wisconsin River Falls is a small, primarily undergraduate teaching institution with a limited history of grant support. In 1990 it created an office of grants and research, whose director found writing proposals with faculty to be an effective way to increase external funding. The methods, pitfalls, and results of this approach…