Increasing Your Grant
Intelligence
College of Arts and Sciences
November 14, 2016

Overview
• Introductions
• Grant Writing Overview
• OU Resources – Research Division
• Topics of Interest and Discussion
• Upcoming Activities and Initiatives

Quote from the world of sports
Everyone has the will to win.
What makes the difference is who has the will to
prepare to win.

What makes a proposal
competitive?
• The problem
• The approach
• The investigator(s)
• The setting

The Problem
• Connecting with the big picture
• Connecting with the reviewer
Anthropology
Transportation
Economics
International
relations
Psychology
Sociology

The Approach
• Preparing to recognize a good idea
• Break new ground (paradigm pioneer)
• Find your own path

The Investigator
• Explain how you have been preparing for
your whole life for the opportunity to
pursue the proposed project!
• Basically, explain why you are special with
respect to achieving the proposed project
goal
• Are you a good investment as a:
» Young investigator?
» Senior scholar?

The Setting
• I have access to unique/necessary
– Materials
– Equipment
– Colleagues
– Location
– Research participants

General Comments
• Writing a scholarly paper and a proposal is not the
same
• Compete within your league!
• Practice, practice, practice
• Proposal writing is like baseball- no one bats 1000
• Proposal development takes longer than you think
• Cultivate a cadre of critics- remember von
Bekesy!

Research Division
Roxanne Malé-Brune
male-bru@ohio.edu

www.ohio.edu/research
Edison Biotechnology Institute
Industry Partnerships
Innovation Center
Internal Awards
Office for Research and Sponsored Programs
Research Compliance/Laboratory Animal Resources
Research Communications
Technology Transfer

Internal Awards
www.ohio.edu/research/funding.cfm
The university will invest more than $5.5 M in
faculty, staff and student research & creative
activity this year.
Innovation Strategy Air Travel
OURC Baker
Student Enhancement Awards PURF
UG Travel Konneker
Faculty Research Support 1804 Fund

https://leo.research.ohio.edu/
Electronic database of all proposals submitted and
awards received since 1980.
Search by:
Title College
Sponsor Department
Investigator Fiscal Year
Program Type Proposal Status

PIVOT
http://www.cos.com/#/
One of the most comprehensive databases available
for locating funding opportunities and identifying
potential collaborators.
Sources include U.S. federal, U.S. state and local,
private foundations, professional societies and
associations, and international governmental and
private entities.

PIVOT
Log on the 1st
time within the university IP address,
using your ohio.edu email
Then use it anywhere! http://www.cos.com/#/
Search for:
Grants
Fellowships
Internships

Topics of Interest

Writing Tips
• Your idea must be
–Plausible (does it make sense; easy to follow;
sections are well linked)
–Practical (worth investing in)
–Doable (show evidence that you can pull this off; do
not promise too much or be too ambitious)
–Meaningful (for research and/or practice; will results
generalize?)

Writing Tips
• “This has never been done before” is not a sufficient
or compelling rationale
• Show a timeline of the proposed work
• Use figures to efficiently convey your ideas
• If you want the reviewer to read it, put it in the
proposal, not the appendix
• Convince them you have the skills & resources
• Read the most current guidelines/RFA

Specific Aims
• Clarity & Simplicity – do not get too complex;
sometimes simplicity is elegant.
• Background: Tell a story: by the end of the section, the
reviewer should know what the aims are
• Well-linked to measures and analyses
• Once is not enough: state them up front, at the end of
the background section, and again in analyses

Impact
• What is the significance of your proposed work to your
field and society?
• Convey the outcomes in meaningful units
• If you had the findings of your study today,
– How could it change the field?
– How would it impact clinical practice?
– How would it impact teaching/training?

Impact
• NSF has two areas of impact you need to address,
Intellectual Merit and Broader Impacts
• At NSF, your proposal is judged based on these two
criteria. Funded proposals address these two areas in
the Project Abstract, which you can view on the web.

Intellectual Merit
• How important is the proposed activity to advancing knowledge
and understanding within its own field or across different fields?
• How well qualified is the proposer to conduct the project?
• To what extent does the proposed activity explore creative and
original concepts? [WOW Factor, Transformative project]
• How well conceived and organized is the proposed activity?
• Is there sufficient access to necessary resources?

Broader Impacts
• How well does the activity advance discovery and understanding while
promoting teaching, training and learning?
• How well does the proposed activity broaden the participation of
underrepresented groups?
• To what extent will it enhance the infrastructure for research and
education, such as facilities, instrumentation, networks and partnerships?
• Will the results be disseminated broadly to enhance scientific and
technological understanding?
• What may be the benefits of the proposed activity to society?
• Examples and further information provided at:
https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/publications/Broader_Impacts.pdf

Staffing & Team Development
• Co-Investigators and Consultants
– To add expertise; to add mentorship;
– Tech support; statistical analyses
• Single site or multi-site project
– Advantages and disadvantages
– Choose your collaborators carefully
• Project managers
– Hired staff, post-doctoral fellows, graduate students
• Identify roles for each; specify in the budget narrative

Postdoc Mentoring Plans
• Template for NSF Postdoctoral Fellow
Mentoring Plan
• https://www.nsf.gov/eng/iip/sbir/documents/
Sample_Postdoc_Mentoring_Plan.doc

Budget
• Talk with your ORSP pre-award representative
– Communicate budget needs; request spreadsheet
• Personnel
– Academic Salary (course buy-outs)
– Summer Salary
– Benefits
• Equipment
– One-time purchases; maintenance costs

Budget
• Travel (some agencies require high specificity)
– https://www.ohio.edu/finance/procuretopay/procurement/travel
_services_per_diem.cfm
– https://www.ohio.edu/finance/procuretopay/procurement/travel
_services_mileage.cfm
• Materials/Supplies; Postage; Photocopies
• Human Participant Payments
• Indirect costs (on or off campus rates)
• https://www.ohio.edu/research/orsp/IDCAgreement.cfm

Pilot Data/Preliminary Data
• For some proposals: essential to be competitive.
• Internal grants and Research Incentive funds can often be used
to obtain such data (see new Research Enhancement initiative).
• Such data speaks to the feasibility of the project and can
illustrate your qualifications to complete the project.
• One reason a proposal is not funded may be because
insufficient preliminary data are presented to establish project
feasibility.
• Use figures and tables to present your preliminary data clearly
and concisely.
• Pilot data should be well connected to the proposed work.

Data Management
• Template for NSF Data Management Plan. In general, the data
management plan should answer these two questions: 1) What
data are generated by your project? 2) What is your plan for
managing the data?
• Expected Data Formats
• Access to Data and Data Sharing
• Practices and Policies
• Policies for Re-use, Re-distribution of Data
• Archiving of Data
• http://guides.lib.uchicago.edu/datamanagement/datamanageme
ntplans

Data Management
• For confidential/sensitive information:
• Ohio University now supports Research
Electronic Data Capture (REDCap)
• https://www.ohio.edu/redcap/
• HIPAA compliant
• Store consents in separate location than data
• Ensure password protection and encryption of
the master file linking IDs to names

Mentoring/Networking
• Having a colleague read and critique your
proposal has many benefits
• We want to create a culture of peer critique at
Ohio University
• Consider peer consultants in your department,
in another department, or at another university
– Talk to Brian McCarthy or our committee if looking
for relevant peer consultant/s

Responding to Reviews
• Do not get discouraged! Do resubmit! Persist!
• View direct constructive criticism as helpful
• Take a breath – read reviews several times before responding
• Talk to program officers to get perspective
• Have a colleague review your response to confirm response is
reasonable/strong, and not negative in tone
• Do not send it on the day you write it

The Psychology of the Review
• Reviewers are people too!
• Help your advocate help you
• First impressions most important
• Reading to reject
– Derivative ideas (ho-hum)
– Feasible
– Innovation
– Impact

Top 10 List
• Be Persistent!
• Talk to the Program
Officer
• Do not write in
isolation
• Have a good idea
• Convince them you’re
the best person to do
the work

Top 10 List
• Read successful
grants
• Complete all parts of
the application
• Make a strong
argument; sell it!
• Read the current
guidelines
• Be Persistent!

Upcoming Activities
• Part 2: Advanced Grants Workshop
– Spring: Date TBA
– Experts on NSF, DOE, NIH, NEH…
• Research Enhancement Funds
– Incentivize consultation and peer review of
proposals as a mechanism for enhancing successful
grant proposal submissions and fostering a culture
of collaboration within and across departments
– Up to $5,000 per proposal per year

Upcoming Activities
• Research & Scholarship Communities to foster
connections and a culture of collaboration
– Grant writing groups
– Book writing groups
– Book reading/analysis groups
• Input?

Good luck with your proposal writing

Committee Contacts
Sergio Ulloa (ulloa@ohio.edu)
Julie Owens (owensj@ohio.edu)
Allan Showalter (showalte@ohio.edu)
Steve Miner (miner@ohio.edu)