Category Archives: Grants

Spring Grants and Peer Review

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It’s been a quiet month on the blog, but April is an important month at CSUPERB so we need to celebrate!

We announced the CSUPERB “major grant” awards and the Presidents’ Commission Scholars this week.  The Faculty-Student Collaborative Research Grants and the Presidents’ Commission Scholars are two of the most popular CSUPERB programs, as gauged by campus participation. So our normally quiet office enjoyed the email buzz from students, PIs, chairs and deans this week!

Campus participation defined by applications received from each campus to CSUPERB grant program, award program or as symposium registration. Data shown for AY06/07 – AY12/13.

Campus participation defined by applications received from each campus to CSUPERB grant program, award program or as symposium registration. Data shown for AY06/07 – AY12/13.

CSUPERB made 36 grant awards totaling $574,685 to CSU faculty at 17 CSU universities. Awards were made as part of four competitive CSUPERB grant programs: New Investigator, Research Development, Entrepreneurial Joint Venture and Programmatic Development. Faculty review panels evaluated 95 proposals from principal investigators (PIs) at 19 different CSU campuses. Averaged across the four programs, awards were made to 38% of the proposals received.

I use the scare quotes around “major grants” because these are the largest awards CSUPERB makes, but they are all seed grants that pay out $15,000 – 25,000 spent over 18 months.  The aim of these programs is to support preliminary work that can lead to follow-on funding from external agencies and organizations.  These follow-on grants support collaborative faculty-student research, innovative educational programs, and knowledge and technology transfer.  The reality of biotechnology-related scholarship is that significant funds (>$15k/year) are needed to support research programs.  Students gain deep learning opportunities working with PIs or participating in courses that are built on faculty scholarship.  As a consequence grant-getting is fundamental to biotechnology education and research.  We wish all our new PIs the best of luck in the lab, field and clinic!

Sixteen undergraduate researchers, the 2013 Presidents’ Commission Scholars, will be carrying out faculty‐mentored biotechnology research projects on 12 different CSU campuses this summer.  CSUPERB provides $8000 to support these summer research projects. This year’s request for proposals invited applications from CSU students early in their academic career.  The majority of applications were still from students in or starting their junior (3rd) year, but the selection committee funded freshman and sophomores as well.  Jaimey Homen, a chemistry student finishing her first year at Sonoma State University, will be working with Dr. Carmen Works to characterize photochemically activated molecules.  The group’s long-term goal is to engineer molecules that deliver carbon monoxide (CO) to specifically protect certain biological tissues. For context, CO has been shown previously to improve organ transplant survival rates.  Ms. Homen became interested in undergraduate research opportunities and met Dr. Works by participating in SSU’s Freshman Learning Community.  We hope Ms. Homen and the other 2013 Scholars have a wonderful summer!

CSUPERB’s peer review process starts in February when proposals are received.  This spring 57 faculty from 20 CSU campuses worked on six different proposal review panels.  The major grants were reviewed at meetings April 13-14 in San Jose; four different panels discussed and evaluated proposals that weekend.  The travel grants and Presidents’ Commission Scholar applications are reviewed by panels working on the internet and by teleconference.  Overall our faculty reviewers do a great job selecting promising research projects to fund.  For every major grant dollar awarded by CSUPERB between 2004 and 2010, PIs went on to win $14 (a 1400% fiscal “return on investment”) in grants from external organizations.  This, of course, is a direct credit to the excellent and competitive faculty scholars at work in the CSU.

We celebrate and justify our grant programs by pointing to the fiscal return-on-investment, but we also monitor student impact and knowledge transfer (publications, collaborations).  But any measure of peer review “success” must come with an acceptance of failure as well.  Not all the engineered strains survive, not all the experiments work, not all the hypotheses pan out.  Not all the PIs write well-crafted follow-on grant proposals, not all the research collaborations hold together, not all the innovative ideas find a good fit at a funding agency or an angel investing group.  Some ideas are ahead of their time, some skate too close to the bleeding edge, some are out of step with prevailing opinions. We teach our students and assistant professors that their success will depend on their ability to shake off failure and move on to write the next draft, design the next experiment, or repeat the test until it’s significant.  Some of those successes will come within the year, but scientific triumphs often take longer than we expect or come later in a career than hoped.

Expert scientists, engineers and clinicians are familiar and comfortable with these truths. None of us can predict the research projects that will work or have the greatest impact on society. But if we don’t talk about the failures inherent in scientific research and development, unintended and “disastrous”* consequences result.

Scientific peer review came under increased congressional scrutiny this week.**  Rep. Lamar Smith challenged the National Science Foundation (NSF) peer review processes and proposed new review criteria.   Rep. Smith went on to request access to the “scientific/technical reviews and Program Officers Review Analysis” for five specific NSF grants.  Yesterday President Obama defended scientific peer review during a talk at the National Academy of Science, stating, “I will keep working to make sure that our scientific research does not fall victim to political maneuvers or agendas that in some ways would impact on the integrity of the scientific process.”

Faculty reviewers and PIs probably don’t think often enough on the integrity underlying our peer review systems.  More often we grumble about nit-picking reviewers, the lack of high-risk, high-impact ideas, program officers’ insistence on well-written, on-time reviews, and the dearth of funds needed to support biotechnology innovation.  But if we sit back and ponder the implications of Rep. Smith’s requests to NSF, we suddenly see the wonder and power of our grass-roots, peer-driven national science agenda.  This is a process that serves to select the best science as-we-see-it, to plant the seeds of new technologies and therapies, and to train generations of the nation’s best-and-brightest scientists, engineers and clinicians.  The U.S. peer review systems underlying our research and development enterprise aren’t always pretty or perfect or innovative, but like our democracy, they’re highly regarded worldwide despite inherent incrementalism and consensus-building.  The corollary is that the aggregate outcome of peer review is the aggregate outcome*** of our nation’s research enterprise that remains envied worldwide.

Can we improve the system? Sure.  Even at CSUPERB we evaluate our programs, iterate our processes, and tune the strategic intent of our grant programs.  We do that with significant input from the expert science and engineering faculty involved with the program. We adjust to the budgets supplied by the taxpayers via the California legislature and the governor.  We keep our eyes on how biotechnology is defined by the external life science community. But – as of yet – we have not had to change how and what biotechnology research we fund in response to political pressure of any kind.

I understand the politicians in Washington, D.C. hold the purse-strings, but I sincerely hope political committees will not dictate how and what American science is done going forward.  To go that unscientific and undemocratic route would, indeed, be disastrous to our research and development enterprise.

 

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* Characterization attributed to Bruce Alberts at Nature Blogs.

**The blogosphere is just getting heated up about this political power-grab of peer review, but some good context is provided by Derek Lowe and The AmericanScience bloggers. 

***U.S. research outcomes can be reported many different ways, for example, see NSF’s measures and outcomes and Ben Bernanke’s take.

Habits of Mind That Drive Science

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We are all now familiar with the widely-spread story that the 2012 Nobel Laureate in Medicine or Physiology, Sir John Gurdon, was not encouraged early in his (inauspicious) academic career.  His high school biology teacher wrote, “If he can’t learn simple biological facts he would have no chance of doing the work of a specialist, and it would be a sheer waste of time, both on his part and of those who would have to teach him.”

In higher education we have structured layers of opportunity (introductory courses, minor and major degrees, postbaccalaureate courses) to acquire increasingly higher levels of disciplinary knowledge and skills.  We hope to send non-science majors into society knowing how to ask and answer scientific questions.*  We hope our undergraduate science majors have opportunities to engage in the practice of science and learn facts and habits needed to become professional scientists.

The opportunity to climb these disciplinary layers is typically based on academic achievement.  Grades in prerequisites (like Sir Gurdon’s high school biology) and “gateway” introductory courses are the keys to further advancement.  As Jo Handelsman and coauthors wrote in their important article on “Scientific Teaching” back in 2004, “the majority of life sciences courses rely on ‘transmission-of-information’ lectures and ‘cookbook’ laboratory exercises techniques that are not highly effective in fostering conceptual understanding or scientific reasoning.”  Shouldn’t we focus instead on those learning outcomes?** Should opportunities to practice science be granted only to students who get great grades or have more seniority?

So how did Sir Gurdon end up a Nobel laureate (surely the pinnacle of disciplinary layers!)? He immersed himself in the practice of science when given the opportunity (by mistake!).  Like many of us scientists and engineers, he probably didn’t gain inspiration or learn well from lectures and cookbooks. We know he joined a genetics research group and – as they say – the rest is history.

There is a wealth of research and evidence*** showing “that supplementing or replacing lectures with active-learning strategies and engaging students in discovery and scientific process improves learning and knowledge retention.”   Handlesman and coauthors go on to write, ”Active participation in lectures and discovery-based laboratories helps students develop the habits of mind that drive science.”

Here we are nearly a decade later and NSF, NIH and HHMI are still waiting to see wide-spread adoption of these research- and evidence-based practices in undergraduate life science education. This week John Wingfield (the assistant director of NSF’s BIO division) wrote on the PULSE community forum, “There is much interest across the National Science Foundation (NSF) in coming up with ways by which we could raise the bar for service courses in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM). Freshmen and sophomores sometimes endure these courses often taught by different faculty resulting in a lack of consistency. Yet, if these courses really inspired students and gave them a glimpse of the amazing breadth of STEM, then it could transform those preparative years leading to intro courses for their majors and upper division courses.”

This summer I heard NSF program officers encourage PIs to figure out ways to incorporate their research into undergraduate courses…so that they will be competitive for future research funding!  Over the last handful of years CSUPERB has funded CSU researchers (who, of course are also wonderful educators) to bring their scientific passion into the classroom.  These seed grants have transformed introductory courses into interdisciplinary explorations**** of the Sacramento river delta, coastal environments and bacterial communities.  The learning outcomes and impact on student engagement are encouraging and remarkable in many ways (increased student retention, student interest in science majors, student interest in undergraduate research opportunities, etc.).  We’ve organized a “Scientific Teaching” workshop at this year’s symposium to get us all talking about engaging students in life science courses.  Koni Stone (CSU Stanislaus), Wayne Tikkanen (CSU Los Angeles), Anya Goodman & Alex Dekhtyar (Cal Poly San Luis Obispo) will present some of their forays into scientific teaching.

We released this year’s Programmatic Grants RFP in October (proposals due Feb. 4, 2013).  We’re looking to fund “innovative general education courses, laboratories, and first-year experiences, as well as revisions to lower-level or introductory biotechnology-related courses.”  I encourage biotechnology researchers to take a second look at this “educational grant” opportunity.  Perhaps the work it seeds will set you up for success in your next research grant renewal!  Importantly we hope you go on to inspire and involve a future Nobel laureate or two!

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* The recent press (here and here) provides plenty of evidence that today’s society needs the ability to think analytically!
**Apologies for the higher ed jargon – I tried to outline undergraduate science degree learning outcomes in the second paragraph above.
***We just restructured the “faculty” pages at the CSUPERB website  - check it out if you’re looking for information on life science industry partnering and undergraduate education and research.

****One grant even partnered scientists with dance choreographers (the world premiere will be at this year’s symposium).

 

Program Update: Howell Scholars and Travel Grant Proposals Under Review

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Those familiar with CSUPERB usually think of the fall as planning time for the annual CSU Biotechnology Symposium.  In fact, we also have three grant programs with proposals under review with award decisions expected in early December.  They are the Howell-CSUPERB Research Scholar Awards, the fall Faculty Travel Grants and the fall Student Travel Grants.

This is the thirteenth year of CSUPERB’s partnership with the Doris A. Howell Foundation for Women’s Health Research in both reviewing and funding this undergraduate grant program. We announced the 2013 RFP in late August and by the October 10th deadline received 27 proposals from 12 of the 23 CSU campuses.  While this is down 16% from last year’s submissions, we are still in line with our seven-year running average of 26 proposals from 12 campuses (AY06/07 thru AY12/13).  As an undergraduate-only award, we received proposals from 6 juniors and 21 seniors.  There were no proposals submitted by freshmen or sophomores.  In the first half of December, CSUPERB expects to fund eleven $3,500 Howell Scholars grants, resulting in a 41% award rate.  This aligns with the program’s seven year average 44% award rate.

The CSUPERB Travel Grant Program consists of both faculty and student programs. We have two funding rounds each academic year; the first in the fall and the second in the spring.  For the fall 2012 round, we received 57 proposals from 16 CSU campuses.  Since the 2006/2007 academic year an average of 55 proposals from 14 campuses were received in the fall round and 64 proposals from 16 campuses in the spring. Interest by academic discipline this round tilted towards the biological sciences with 67% of the proposals submitted.  Other categories totaled 26% from chemistry/biochemistry, 4% from engineering and 4% from physics.

Fall 2012 travel award decisions will be announced in early December.  Spring 2013 travel grant RFPs will be released this coming February. CSU tenure/tenure-track faculty and full-time CSU students in good standing who wish to submit a proposal should watch the CSUPERB home page for the RFP announcement.  The 2013 spring travel grant proposal submission deadline is March 11, 2013 at 5:00 p.m. pacific time.

Happy Thanksgiving and safe travels to everyone hitting the road as part of their holiday weekend!

Vision and Change Leadership Fellow Applications – Due July 9

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The National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Howard Hughes Medical Institute (HHMI) have banded together to fund 40 “Vision and Change (V&C) Leadership” Fellows this year.  I think CSUPERB-affiliated faculty and deans are highly qualified to apply and I hope one or more of them win a voice at the V&C table.

NIH, NSF and HHMI are collaboratively funding PULSE, an acronym for “Partnership for Undergraduate Life Science Education.” PULSE wants to “convene a group of 40 Vision and Change (V&C) Leadership Fellows. The V&C Fellows* will be thoughtful chairs, former chairs, deans or equivalent level faculty members who share a passion for undergraduate biology education, concern for its future, and the desire to act at the local and national levels. Fellows will participate in an exciting year-long facilitated process to identify solutions and prototype change. These outcomes will inform future investments by NSF, NIH and HHMI.”

It is that last italicized sentence (emphasis mine) that should catch your interest.  The possibility that these funding agencies and organizations might put (more) resources into undergraduate life science education is a very good thing, indeed.  Public, comprehensive, regional universities like the CSU are facing tremendous budgetary headwinds these days.  Even as policy makers strive to cut student costs by subsidizing tuition and providing low-cost loans, the campuses themselves face crippling budget cuts.  Any and all support for life sciences curriculum modernization, reform or re-design is welcome. Any investment in CSU students’ success on campus is welcome.

Public, comprehensive, regional universities, like the 23 CSU campuses, educate a large proportion of the life science undergraduates across the U.S.  The CSU educates 44% of the life science graduates in California.  After graduation many go on to graduate school, medical school, postdocs and faculty positions where they do compete successfully for NIH, NSF and HHMI funding (and jobs!).  That said, the NIH and NSF spend the majority of their training funds on post-baccalaureate education.** HHMI focuses science education funding on “research universities” and “leading researchers,” but also a select list of “undergraduate-focused colleges and universities.” The Committee for Economic Development recently advocated for greater support of regional comprehensive universities to answer the national call for more STEM graduates.  I sincerely hope a thoughtful, informed*** CSU faculty member is selected as a V&C Leadership Fellow to represent the “44% perspective” on undergraduate life science education.  Based on the cadre of CSUPERB faculty already involved in PKAL, CUR, HHMI, NSF and NIH supported activities, I am certain we have knowlegeable and eligible candidates!

 

* What will a V&C Fellow do or be?  The PULSE website includes an FAQ that outlines about  200 hours of service and activities over the year-long fellowship. Good luck, applicants!

**You’ve read it here before, but remember 80% of professionals working in the life science industry have bachelor’s or master’s degrees.  NIH and NSF focus on training future researchers (not patent lawyers, business development professionals or project managers), but I think the emphasis on training doctoral level researchers is still out of sync with the current academic and industrial job market.  

*** The American Institute of Biological Sciences (AIBS) is hosting the Fellows competition.  AIBS is home to the Introductory Biology Project.  V&C Fellow applicants can hone their familiarity with authentic and participatory learning and learning research by checking out some of the literature at the CSUPERB website (including the 2011 Vision and Change in Undergraduate Biology Education report).

26 CSUPERB Travel Grants Announced

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Closing out the grant season here at CSUPERB, we’ve announced 26 travel grants to CSU students and faculty at 11 CSU universities.  The announcement listing all Student Travel Awards and Faculty Travel Awards is linked here.

As I discussed earlier in the spring, the application rates for these two programs exceeded all expectations.  Based on one round of data we can’t infer any kind of trend or point to any particular reason that we received so many travel grant proposals this spring.  Meanwhile I give credit to the FCG for effectively getting the word out on each campus about the opportunity.  This year we received proposals from 19 of the 23 CSU campuses.

The Faculty and Student Travel Grants can be used to travel to a biotechnology-related professional meeting or workshop. As a result CSU students and faculty are traveling to conferences across the U.S., Canada and even Denmark and China to present research findings and network with their scientific, engineering and math colleagues.

Two years ago we opened the program to CSU students and faculty who might need to travel to collect data or use specialized instrumentation.  This aspect of the travel grant program is still underused, in my opinion.  This summer Darragh Clancy, a San Francisco State University graduate student, will travel to the Bamfield Marine Sciences Centre in British Columbia.  She’ll use the Centre as a base from which to collect samples of Didemnum vexillum, a marine nuisance species. She’ll return to SFSU’s Romberg Tiburon Center for Environmental Studies and use genetic tools to study marine invasion dynamics and, perhaps, to “discover the sources and vectors bringing these unwanted new species to Alaska.”  Genetic methods are changing environmental management; Ms. Clancy and her advisor, Dr. Sarah Cohen, are working at the forefront of this rapidly changing field.  What a cool use of CSUPERB travel funds!

Safe travels to all and I can’t wait to read the final reports!

CSUPERB’s 2012 Major Grant Awards Announced

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Emails have gone out to all the applicants who submitted proposals in response to CSUPERB’s “major” grant programs this spring.  These grant awards seed biotechnology research projects and curriculum development across the CSU.  The New Investigator and Research Development grants ($15,000) support faculty-student research projects.  We hope the preliminary data collection funded by these grants will help teams win (more) follow-on funding from other funding agencies.  The Joint Venture grants support joint projects between CSU faculty and an external partner(s).  Again, we hope these seed grants ($25,000, matched by partners) set these teams up for success. They are developing biotechnology product ideas, including tests to detect breast cancers and assistive technologies for veterans.  The Programmatic grants ($15,000) support the development of new, innovative courses designed to engage students in basic research, community-based research or service learning projects.

This spring we’re making awards totaling $570,000 to 35 faculty members on 15 CSU campuses state-wide. The list of 2012 award winners is linked here (.pdf).

We will send written reviews out to all applicants in the next day or two.  We sincerely hope the reviews offer helpful guidance and constructive ideas for improving proposals, even if applicants did not win awards this round.  The review committees take the process seriously.  70% of the reviewers have served on study sections at federal agencies so they have seen what kind of proposals are successful at that level as well.

Stay tuned – we’ll announce the Spring Travel Awards soon!

2012 Presidents’ Commission Scholars Announced

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For the last couple of weeks the number one search term here at the CSUPERB blog has been “presidents commission scholars.”  We’ve also fielded calls from anxious and curious student and faculty applicants.   Yesterday award letters went out to 25 undergraduate researchers at 13 different CSU campuses.

The Presidents’ Commission Scholars will work with faculty mentors  and other student researchers this summer. The diversity of projects is fascinating. Students will explore infectious disease mechanisms, plant development, blue biotechnology, molecular diagnostic development, medical device design, and biofuel production.  The FCG has been particularly interested in building capacity system-wide for biofuels-related research; four of the Presidents’ Commission Scholars have biofuels projects queued up for the summer.

CSUPERB recognized that 98% of the undergraduates we funded last year were third and fourth year undergraduates.  Lopatto* and others have collected data indicating that students make the “greatest intellectual gains” if they get involved in faculty-mentored research projects early in their academic careers.  So we opened the Presidents’ Commission Scholars program to 1st, 2nd and 3rd year undergraduates.  In the proposals faculty mentors described a variety of clever recruiting strategies, including 10 minute recruiting pitches at the beginning of introductory chemistry and biology lectures.  As a result we’ve funded two freshmen and 11 sophomore researchers this summer. Eight of the scholars have not set foot in a research laboratory or worked with a research team before.  We sincerely hope these summer projects open doors, hone interests, build teams and inspire all involved.

 

*Lopatto, David. 2009. Science in Solution: the Impact of Undergraduate Research on Student Learning. Tucson, AZ: Research Corporation for Science Advancement.

Program Notes: Grant Programs and Strategic Plan

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I’m back after a vacation and there is a backlog of program news to report out!

In mid-March CSUPERB student and faculty Travel Grant and Presidents’ Commission Scholar proposals were due.  The application rates for these three programs exceeded all expectations.*  We received 88 travel grant proposals (~30% higher number of applications compared to any previous round).  We received 67 Presidents’ Commission Scholar proposals from 18 campuses, doubling the typical application numbers and campus participation in the Howell Scholars program, for comparison.  I think these numbers suggest we’re addressing an unmet, system-wide need with this new summer research program.  The down-side to this news, of course, is that the success rates ( or, “win rates”) might be lower than hoped for** this spring because our budget won’t stretch that much further.  Our goal is to partner with companies and national labs to expand the number of summer research opportunities in 2013.

That last point leads to the news that CSU Chancellor Reed approved the 2012-2015 CSUPERB Strategic Plan!  A link to the plan (*pdf) is here; the executive summary in slide deck format (*pdf) is here.

This new strategic plan puts an increased emphasis on partnering with companies, research institutions and national labs (= the “life science industry”) to increase CSUPERB’s impact. Between 2009-2012 we worked on being ”industry-responsive,” for instance, by developing new curriculum addressing workforce needs.  But we realize there is a greater need for student research opportunities than our biotechnology faculty labs can accommodate (the applications received for the Presidents’ Commission Scholars program are the “tip of the iceberg,” in my opinion). Going forward we would like to build on our industry relationships to form long-lasting partnerships to improve student learning and open new career opportunities.

The new plan also puts an increased emphasis on entrepreneurial education.  As part of the strategic planning process we surveyed the FCG, CSUPERB PIs and student award winners.  This survey, along with survey responses after previous CSU Biotechnology Symposia, revealed a desire among faculty and students to understand life science entrepreneurship better.  We aren’t aiming to start-up new companies, but we are aiming to build a more entrepreneurial culture across the CSU biotechnology community.  In simple terms this might be reflected in meaningful exchanges and partnerships between chemistry and biology faculty and students and their engineering and business*** colleagues. To get started we are expanding the I2P® Early-Stage Biotechnology Commercialization Challenge system-wide this year in hopes that interested faculty and students can get involved and learn about biotechnology commercialization.  While technology transfer and regional economic development are topics that higher education administrators and policy wonks think about,  CSUPERB’s new emphasis on entrepreneurial education is a result of increased faculty and student “grass roots” interest.

CSUPERB has crafted an ambitious agenda on limited resources and in the face of decreasing support for higher education in California.  It is clear the program’s leadership remains stubbornly optimistic, authentically student-centered and full of good will.  It seems certain to me that we will continue to do good for California and its students despite our challenges.

Notes:

*Another outcome associated with these remarkable application rates:  we used almost every volunteer in our spring pool of potential reviewers, suggesting we need to expand our reviewer pool yet again in coming years!

**All CSUPERB grant programs have had 25-35% success rates the past three years. The The FCG recommends that success rates [ = (# awards made) / (# applications received)] remain similar across all programs.  Their recommendation and an analysis of success rates each year drives our yearly budgeting process.

***…and their clinical, math and computer science colleagues as well!

Program Notes: Major Grant Deadline & Presidents’ Commission Scholars RFP

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CSUPERB grant proposals were due yesterday evening.  It is the yearly deadline for the “major” (> $15,000) CSU faculty grant programs: New Investigator, Research Development, Programmatic and Entrepreneurial Joint Venture.  Again this year we received more than 100 proposals across the four programs, meaning we expect ~25-35% success, or “win,” rates. It looks like we received proposals from 19 of the 23 CSU universities this year.  Good luck to all the faculty applicants!  Heads up to all the potential reviewers systemwide…the program office will be in touch soon!

After the virtual dust settled this morning, we issued our first Request for Proposals to the new Presidents’ Commission Scholars Program.  Thanks to financial support from the CSU Chancellor’s Office and inspiration from the CSUPERB Presidents’ Commission, we’d like to double the number of undergraduate CSU students we support to work on biotechnology-related research projects during the summer. CSUPERB pays many student researchers – undergrads and grads – as part of our major grants programs (see above). We support others during the academic year as part of the Howell-CSUPERB Scholars program. Based on our own research and others* nationwide, we know that undergraduate research experiences are a “high impact” practice.  Translating the higher education jargon, this means that students who are lucky enough to work as part of a laboratory-, clinic-, field- or community-based research team are more likely to persist in their STEM degree programs.**  We don’t like depending only on luck here at CSUPERB. We’d like to incentivize students by offering full-time summer research opportunities and incentivize faculty mentors with some funds to cover supply, equipment and travel expenses.  CSU students can work with faculty mentors on any CSU campus. This summer we are particularly interested in funding students who are early in their academic career, who are interested in biofuels and/or who have not yet had a full-time research experience.

Spread the word to CSU undergrads!  A long, long time ago in Virginia, someone looked past my GPA and pointed me to a paid summer research opportunity in my home town.  It changed my life (and my GPA) for the better.

Notes:

* We collect data-rich papers articulating the need for high impact practices in STEM education for grant, article and letter-to-the-editor writers at the CSUPERB Faculty Resource page (scroll about halfway down the page).

**They are also more likely to get better grades in intermediate level courses, are much more likely to graduate, and are more likely to go to graduate school or find employment related to their degree or research project.  Research experiences correlate with success in graduate school and on the job, so admissions officers and life science industry employers look for research experience on applications and resumes!

Grant Proposal Season

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CSUPERB proposals to most of our major grant programs are due Feb. 6.  James and I are getting increasing numbers of phone calls and emails from applicants.  The callers and emailers are savvy proposal writers.  It is amazing how well a quick email or call can focus writers on the correct review and eligibility criteria.

Since I don’t sit on the CSUPERB review panels, I’m also happy to read proposals or comment on ideas.  The best thing proposals writers can do is to ask a colleague for a quick read.   But your reader must keep in mind the granting agency’s review criteria – it is never simply scientific/technical excellence!

One filter I use when reading proposals is to scan abstracts for acronyms, jargon and the word “utilize.”*  Those are hints that the writer is doing a deep dive into technical details before explaining the importance of his/her work.  Principal Investigators (PIs) are technical experts, but they must also be teachers or storytellers when writing proposals!  This is probably one of the most difficult things to teach proposal-writing scientists, clinicians and engineers. Researchers want to believe their excellent, innovative science, math or technology will carry the proposal over the funding line.  They become uncertain and befuddled when confronted with a virtual “so what?” from a reader, reviewer or funder.**

This week the National Science Board (NSB) issued a new report on the National Science Foundations (NSF) merit review criteria.  Since 1997 NSF grant proposals are reviewed on two criteria: intellectual merit and broader impact. It is that second criteria that continues to confuse PIs, peer reviewers, NSF administrators and legislative committees. In short, the broader impact criteria asks PIs to describe how their research project might advance societal goals (the “so what?”).

The NSB decided the two criteria are still appropriate, with some Congressional pressure (the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act).   In this report the NSB tries to describe how broader impact might be assessed, given individual grant budgets ‘are what they are.’ For instance PIs can’t be expected to predict and alleviate the effects of sea level rise on $300,000 budgets.  The NSB suggests that broader impacts might be best assessed by NSF at a “higher, more aggregated, level.”

This is a good development, I think, for PIs and peer reviewers.***  Proposal writers won’t feel like they need to (over)promise that their research will eradicate bark beetles, save the pinon trees and inspire thousands of elementary school-level environmental scientists. However, PIs must still address the broader impact review criteria.  This is best done by realistically assessing how a research project addresses a societal need and how research results are communicated to a broader community.

Bear with me while I try and demonstrate (scientists: ignore the details + general readers: try to ignore the jargon!). Avoid sentences like, “by understanding the fundamental principles underlying protein-DNA interactions, we can develop new drugs to treat cancer.”**** Good reviewers will shake their heads tsk-tsking. New cancer therapeutics will not result from $300,000 of basic research even if all your experiments work.  Instead, it’s OK to write, “by understanding the fundamental principles underlying MyFavoriteProtein-TargetDNA interactions, we can begin to design and engineer new molecules that interfere with binding and MyFavoriteMetabolicPathway. These designer molecules will provide a scaffold on which to develop innovative tools for cancer research and, perhaps, lead to the discovery of new classes of therapeutic compounds.” You’ll gain even greater credibility if you propose sharing your designer molecules with the research community and, perhaps, over the longer term license them out to a company who can mass produce them and/or design and carry out clinical trials.  Meanwhile, you’ve set expectations properly and no elected representatives will accuse NSF of funding bad science since it has not (yet) produced a cure for cancer.

Bottom line – you need to convince your readers they care about your research. Don’t assume they have the expertise to “get it;” don’t assume funding agencies will fund the “most excellent” science or technology.  Spend time figuring out how your research addresses a grand challenge, societal need or knarly problem.  Use some brain cycles to craft a reasonable plan to let others know about and even use your findings.

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*Admittedly – the use of utilize might be a pet peeve of mine.

**Entrepreneurs face the same issue when talking to angel investors, venture capitalists and corporate funders.  Corporate researchers face the same issue when presenting ideas to upper management.  

***I do sympathize with the NSF administrators who will have to design and institute portfolio management techniques to report out aggregated data!

****I might have written and even said a sentence like this out loud in a past life.