Dr. Rebecca Collins provides insight into federal and private grants including the process for submitting a grant application and opportunities for student involvement.
Dr. Rebecca Collins provides insight into federal and private grants including the process for submitting a grant application and opportunities for student involvement.
Hello, everyone and welcome to emerging trends in higher ed. My name is Samantha Wilcox, and I am your moderator for this podcast series. I will also be your host for today's podcast and titled, getting to know the Grant's office. I am here with Dr. Rebecca Collins, thank you so much for joining us, Dr. Collins.
00:20
Glad to be here, Sam. Thank you.
00:22
So today we're here to learn a little more about the grants office, we now have an MCU. And as most of you may know, now that NCU has obtained nonprofit status, we are eligible to write for and receive various grants to help support faculty and staff in scholarly pursuits. So let's dig in and learn more about what's been happening. So first off, Dr. Collins, can you tell us a little bit about the different types of grants, we might write for it and see you maybe some examples of projects that might be funded?
00:54
Sure. So as a nonprofit entity, NCU is eligible to write for just about any kind of grant that's available. So one type of grant is a federal grant. Currently, there are over 900 grant programs offered by 26, federal granting agencies. So as you can imagine, there's a lot of different opportunities in there. Most of the federal grants you might be interested in are called Project grants. Those grants are given by the government to fund research related projects. Now, federal grants are often for a fairly significant amount of money, sometimes in the hundreds of 1000s, or even into the millions of dollars. And these projects are usually three to five years in duration. Some of the agencies that might offer opportunities that would be interesting for NCU include the Department of Education, the National Institutes of Health, the National Science Foundation, and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, or samsa.
As an example, we're getting ready to submit a five year research grant proposal to the National Science Foundation. And if this is awarded, the research project will focus on broadening the participation of individuals from underrepresented or underserved groups in STEM, which is science, technology, engineering, and math. And especially in STEM fields that lacked diversity. This would be a five year project for NC us School of Education. We're also able to write for non federal grants from sources such as private companies or corporate foundations. Non federal funders typically have some very distinct or specialized interests. And those funders tend to direct their funding towards specific topics, or projects that they really care about. So any grant we submit in those cases, really need to align closely with the funders mission and vision. We're in the process of submitting a joint grant application right now with Northwestern University, to the Templeton Foundation. And this is a project that focuses on Templeton's desire to explore connections between science and religion. So this grant would give us a three year window, and would provide grants to three other researchers to engage in additional research projects related to the cognition of religion. And we're planning to host a large virtual conference to share the findings in the final year of the grant. So some exciting things may await ncu in the next several years.
03:14
Wow, definitely some very exciting things. And I personally am very excited about the very large virtual conference, given my area. So tell me, who would be eligible to write for grant at MCU? Sure, so NCU faculty are eligible to write for external grants. In fact, a lot of funders, particularly at the federal level, require the principal investigator to be a faculty member employed by the applicant University. I would expect mostly full time faculty engaging in the grant application process, but we might be able to consider part time faculty involvement with grants as well.
03:51
Excellent. Now I've heard some students might like to be involved with grants as well, what are some potential roles for students in that grant process at NCU.
04:00
So like I just mentioned, the grant itself has to be written by an MCU faculty member. But there are absolutely some opportunities for student involvement. So students could be a part of the grant writing process. In this case, maybe they would help with the literature review by searching for relevant articles that would support the application narrative, for example, or if the grant is awarded, and the student might be a part of the research project activities, such as assisting with data collection or analysis, or maybe helping with the presentation of findings like they could be a co author of an article or present directly at a conference. So these decisions will be largely dependent on things such as the nature of the grant how the faculty member wants to proceed. And of course, all this with the knowledge of the school dean of where the faculty member teaches excellence. Now, I know there's some interest among MCU employees about pursuing grants as well. Can you explain some of those initial steps that they might need to take to get started?
04:58
Absolutely. So right now All of the information for the grants office is located in Frank, which is NC us intranet. And I'm currently working with marketing to develop a new publicly facing grants page on the ncu website. So stay tuned for that it's looking really good, and we should have something available very soon. But for now, faculty are encouraged to visit the Grant's office page on Frank, located within the Office of the President widget. So from there faculty will find information about next steps depending on their need. So let's say a faculty has an idea for a research project, but is in need of a funding source. There's a short form for them to complete, which then comes to me.
And then I'll meet with the faculty member and start conducting grants searches on their behalf have access to several different grant databases that will help me in in the search process. But a faculty member might have both an idea and an actual funding source, private or federal that they might like to pursue. So in other words, they've got everything together, they're just ready to get started. There's another short form for that case. And then I would initiate a meeting with the faculty member who's interested in the grant, their school dean or leader, our CFO and any other necessary parties just to make sure everybody's on the same page, that we have a really good plan for meeting all the application deadlines. So applications can sometimes be pretty complex, especially at the federal level. So being organized and communicating are both really key.
06:26
I've definitely sounds that way. Can you tell me a little more about the complexity of applications? What can faculty expect in a typical grant application?
06:37
Sure. So while all applications are definitely different, there are absolutely some commonalities. There's always some kind of narrative where you need to describe, need or problem, the effects of that problem, how you propose to address the problem and how you might go about evaluating if your ideas have worked well. Another common component in is the budget and the budget narrative. So the budget itself is typically presented on an Excel spreadsheet, it's all the numbers. So while budgets for a short term private grant might be kind of simple. federal grants often span multiple years. So you've got multiple sheets and summaries describing your budget. Thankfully, our CFO is an Excel wizard, and she can help us with any budget we have. The budget narrative actually explains the details of the budget itself so that the funder knows exactly how you plan to spend their funds. It's super exciting to receive money to engage in work or, or be engaged in a project that you're passionate about. But there is a great responsibility and stewardship required in ensuring that those funds are spent as expected.
07:42
Absolutely. And I will definitely second your comment about our CFO being an Excel wizard.
07:49
Definitely very talented. No doubt.
07:53
Now, Dr. Collins, if you could give someone a few key pieces of advice about writing for a grant, what would it be and why?
08:01
So for federal grants, in particular, the most important thing, I think, is to just answer the question and the prompts. And I know it sounds like pretty simple advice, just answer the question, but it's actually really important. You don't want to give out any extra information just respond to those prompts exactly as provided in the Request for Application, I actually find it pretty helpful to create an outline based on the section and prompts in the in the application proposal. It can be very tempting to add in all sorts of other information that you think is meaningful and important. But unless it ties specifically to that request for the application prompts, you're going to want to leave it out.
Want to use really clear explanations leave the jargon and acronyms out of the proposal because your grant Meter Reader actually might not be familiar with them. So the best proposals are easy to read, concise, and understandable. And I also recommend making a very detailed but clear budget narrative. funders want to be sure that their money is used wisely. And it's used to support carefully developed proposals with meaningful and intended outcomes. So the budget narrative really is your opportunity show the funders exactly how you will be good stewards of their funds, and how those funds will permit your project and really their project to move forward.
09:19
Excellent. Thank you so much, Dr. Collins. That was a lot of really, really great information.
09:25
So happy to be able to share today. Sam had a great time. Thank you.
09:29
Absolutely. And thank you for your for being an expert in the field. And we are definitely thankful to have you in this role, and really helping all of us move forward in the grant world. This will conclude today's podcast again, special thanks to Dr. Rebecca Collins for spending some time with us today. Be on the lookout for new podcasts from the MCU community that will be featured in the coming weeks. Remember, you have what it takes to change the world. We offer what it takes to make it happen. Until next time,
09:57
goodbye.