{"id":5712,"date":"2024-10-07T10:56:03","date_gmt":"2024-10-07T15:56:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.valpo.edu\/cital\/?p=5712"},"modified":"2024-10-07T10:56:03","modified_gmt":"2024-10-07T15:56:03","slug":"getting-the-grant-try-and-try-again","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/intra.valpo.edu\/cital\/getting-the-grant-try-and-try-again\/","title":{"rendered":"Getting the Grant: Try and Try Again"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Cynthia Rutz, Director of Faculty Development, CITAL<\/span><\/em><\/p>\n

Kudos to Patrice Bouyer, who recently received an <\/span>NIH grant for $318, 554.  <\/a>The journey to this grant was not an easy one, so we asked Patrice to tell us about it so that all of us can benefit from his experiences. <\/span><\/p>\n

EARLY ATTEMPTS: LESSONS LEARNED<\/b><\/h3>\n

Patrice came to Valpo from the University of Chicago. So for his first NIH grant attempt, he drew on his research there to jointly apply for an <\/span>Academic Research Enhancement Award (AREA)<\/span><\/a>, a grant intended for small institutions such as ours. He was pretty discouraged when his application was rejected.  But he took away three lessons:<\/span><\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Read the grant guidelines carefully. They had asked for a focus on student researchers, instead he had focused more on the science. <\/span><\/li>\n
  2. Seek some smaller funding elsewhere first, so that your proposal can include some preliminary research results. <\/span><\/li>\n
  3. Find out what research is trending. A  UChicago colleague told him that his research was not the kind of thing currently being funded.<\/span><\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Armed with this new knowledge, Patrice tried again. He surveyed the NIH website for grants in his research area that had been funded in the past 5-10 years to see what kind of research was trending. Then he reformatted his proposal accordingly. Next, Patrice spoke with a Program Officer at NIH who suggested that he collaborate with his UChicago colleagues to apply for a much larger <\/span>Research Project (R01)<\/span><\/a> grant. He did so. However, this meant that they were competing with other large institutions. Unfortunately, they did not get the grant. <\/span><\/p>\n

    Meanwhile, Patrice had sought and received some smaller grants both from Valpo and from the Indiana Space Grant Consortium (INSGC)<\/a> funded by NASA.  Valpo faculty have had a lot of success getting these NASA grants over the past few years. These smaller grants helped Patrice maintain his lab and keep student research going, albeit at a slower pace. He strategically chose projects that would both interest NASA and also lay the groundwork for a future NIH grant application. He collaborated with Mike Watters on a project on how microgravity and other environmental factors could affect fungal morphology and affect human health both in space and on earth.  They and their students got some exciting data, so they were able to submit an article to the Proceedings of the Indiana Academy of Science. <\/i><\/span><\/p>\n

    THE WINNING FORMULA
    \n<\/b><\/h3>\n

    Finally, Patrice decided to try again for an NIH AREA grant. He cut his R01 proposal by two-thirds to make it a more feasible project for Valpo. He was able to present preliminary data from his NASA-funded research. This time he focussed the proposal on how students would benefit, showing a progression in skills for student researchers from easier to more challenging phases of the project. He also described Valpo\u2019s commitment to undergraduate research including our summer student research activities during the summer, the campus commitment to the environment, as well as the expertise of his collaborators. He went on to demonstrate the broader impact of the grant on increasing diversity in the field. Patrice had several colleagues and even some students read drafts of his proposal and incorporated their feedback. The result was his winning proposal. <\/span><\/b><\/p>\n

    TIPS FOR GRANT SEEKERS<\/b><\/h3>\n

    Patrice had some final tips for those seeking grants based on his experiences:<\/span><\/b><\/p>\n