From Arts:92: Teaching Artists to be Eligible for Arts IN Education Grants

The Indiana Arts Commission (IAC) announced earlier this month that for the first time teaching artists will be eligible to apply for the IAC's Arts IN Education grants. Eligible teaching artists must be 18 years of age or older. They must have been an Indiana resident for one year prior to the date of application, and must remain an Indiana resident during the grant period.

Eligible teaching artists may not be enrolled in any degree-granting program (undergraduate, graduate and doctorate) as of October 11th, 2012. Teaching artists may not apply as part of a collaboration for which another artist is also applying in the same year, and may not apply on behalf of an organization. Organizations, other than schools, may not apply.

As in years past, applicants may request up to $3,000 for their project. Grant awards must be matched, dollar for dollar with the IAC grant awarded with school funds, contributed funds, in-kind donations, or services. Funding may not replace or supplant existing resources.

Funded projects must take place during the scheduled school day and may not fund after-school or summer activities. Projects must also meet a minimum of five (5) Indiana academic standards (from three required last year).

Applications will open in mid August with an application deadline of October 11, 2012. 

Arts IN Education grant information and guidelines will be available online in mid-August. Interested applicants should then refer to the IAC website Arts IN Education page.

If there are additional questions, please email Susan Britsch or call 317-232-1281.

Keep yourself informed with SPO Info Sessions!

The Sponsored Programs Office conducts many workshops and information sessions throughout the year for students, faculty, and staff. Please visit our website for more information and updates!  

April 11, 2012
Grantsmanship Information Session (GIS) ~ Click here for video - 1:17:54
Need grant funding to carry out your work? In a quandary about how to get started? Hear first-hand experiences from funded colleagues who have successfully navigated the path to a grant award. This hour-long discussion will include topics such as, how to identify funding opportunities, and how to position yourself as a scholar.

May 2, 2012
Core Fulbright Information Session ~ Click here for video - 1:18:05

The Sponsored Programs Office, in conjuction with the Rinker Center for International Programs and the Contracts and Grants Office, present an information session on the Core Fulbright Scholar Program for University faculty and professional personnel. Former Ball State Fulbright awardees present their perspectives and experiences with Fulbright.

COS Funding Opportunities conversion to COS Pivot to be completed as of June 30, 2012

COS Funding Opportunities, Expertise, and Scholar Universe became COS Pivot in August 2011.  Ref-Works will be completing the conversion and phasing out the legacy system. COS Funding Opportunities currently available at www.cos.com (or fundingopps.cos.com) will no longer be available after June 30, 2012. The same great funding information is available in Pivot, which you currently have access to. Anyone who logs in to cos.com after the 30th will automatically be redirected to Pivot.

To avoid any problems accessing the system, please update any bookmarks and log into Pivot at the new website: pivot.cos.com. Ref-Works will be posting warning notices to users throughout the legacy COS.com platform within the next few days.

COS Pivot is the most comprehensive database of funding opportunities, containing up-to-date grants, awards, fellowships, and other funding opportunities covering all disciplines, as well as identifing researcher expertise within or outside Ball State.

If you have any questions or concerns about using Pivot at Ball State, please feel free to contact Augusta Wray in the Sponsored Programs Office.

From SRA Catalyst: Spanky's Comparative Competencies, Redux

As a research proposal development trainer I have always been frustrated by those who attend workshops to learn the “tricks” and “special language,” the magic silver bullets that will make them successful. Invariably they are frustrated when I open the day by saying that these tricks and gimmicks don’t exist and the only magic is working harder than your competition, following the guidelines, learning some communication techniques and most of all, doing your homework. I would repeat throughout the day that the skills one needs to develop a proposal are skills that one uses every day in their “normal life,” often illustrating these points, with “If you can do X, then you can do Y.”

Back in 1996 I developed a list of comparative competencies to show potential PIs that the skills needed to write a proposal could indeed be drawn from their everyday life. Soon these little statements took on a life of their own, and were shared in a newsletter and through the RESADM-L list. Realizing that a generation or two of people have passed through the biz since these first came out and, like all things, they have become a bit dated, I decided to update and streamline the list. Below are a few of the originals and some new ones. I hope you will find them useful in your training programs.

Spanky's Comparative Competencies, Redux
(If you have___, then you can___)

• planned a week’s menu & shopped at the grocery -- identify needs & develop a budget. 
• estimated the cost of a large expenditure -- justify budget items. 
• tried to impress a potential date -- talk to a sponsor. 
• read a rental contract -- read a project contract. 
• defended a dissertation -- defend a proposal. 
• written a speech -- plan and develop a proposal narrative. 
• planned a vacation -- make a timeline. 
• asked Dad for money-- ask an Uncle (Sam) for money. 
• had your in-laws drop in unannounced -- survive an NIH site visit. 
• chaperoned an elementary school field trip -- lead a proposal development committee. 

Read the full article in SRA Catalyst May 2012...

YouTube Channel of Interest: The Grantsmanship Center

The Grantsmanship Center was founded in 1972 with the initial motivation of offering grantsmanship training to nonprofit and governmental agencies. There are numerous resources for grantseekers available at no cost at the TGC website (www.tgci.com). These include daily grant announcements from the Federal Register, archives of The Grantsmanship Center Magazine, indexes of funding sources at the local, federal and international levels, and more.

Their YouTube channel feed is full of great information in 5-10 minute, easy to understand video nuggets, can be found by clicking here.

From GRC: Inside the Room with an NIH Study Section Member

One of the primary goals of GRC’s Health Research and Education Task Force is to give GRC members an in-depth look into the peer review process at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). To this end, Dave Stone, Associate Vice President for Research at Northern Illinois University and task force co-chair, interviewed Paul Silvia, Associate Professor of Psychology, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who spoke at GRC’s February conference. Silvia also has served on NIH’s Social Psychology, Personality and Interpersonal Processes Study Section. This interview is a rare window into the NIH review process, and a great resource for GRC members. In the coming months, the Health Task Force plans to interview more NIH reviewers from different study sections.

Silvia’s interview addressed general issues with which all study sections deal, and the following important points were made:

• Literature review: Reviewers will be looking for the significance and relevance of the proposed project through the literature cited. Investigators should already know why their research is significant, and include at least two reasons justifying the work by the second paragraph. Investigators should also indicate a clear link to a public health problem;
• Methodology: Despite shorter page limits it is still important to include everything. NIH is very interested in statistical power. And to establish credibility, investigators should always include a timeline. This helps reviewers answer the question of feasibility – can the researcher actually accomplish his/her project goals? Silvia suggested that reviewers are not as concerned about investigators addressing Plan B if the project fails to meet its objectives;
• Personal statement in the biosketch: Silvia recommended applicants pay close attention to this. Investigators should list their research background, their training, and their publication history to make the case for why they are doing this particular project. Reviewers often have a hard time connecting the credentials of the investigator to the proposed research;
• Impact scores: While the impact score involves being judged on five criteria (significance, investigator, innovation, approach and environment) Silvia said the most important of them are significance and approach. Innovation is more appropriate to address in R21 applications where high risk research is valued. Investigator and environment criteria (while important for R15 proposals) are a given in most R01 applications;
• R15 level of effort: Silvia said one course buy-out plus summer effort should be sufficient to establish that the research can be accomplished. He suggested at least 50 percent effort in the summer, plus 10-20 percent effort during the academic year;
• Addressing issues of women, children (NIH considers people 18 to 21 as children) and human subjects in the application: Silvia emphasized this section receives more attention from reviewers than investigators may assume. It is especially important to address research subject sampling. Investigators need to be pro-active in addressing limitations to the subjects available in their regions of the country, and include a collaborator where feasible; and
• Grouped applications: NIH now starts each session with reviews of R01 applications from new and early stage investigators so it may benefit investigators to identify themselves this way. Silvia also said R15 applications receive a huge benefit from being ‘clumped’ because these reviewers are more familiar with the R15 criteria. In closing, Silvia said review committees haven’t seen many R03 (small grant) proposals recently due to their limited funds. R03s are typically used now to leverage funds on an ongoing R01 grant.

From GRC: Pass it on to Campus Innovators and Partners

The National Institute of Standards and Technology's Manufacturing Extension Partnership and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have announced the creation of the IP Awareness Assessment, a free tool that lets users evaluate their intellectual property (IP) knowledge and then chart a customized training regimen. 

In an era when every competitive research or development proposal is expected to convey a potentially transformative idea, it's more important than ever to anticipate and protect potential discoveries. Researchers at teaching-intensive, predominantly-undergraduate institutions bear the exactly the same onus as research powerhouses to safeguard the products of their - and their institutions' - innovations. GRC and the Association of University Technology Managers (AUTM) have undertaken a partnership to distill the aspects of IP protection and technology transfer that are critical at the pre-proposal, pre-award stage of grantseeking.

Meanwhile, patent reform, transparency legislation, and the drive for more multi-sector collaboration have created a world that essentially levels the field for innovation funding. Patent attorneys, students, basement inventors, and scientists are all facing the need to learn and re-learn what it means to be a responsible innovator. Federal government tools such as the IP Awareness Assessment and programs such as the National Science Foundation's Innovation Corps were developed to guide participants through the business end of intellectual discovery. 

David Kappos, undersecretary of commerce for intellectual property, believes greater awareness "will help entrepreneurs turn their ideas into reality and bring them to market faster, thereby creating jobs more quickly, too." GRC members agree. 

From GRC GrantWeek: NIH Posts R21 Funded Proposals

The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which leads National Institutes of Health (NIH) efforts to provide proposal-writing resources, has posted four funded R21 proposals and accompanying summary statements online. These recent successful examples reflect the reduced NIH page limit. Each includes a one-page specific aims section, a 12-page research strategy, budget information, and biosketches of key personnel. While the proposals have an allergy/infectious disease research focus, they give researchers in all fields a view into excellent proposal development.

The NIH R21 mechanism supports early-stage project development for new exploratory and developmental research projects. R21 awards tend to support high-risk, high-reward research, with or without significant preliminary data, poised to produce innovations to substantially advance biomedical research. Awards are limited to $200,000 per year, up to $275,000 in direct costs over a project period of up to two years.

From NYFA Quarterly: The Etiquette of Getting Grants

A little grant writing advice can go a long way. In the following article, Shakurra Amatulla outlines some of the basic information necessary for researching and writing grants.

Shakurra Amatulla (The Grant Lady)

So you want a grant—that chunk of money that’s "out there" just waiting for your request? But you’re impatient, sometimes believing that the road to success must open before you faster than Moses parted the Red Sea. In your search for grants, you buy and read everything about this free cash, continually look for people to guide you to said loot, and still you haven’t gotten any closer to it. At some point, you’re probably going to run into me, hear about me, or be directed to seek me out. Be afraid. Be very afraid. I’m a whine-buster. I became a grant consultant in 1982 after applying for and receiving a grant from a writer’s organization. It was then that I discovered an over-abundance of often overlooked funding sources. As a result, I launched a monthly grants newsletter which preps subscribers to realistically assess if their funding needs can be sensibly obtained from immediate means—such as a local community service agency—or if their needs are best addressed through a grant. The following is a collection of familiar whines consistently thrown at me during my grant lectures, or via letters, email, or telephone. Each whine is followed by my usual response.

The real deal
Whiner: "I want some of that free grant money to support me so I can stay home and create my art." 

I know of no grant that will wholly support you. You may have heard of the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Fellowship that awarded $500,000 to each of this year’s recipients. However, you must be nominated by a special committee to receive this grant. You cannot apply nor nominate yourself. It’s worth your while to view the biographies of this year’s winning Fellows (www.macfdn.org). I guarantee it will be a humbling experience.

Let’s burst a myth right here and now. There’s no such thing as free money. Even if the only thing you do is mail a simple request letter, you’ve already spent something. You’ve spent time writing the letter, and you’ve also spent money for the stamp. It may not sound like much at first, but it will add up over time. If you’re really serious about applying for grants, you shouldn’t stop at just one. You should make applying for grants a part of your life. For example, as a playwright, I consistently enter playwrighting contests and/or send my plays to theaters on a monthly basis, and have been doing so for more than a decade. I’m concerned—and this should also be of concern to you as an artist—that my work is continually circulating before the public. This is how you get noticed. In addition, applying regularly for grants forces me to create new playwriting material. I don’t want to send last year’s play (again) to the same funding organization I’m applying to this year.

Grantsmanship Information Session - April 11

Need grant funding to carry out your work?  In a quandary about how to get started?

Please join us:
Grantsmanship Information Session 
Wednesday, April 11, 2012
12:00-3:00 PM
Bracken Library

Click here to get the flier! 

This professional development opportunity, hosted by the Sponsored Programs Office, is designed to provide junior faculty and those new to grant writing with the "tools" for your toolkit to aid in your quest for external funding.

Panel Discussion: 12:00-1:30 PM in Bracken Library 104 Hear first-hand experiences from funded colleagues who have successfully navigated the path to a grant award. This hour-long discussion will include topics such as, how to identify funding opportunities, and how to position yourself as a scholar. The panel discussion will be followed by a half-hour question and answer session.

Information Session: 1:30-3:00 (Open House) in Bracken Library's Schwartz Digital Complex Lobby The focus of this event is to shine a spotlight on BSU grantmanship resources available to faculty. Stop in after the panel discussion (or at any time during our open house hours) to learn about funding opportunities and strategies, connect with colleagues from across the BSU community, and share ideas with funded professionals.

Refreshments will be served!

To RSVP or to request additional details concerning the Grantsmanship Information Session, contact the Sponsored Programs Office at 765-285-1600 or spo@bsu.edu.