Re: Grant Writing Cafe Klinger, Stephanie L. S. 01 Mar 2007 10:33 EST

Hi Gina,

UC Irvine has a training program called the Research Administration
Management Program (RAMP) which is a 15-course series designed to
familiarize faculty, staff and students with standard practices and
policies of research administration.  Courses ranging from proposal and
budget preparation to human subjects protection and intellectual
property management are included.  See
http://www.rgs.uci.edu/ora/ramp.htm for more information.  I learned
about this while attending NCURA's SPA II a couple years ago.  It's a
very organized and well-designed program.

For your purposes, it sounds like your training sessions will be focused
specifically on proposal development?  Maybe you could address some of
the "classics" which would be applicable to all attendees:

1. Making your proposal user friendly to reviewers: match any suggested
headings; respond to all questions in the RFP; align writing with
reviewer evaluation criteria so the proposal speaks the language of the
funder.

2. Budget development: encourage attendees to start costing out items as
they are writing - think about their own time commitments, students,
supplies, travel, equipment, etc.

3. Cost sharing considerations: this will vary among RFPs obviously, but
it might be a good time to talk about how voluntary cost sharing does
not necessarily increase the likelihood for funding; post-award and
institutional implications, etc.

4. Indirect costs: everyone's favorite, but this might also be a good
opportunity to start "educating" if you have resistance on campus.

5. Internal processing deadlines, electronic submission considerations,
etc.

I haven't led short training sessions like the ones you're planning, but
I have taught longer proposal and budget development courses.  I do like
the idea of short informational breaks during an intensive writing
session.  Might be more challenging because you'll have to condense very
relevant information into a brief presentation.  However, folks will
probably feel less overwhelmed since they won't be facing a 2-hour (or
longer) information-overload session.

Best of luck in planning,
Stephanie

-----Original Message-----
From: Research Administration List [mailto:xxxxxx@hrinet.org] On
Behalf Of Gina Betcher
Sent: Tuesday, February 27, 2007 2:42 PM
To: xxxxxx@hrinet.org
Subject: [RESADM-L] Grant Writing Cafe

WMU-OVPR are planning a Grant Writing Cafe for a set number of
faculty. The premise is they arrive with laptop and RFP in hand,
ready to write. We would like to offer 10-minute educational
components. Any advice on planning these 10-minute 'lessons'? On how
to organize these? Any experience planning these? The questions come
from the concern that there will be a variety of concentrations and
RFPs. There will not be a set standard of instructions, in other
words. THANK YOU!

Gina Betcher, MFA
Grant Developer
Office of the VP for Research
TEL: 269.387-8204
FAX: 269.387-8276
EMAIL: xxxxxx@wmich.edu

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================

======================================================================
 Instructions on how to use the RESADM-L Mailing List, including
 subscription information and a web-searchable archive, are available
 via our web site at http://www.hrinet.org (click on "Listserv Lists")
======================================================================