Copied from Research Corporation website, effective immediately:

“PLEASE NOTE – Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) is shifting the pre-proposal and proposal deadlines for the Cottrell College Science Award (CCSA) program for Academic Year 2012-13. Pre-proposals will be due March 15, 2013 and full proposals will be due June 15, 2013. These dates apply to both the Single-Investigator and Multi-Investigator CCSA initiatives.

Although we do not anticipate significant changes, complete program guidelines will be posted on our website by December 15, 2012. The program will continue to emphasize support to early career faculty. In particular, for the Single-Investigator CCSA program, at the time of application the applicant must be within the first three years of his/her first tenure-track appointment, and within 12 years of receiving his/her doctoral degree. Thus, applicants whose first tenure-track appointment began in 2010 or later will be eligible to apply, if other eligibility requirements are met.

Thank you for your interest in the Cottrell College Science Award program.”

The Younger Chemists’ Committee hosted a wonderful session in March on securing external funding at primarily undergraduate institutions and I thought it would be good to share with this audience. This post is very long, but I found this information very useful.

The first part of the session focused on how to set yourself up to do research at a PUI (and do it well). Anyone reading this probably already knows this information, so I will highlight only the most important observations I made:

1. Project development is crucial – choose something that has scientific merit, has continuity, and can be done with undergrads at many levels; make your expectations known in terms of working hours, notebook, safety, instrumentation use, etc.

2. Recruit deliberately, but choose your undergraduates wisely – the best in the lecture might not be the best in the lab; sometimes it is better to choose the more curious and dedicated students; don’t let weak or unproductive students consume your time and money (a grad school prof of mine once told me that “free agency” applies to chemistry, too!)

3. OTHERS: always write something (proposal, paper, etc.), stay up on the literature, become a reviewer, present at meetings, be able to “start” or “close” a project, cooperate with colleagues to purchase instrumentation

The rest of the session was devoted to presentations from program directors at various funding agencies that have an interest in PUIs. Representatives from Research Corporation (RC), Americal Chemical Society – Petroleum Research Fund (ACS-PRF), and National Science Foundation (NSF) were present. Here are summaries of their talks on how to secure grants in your first few years:

1. RC – This foundation really focuses on the integration of teaching and research in the physical sciences. The Single Investigator grants are for $35,000 ($25,000 + $10,000 matching funds) over two years. A pre-proposal is due 9/15, with the full proposal due 11/15. The pre-proposal is basically a screening process to make sure you have some overlap with the mission of RC, and that you followed all of the rules. Once you submit the full proposal, it goes through a dual review process (external review, followed by advisory committee meeting). RC will be looking for ideas that show you’ve thought outside the box. They encourage you to be creative and pursue research that is not incremental. The biggest problems reviewers find in proposals are: a) the work is a derivative of the Ph.D. or post-doc; b) feasibility and significance were not addressed; c) the proposal was not hypothesis-driven or too vague; and d) expectations were unrealistic. They encourage you to suggest the best possible reviewers to read your proposal, who will be more generous to young faculty at PUIs, and strongly discouraged suggesting reviewers at PUIs. The funding rate is 25-30% each year. This is only open to faculty in their first three years of a tenure-track position.

2. ACS-PRF – As the name implies, this organization awards funding to basic research in chemistry that is related to the petroleum field (and they mean it!). The New Investigator Awards are for $50,000 over two years. Submissions are accepted for one month or so beginning 10/1 (submit early – proposal processed sooner and you have the greatest chance for the best reviewers). They are looking for a single project with a limited scope that is hypothesis-driven and can serve as the foundation for future award money from other organizations. They ideally want about 60-65% of the requested funds to support students. Reviewers will be looking for all of the same things: can the research be accomplished at your institution, describe how undergrads will be involved, does the institution have a history of support, is the research of high enough quality, is the level of difficulty appropriate for undergraduates? Roughly half of the proposal text should be background and half should be the project plan. The funding rate is roughly 20% each year. This is only open to faculty in their first three years of a tenure-track position.

3. NSF – There are many “programs” at NSF. The four I will focus on are the Research at Undergraduate Institutions (RUI), CAREER award, the Research Opportunity Award (ROA), and the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) award. It should be noted that since these awards come from government funds, they are public knowledge, so grant seekers are encouraged to look up those professors whose proposals were recently funded, and ask them directly for a copy of their proposal. (NOTE: I did, and now have 3-4 proposals in my hands).

a) RUI – Awards are roughly $250,000 – 300,000 over several years, with a roughly $30,000 instrumentation request. In 2010, there were 41 total awards (new PIs were roughly 50% of these awards), with 1.25 PIs per award (meaning, there were sometimes joint proposals). Depending on your division, there are deadlines in either September or October. A five-page(!) broader impact statement indicates their focus on the integration of research and teaching, as well at outreach.

b) CAREER – Only assistant professors are eligible. You are in competition with the best researchers from major Ph.D. institutions but, again, the integration of teaching, research, and outreach carries more weight. From 2007-2009, roughly 60-90 proposals were funded per year. I know that my own undergraduate institution (University of Richmond) has had two of these awards in the past 10 years.

c) ROA – This is a supplement to an existing NSF award, meaning a professor at a PUI can propose doing work in a lab at a major research university of another professor who already has an NSF grant. They are typically summer experiences, but can also be used for sabbaticals. Funding rates are “fairly high.”

d) MRI – These awards are meant for dual-use instrumentation. Again, a combination of teaching and research. In 2009, there were 142 proposals, of which 31 were funded (22%). The average amount was $267,447. About half of the awards were to faculty at PUIs.

That’s all I have for now!

Seann Mulcahy

PFF 2010-2012