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The RUI proposal: Research in Undergraduate Institutes

The RUI proposal: Research in Undergraduate Institutes. Mark Lubkowitz Saint Michael’s College. What is a RUI?. Typical NSF proposal with two exceptions: Eligibility: “no more than 10 doctoral degrees per year in NSF-supported disciplines..” Impact Statement

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The RUI proposal: Research in Undergraduate Institutes

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  1. The RUI proposal: Research in Undergraduate Institutes Mark Lubkowitz Saint Michael’s College

  2. What is a RUI? • Typical NSF proposal with two exceptions: • Eligibility: “no more than 10 doctoral degrees per year in NSF-supported disciplines..” • Impact Statement • Review criteria: the same as all other NSF proposal

  3. RUIs fund: • Individual research projects (and collaborations) • Instrumentation • ROAs (Research Opportunity Awards)

  4. The proposal • Writing matters • Remember review criteria: intellectual merit and broader impact • Clearly state your hypotheses • Experiments should address hypotheses

  5. Impact Statement • Begin by explaining the culture of your college • 22% of our students have at least one parent who did not attend college • 20% of our students are from rural areas • Research and teaching loads • Introduce your department • Number or percentage of students who do research • Number or percentage of students who go to graduate school • Segue to your program and contributions

  6. Selling your program and contributions • Measuring research contributions: • funding, publications, presentations, and placement of graduates • Talk about your students and how your training shaped their careers • Ex. Grant writing and conference presentations • Dedicate a paragraph to the culture you are building

  7. Be prepared to resubmit “You have to swing the bat to get a run.” “Although you should wait for the right pitch”

  8. Resubmitting your proposal • Carefully read your reviews • Speak to program officer • Worth pursuing? • Tone of panel? • What do I need to do to be competitive?

  9. Responding to reviewers • Read reviews alongside your proposal • Criticism is a result of: • Poor communication • Flaw in proposal • No buy in • Nitpicky

  10. Rewriting your proposal • Specific aims • Revised submission • Background and significance • Preliminary data • Experimental design for each specific aim (includes section titled “Analysis of results”) • Timeline

  11. Rewriting your proposal Revised submission This proposal is a resubmission (previous NSF proposal: 0543160), and contains changes suggested by the reviewers. Since all of the reviewers commented very favorably on the Broader Impact and Intellectual Merit of the previously proposed work (all Excellents or Very Goods), we have maintained much of our earlier grant while addressing the major concern of the reviewers, namely, the inclusion of more rigorous controls in certain experiments. Below are the requested controls to accompany our Preliminary Data as well as additional controls for our in situ localization. More technical suggestions are addressed in the proposal.

  12. Directly address major concerns with data when possible “As pointed out by a reviewer, it is critical to ensure that our primers are gene specific. Therefore, we tested each pair of OPT primers against a plasmid containing the intended target and against a pool of plasmids containing all other OPTs.” OPT: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 D W D + W D + W D + W D + W D + W D + W D + W D + W

  13. Change to Specific Aim 2: “We propose to use in situ localization to determine where OsOPT2, 4, 5, and 7 are expressed in the germinating seed. As pointed out by several reviewers, to meet this goal, we require gene specific probes for in situ localization. To determine the likelihood of cross hybridization, we used Clustal V to calculate the percent identity of our OPT2, 4, 5, and 7 probes to other OPTs. As seen in Table 1, the level of sequence identity shared between these probes and other OPTs is theoretically low enough for specific hybridization using stringent conditions given that the bottom end of detection for low stringency is 65% identity (Sambrook and Russell, 2001). To ensure that this is the case, we will test each probe’s ability to cross hybridize with other OPTs through Southern blots.….”

  14. Summary • RUIs: all but UVM eligible • Capitalize on your Impact Statement • Your reviews should steer your resubmission • Tenacity • Copies of my proposal and Impact Statement are available (email me at mlubkowitz@smcvt.edu)

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