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Alternative Paths to an Academic Career: Funding through Grants

Alternative Paths to an Academic Career: Funding through Grants. Leora Lawton, Ph.D. Executive Director Berkeley Population Center. Possible Paths.

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Alternative Paths to an Academic Career: Funding through Grants

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  1. Alternative Paths to an Academic Career: Funding through Grants Leora Lawton, Ph.D. Executive Director Berkeley Population Center

  2. Possible Paths • One model of academic career is finish your dissertation, maybe do a postdoc, then get a tenure-track job. Publish, teach, a little community service, get tenure. Nice. • Another is to be a low paid temporary lecturer, with no benefits, no status, few resources. Okay to establish a teaching record, or to have the cachét of a university affiliation. • A third: to support yourself and your career through ‘soft money’ that is, through grants. • Write your own. • Work with someone else. • Might even involve research & publishing.

  3. Develop a sense of entrepreneurship and agency • No matter what you will do for a living, you will always have more control and more value if you bring in money rather than rely on someone else.

  4. Introduction to Grants • All grant proposals have the same components: • What I want to do • Why it’s important • How I will do it and why • How long it will take • How much it will cost • Why I am (and my collaborators) are qualified • Why I’m in the right place (resources) to do it.

  5. Getting Started • Identify your research project • Find a funding source. • Contact the program official. • These things take time. • Many grant applications are complex. The more grants a funder processes, the more complex and regimented they are. Some are an email, some a few pages, some a few hundred pages. • Get an example to model yours on. • Get reviewers. • Get institutional support.

  6. Team Efforts • Funding agencies rarely fund individuals. • Rather, the organization is the actual applicant, not the Principal Investigator (e.g., it’s the Regents of the University of California for UC PIs), and all grants must go through the Sponsored Projects Office. • If you’re employed, find out if you can submit through your employer. • If not employed, find out if there is an organization that will sponsor you if you bring in your own money • Or find an employed researcher in your field who might be interested in being a co-investigator for a grant you will write or co-author. • Or find someone with an existing NIH R01 grant and see if you can get an administrative supplement or revision.

  7. Grant Funding for Social and Behavioral Scientists • NIH – getting harder all the time but some are much easier than others. • NSF – see above. But often smaller and shorter term than NIH. • Foundations – Robert Wood Johnson, California Fund, etc. • Check association newsletters and listservs, e.g., American Sociological Association Footnotes or go to the online site of American Evaluation Association, www.eval.org. Foundation Center is one source.

  8. Apply as the PI • Most daunting but why not? • You will need PI status (as an Adjunct in the UC system you have it). • R03 are 2-year grants, analyzing existing data sets, $50k maximum per year, all costs. • R21 are 3 years, $250k maximum for all three years combined. More ‘innovative.’ • R01’s are 5 years, $500k maximum per year.

  9. A focus on NIH • Even though NIH funding lines are getting tougher every day, there are some much more likely approaches for funding for junior and not so junior researchers. • An administrative supplement to an existing R01. • Find out if someone writing a grant needs a data analyst or is funding a postdoc. • An F32 postdoctoral fellowship. • A K01 award (Need commitment to salaried position from sponsoring institution). • Write a center or training program grant (R24, R15, R25), if you have organizational skills. • Write your own R03, R21 or R01. • NIH applications are very complex. You don’t do them on your own.

  10. NIH Postdoctoral Fellowships – F32 and F33 • F33 are for senior fellows, so I will concentrate on F32’s. • http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-11-113.html • This is primarily a mentored research and training project in which your research is the case study for your acquisition of new skills and path for career development. Up to 3 years. Can submit while finishing dissertation. $40k-$50k per year stipend. • Needs sponsoring institution and mentors. • You need to make a case for what you will be learning that you need for your career, and who your mentor will be. It’s not your dissertation committee. It usually is at a different institution. • These are made much easier by using someone else’s successful grant application as your model.

  11. NIH Administrative Supplements • Approach the PI, the PI can then approach the Program Officer and find out the process. It might be just an emailed letter, but it could be the big SF424(R&R) application. • All existing grants are possible, but the supplemental project must be completed within the project period of the parent award, which is why an R01 (5 years) or P-award (5 years) are more likely targets. • Formal announcement: An example is: http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/pa-files/PA-12-149.html “Research Supplements to Promote Diversity in Health-Related Research (Admin Supp)” in order to: “improve the diversity of the research workforce by supporting and recruiting students, postdoctorates, and eligible investigators from groups that have been shown to be underrepresented in health-related research. This supplement opportunity is also available to PD(s)/PI(s) of research grants who become disabled and need additional support to accommodate their disability in order to continue to work on the research project. Administrative supplements must support work within the scope of the original project.” • Search http://projectreporter.nih.gov/reporter.cfm to see if an appropriate scholar (you know or know of) has an R01.

  12. What the Berkeley Population Center & the Center for the Economics and Demography of Aging can do for you… If population-based research (representative samples) is your thing, or at least, your research is related to the mission of the Centers… • Find faculty • With grants • As collaborators • As mentors/sponsors • Help you navigate the NIH grant process • Provide tutorials • Examples and templates • Reviews • Work with SPO to submit the application

  13. Resources • DOCUMENTS ON http://www.popcenter.berkeley.edu/grants • Including http://www.popcenter.berkeley.edu/grants/nih_grants.shtml • and http://www.popcenter.berkeley.edu/grants/other_grants.shtml . • CEDA: www.ceda.berkeley.edu • http://foundationcenter.org/pnd/ to sign up for their emails of RFPs. • www.eval.org. • Erica Whitney’s PowerPoints on NIH and NSF grants:http://qb3.berkeley.edu/qb3/careerworkshops.cfm

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