$300K NSF Grant to Support Faculty Researchers in Team Science

Melanie Bauer is the Grant Writing Manager in Nova Southeastern University’s (NSU) Grant Lab, where she serves a research development role supporting faculty and staff in their grant seeking endeavors. Ms. Bauer (Principal Investigator/PD) and her team were recently awarded a $300K National Science Foundation (NSF) grant to create and study a professional development program for researchers engaged in team science. The project is titled “EAGER GERMINATION Collaborative Research: Leveraging a Research Development Professional Network to Catalyze Statewide Innovative and Societally Relevant Research.”

For more information, please contact the project lead, Melanie Bauer (mbauer1@nova.edu).

 

Tell me briefly about your recent grant-funded project.

Florida faces many pressing regional issues such as hurricane and flood mitigation, an aging population, harmful algal blooms, among others. These societal challenges are particularly relevant to our state but widespread around the US and world. Solving these intractable problems requires team-based solutions that cross disciplinary boundaries, and likely require collaborations between academia, government, industry, and other stakeholders.

This grant award will fund research support staff from Florida universities to do researcher “matchmaking,” creating interdisciplinary teams of faculty from across the state focused on Florida-based challenges. Faculty will receive professional development and support during their team formation, idea development, and grant seeking. Our goal is to chart a way for Research Development (still a young professional field) to expand how it supports team science, including when collaborations span multiple institutions and diverse partner organizations.

 

Who is working with you on this project?

This grant is a group effort in collaboration with Research Development staff like myself from NSU (lead), FAU, FSU, UCF, and UWF. Additionally, Roxana Ross, Assistant Vice President (TRED) and Matthew Johnston, Assistant Professor & Data Scientist (HCAS) will be playing key roles in the project.

The project leaders from these five Florida institutions represent expertise in team science, technology-supported collaboration, faculty training and mentorship, research project ideation and proposal development, large-scale networking events, and education and social science research. The program will be enhanced by engaging regional stakeholders as panelists, facilitators, and collaborators at various stages to assist faculty to learn about, characterize, and propose transdisciplinary frameworks to address globally-relevant societal challenges.

This initiative was born out of a statewide network of research development professionals, the Florida Research Development Alliance (FloRDA; see map below), with current members from 21 Florida institutions. Success in this project will provide a model for replication and scaling by states and other sizable networks focused on addressing major societal issues.

 

 

How does this project connect with your other work at NSU?

At NSU I work individually and with smalls groups of faculty on grant proposals. I also facilitate and support grant trainings and other research initiatives at NSU, like networking and collaboration events.  This new NSF grant provides the opportunity for our faculty to collaborate with researchers outside our campus, expanding their professional network and supporting them as they strategize around “convergence research,” as NSF calls it, especially around challenges that face our state. It will also better equip me with the knowledge, skills, and tools to support research teams on our campus.

This work connects with my role on the FloRDA network’s Executive Committee. This statewide network is becoming more active in working directly with faculty, as we serve as valuable boundary spanners that connect researchers, organizations, communities, and many stakeholders related (directly or indirectly) to faculty research.

 

What advice do you have for other grant seekers at NSU?

I would certainly encourage faculty to reach out to me (mbauer1@nova.edu) to schedule a one-on-one Zoom call to discuss their project idea and possible sources of funding. I really enjoy these 30-minute “Finding Funding” conversations with faculty, where I get to learn more about their research and start discussing what public or private funders may be good fits for them.

Additionally, I would say that any collaborative grant proposal requires strong leadership. For this grant I led a team from across five universities through two proposal steps: an initial pre-proposal and a full application. We had frequent (biweekly) meetings with the whole team to get their ideas for various parts of the proposal, recording these meetings and tracking ideas using Jamboards, and then translating their ideas into proposal text. I found success in being the “owner” of the proposal as it was getting drafted, and later seeking feedback from the group once it was complete. This was an efficient use of everyone’s time and helped ensure a collaborative effort still produced a single, cohesive proposal.

 

What is the next grant proposal or project on your agenda?

In the second year of this two-year grant we hope to develop curriculum and content that can be used to train other Research Development professionals in team science, and perhaps also have a “train the trainer” model where these professional staff members return to their home institutions and train their own faculty in team science best practices. We plan to interface with our profession’s national organization (NORDP) as well as some state-based networks to continue discussions about how what we learn and the materials we produce can be disseminated and scaled. This may lead to additional seeking of funds from NSF and elsewhere.

I am also very interested in helping more NSU faculty submit program and research grants to NSF. This is the funder I have the most experience and success with, so I hope to be able to help other researchers and program leaders craft and frame their project ideas for an NSF audience.