In This Issue ...

Upcoming deadlines for anti-racism, large-scale grants

OVPR's Research Catalyst & Innovation (RCI) Theme Grants program has launched a new round of Anti-Racism Grants. Applications are due June 1. These awards aim to catalyze innovative research and scholarship that will advance knowledge and understanding around complex societal racial inequalities that can inform actions to achieve equity and justice.

These grants were developed in partnership with the Provost’s Anti-Racism Initiative and are jointly administered with the National Center for Institutional Diversity’s Anti-Racism Collaborative. The Anti-Racism Grants program will fund up to seven proposals–five at levels up to $50K and two at levels up to $100K.

The next deadline for the RCI Large-Scale Planning Grants program is July 1. Applications are now open.

Learn more

New tool tracks research impact on policy

Demonstrating your research's impact on policy could be important for grant proposals and other professional needs. The University of Michigan Library is supporting a trial of a new policy tracking tool: Overton Database of Policy Documents. Overton is the largest interdisciplinary index of policy documents, guidelines, think tank publications, and working papers; it enables searches for research citations in policy. Users can look up individual researchers, choose a set of publications, or simply search for policy documents themselves.

The library is supporting a one-year trial through March 23, 2023. Contact THLImpactCore@umich.edu to learn more and provide feedback.

Additional Resources:

• Policy and Society Research Impact Indicators
• Responsible Research Metrics
• Research Impact Challenge

Opportunities from DOE

Supporting researchers in Ukraine: The Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science (SC) published a Dear Colleague letter encouraging university principal investigators who currently receive financial assistance from SC to consider requesting supplemental funds to host or collaborate with students or scientists who have been impacted by the war in the Ukraine. You can read the full letter here.
 
Questions about this effort can be directed to SC.DCL@science.doe.gov.

"Grant Writing for Early Career Scientists" Webinar: The grant writing and review process can feel daunting and difficult to navigate for young investigators. Learn tips and best practices from experts on how to successfully craft a scientific proposal for federal grants, industry partnerships and non-profit support. After short presentations from each panelist, there will be a live question and answer session with the audience. This Zoom webinar will be held Tuesday, April 12, 2-3 pm ET, and is free and open to the public.

Learn more and register

Try a new resource to find funding

All three U-M campuses now have trial access to GrantForward, a database of funding opportunities that includes a recommendation service. (This is in addition to PIVOT, the database U-M Library currently subscribes to.)

The GrantForward trial ends on April 30, 2022.

You are encouraged to share feedback about GrantForward with grantfundingsupport@umich.edu.

NSF Virtual Grants Conference to be held in June

Join NSF for the Spring 2022 Virtual Grants Conference, to be held June 6-10. 

This event is free of charge and open to the public; it is especially valuable for new faculty, researchers and administrators.

Highlights include:

• Overviews of new programs and initiatives
• NSF Directorate sessions
• Future directions and strategies for national science policy
• Proposal preparation and the merit review process
• Award management topics

The conference is designed to give faculty, researchers and administrators key insights into a wide range of current issues at NSF. Program officers will provide up-to-date information about specific funding opportunities and answer attendee questions.

Registration opens on Wednesday, May 11, at noon ET. Sign up here to be notified of conference registration details. For those who cannot attend live, all conference sessions will be available on-demand shortly after the event.

Learn more

Test your readiness with red team reviews

Rachel Wallace, PhD, Research Development Officer

Red teams are conducted by government, industry and other organizations in a variety of contexts to help them “think like the enemy” [1,2]. While red team activities encompass a range of practices, they all have the fundamental purpose of anticipating the opposition to evaluate strengths, weaknesses, vulnerabilities and assumptions. For example, red teams are used by: the military in war games; businesses, when considering potential mergers; companies employing hackers to look for IT security vulnerabilities; and most relevant here, industry and academia, to peer-review grant proposals (but please don’t consider the actual reviewers to be your enemy!). 

Red teams for research usually evaluate a nearly complete proposal to assess how it will be scored by reviewers, sponsors or study sections. In order for research teams to get the most out of the process and for red teams to be effective, at this stage, narratives should be complete with graphics (or at least mock-ups if employing a graphic designer who is still working). The red team will consider the proposal holistically – not just the preliminary data and research plan, but also the broader impacts, messaging, strategy and alignment with the RFA and sponsor priorities.

If you think your next proposal would benefit from a red team review at U-M, OVPR Research Development & Proposal Services (RDPS) can organize it. We work to build a red team that includes peers in your area of research and in related disciplines to ensure the proposal is accessible to reviewers with diverse expertise.

Important points to keep in mind:

• A red team review takes time. If you are interested, please contact RDPS as soon as possible. We need to build the team, give them time to carry out their review, and ensure you have sufficient time to implement suggested changes. This means that your proposal must be in a near-final form 6-8 weeks before the internal U-M deadlines (which is usually two weeks before the sponsor deadline, but talk with your Research Administrator).
• Avoid rebuttals. If you meet with your red team (as opposed to written feedback), hold off on providing explanations or defending your choices. Imagine that they are your study section or merit review panel. Your red team's questions and reactions to your proposal draft will tell you so much about what is unclear, what is off-target, and what stronger justifications you might need to make. In other words, if they have trouble understanding the proposal, your real reviewers will, too.
• The input of peers is valuable, but you are the expert in your research. Sometimes during red team reviews, it can feel like “too many cooks in the kitchen” with conflicting opinions and advice. We encourage researchers to be open to constructive criticism but, ultimately, to “own” their proposal and know they are the experts in this work. The key here is balance: have an open mind to implement what is actionable and reasonable, but do not plan to rewrite your entire proposal based on the red team’s feedback.

Other color team reviews evaluate a project or proposal over a range of stages and levels of completeness. Should you want feedback or assistance in preparing your proposal at any stage, please contact RDPS – we’ll be happy to help!

Internal Funding 

​All currently open U-M campus-wide internal funding programs are posted in Research Commons.

• OVPR Limited Submissions Policies and Procedures
• Medical School Limited Submissions Homepage
• Questions: UMORlimitedsubmissions@umich.edu

• U-M Library’s Research Funding & Grants Guide or PIVOT Database
• U-M Research Development 
• U-M Foundation Relations

CyberTraining (NSF 22-574) Webinar

Money Talks: Working with Foundation Relations

Institute for Research on Women & Gender (IRWG)

RD Shoptalk: Research Resource Roundtable

Managing Your Online Researcher Identity

NORDP Annual Conference