Guest Editor Letter - November 2023

November 2023

 

Letter from the Guest Editor

   

Faculty Grantsmanship Mentoring: What Chairs can do

By: Badri Roysam, University of Houston
 

 

At a time when pay lines for research grants at the major funding agencies continue to be slim, and are continuing to tighten even more, there is a compelling need to improve grantsmanship skills among our faculty. Interestingly, this comment applies to faculty members at all levels, and not just the newly hired junior faculty. Here, we describe an effective yet efficient “question-driven” mentoring and coaching strategy for improving faculty grantsmanship.

1. INTRODUCTION

Obtaining a research grant is becoming harder than ever. Funding agencies expect a lot from grant proposals these days. Depending upon the funding programs, they are expected to propose innovative solutions to compelling societal needs, show high intellectual merit, a strong scientific premise, cross-disciplinary collaboration, transformational potential, strong preliminary studies, rigor, reproducibility, open-source dissemination of methods, data sharing, animal welfare, materials safety, thorough validation, educational contributions, outreach to the community, and engagement with K-12 schools. All of these facets must be packed into a mere 10 – 15 pages. A weakness in one of these areas can derail an otherwise brilliant scientific idea, and hurt faculty morale.

The widely available grantsmanship development resources are insufficient since they are generic in nature, and not specific to an investigator. The University’s Division of Research serves a large number of colleges and departments, and is mostly geared to provide the basic set of federally-mandated services like proposal submission, post-award processes, and administration. Some colleges and departments go further, and provide proofreading support, and sponsor (one or two-day) grant-writing seminars (e.g., http://www.grantcentral.com/ ). These grant-writing seminars can realistically only provide generic advice that does not significantly go beyond what one can find on the funding agency’s website (for the NIH’s website, click here: https://grants.nih.gov/grants/how-to-apply-application-guide/format-and-write/write-your-application.htm), or in Effective Grant-writing books (click here for an example: http://www.grantcentral.com/workbooks/ ).

While seminars and workbooks provide good general suggestions, they do not have a sufficient impact on a faculty member’s actual grant proposal, for the simple reason that they lack the specific technical knowledge and/or scientific depth needed to provide focused pre-submission feedback to the grant writer. Such expertise is best available at the department level or a research center. Therefore, the local unit is best positioned to help a grant writer for a specific project.

2. GRANTSMANSHIP DEVELOPMENT

Grantsmanship is an acquired skill that takes many years to develop, with many trials and errors along the way. It requires effort and attention to detail, and often entails a change of mindset. For example, it is common for a researcher to be focused on impressing the reviewer with sophisticated methods, while being defensive against expected or perceived criticisms. It is also common for new grant writers to be overly focused on “cool/elegant” methods, frameworks, or algorithms rather than the impact of their methods. The brutal reality is that agencies have no interest in funding the development of elegant frameworks – they are interested in funding solutions to pressing problems faced by society. This is not a reason for fundamental theory developers to feel discouraged – you just have to make sure that the societal impact/value of your theory is made clear. For these reasons, accomplished grant writers commonly focus on writing proposals with the reviewers, program officers, and societal impact in mind. The cool theories are very much there – they thrive under the “applied umbrella”.

The best grant writers outperform the rest by a wide margin, for the same / comparable project idea. If you read their proposals, you will find that they are simple, lucid, direct, coherent, compelling, understandable, free of jargon, and to-the-point. They are written with passion, and convey excitement. They avoid common pitfalls and mistakes. They frame the project in a manner that creates desire in reviewers and trust in program officers. They describe project deliverables that are viewed by reviewers as valuable/desirable contributions to the community, and therefore worth funding. The investigators are viewed with sufficient trust by program officers to justify funding.

Well-written proposals are directly and clearly aligned with what reviewers and program officers are expecting^[1]. Importantly, they “cover all the bases” and leave no “holes” that can become targets of criticism from reviewers. Importantly also, they are written with the reviewer in mind^[2]. A reviewer of such a well-written proposal can find all of the needed information easily. Indeed, they can compose a first draft of their review by simply cutting and pasting key sentences from the proposal itself, before adding their perspective.

Language skills are a common source of concern among junior faculty members. Not to worry – language skills are much less important to effective grantsmanship than one might think. It is really about the content and organization. In fact, a poorly organized proposal describing an otherwise excellent idea written by a native English writer could fare badly, while a well-organized proposal with a comparably good idea could fare well despite some imperfect English. Finally, once the content and organization are worked out, we can always hire a professional proofreader to improve the text. The end product is a well-written proposal that makes a compelling and persuasive case for funding the project.

3. DON’T GO IT ALONE – GRANTSMANSHIP IS A TEAM SPORT

Thinking up a good “funding worthy” project is the crucial first step in grant writing. It is quite natural and common for us to think up projects based on our knowledge of our field. We are very good at imagining projects that will advance the state of the art and impress our peers. Unfortunately, however, we are not very good at imagining projects that will earn the enthusiastic support of a reviewer and a program officer, and this is key to getting funded. For this crucial reason, it is important to not approach grant writing as a lonely activity, but rather as a game with more than one person. Proposals with multiple investigators often have some team dynamics built in, but it is not sufficient. We really need to have a friendly in-house reviewer (mentor) who is not on the proposing team, who will (bluntly) point out weaknesses to be addressed, help identify strengths that need to be played up, and provide additional perspective as appropriate.

At first blush, this may seem burdensome. Our colleagues and mentors are busy people, and they don’t have a lot of spare time. For this reason, our process is designed to be efficient and quick.

4. PRE-SUBMISSION REVIEWS AND PROGRAM OFFICER DISCUSSIONS ARE KEY

It is extremely important that grant proposals are critiqued by a colleague or mentor well before it is submitted to the funding agency. It is also important that the investigator discuss ideas and plans with the program officer at the funding agency.

The most common mistake made by grant writers is to write a proposal and submit it for review to a funding agency without an internal pre-submission peer review or a discussion with the program officer. In such a scenario, the anonymous reviewer becomes the first person to read the proposal, and any strategic and/or tactical mistakes in writing the proposal can result in poor reviews.

Even if the peer reviews turn out great, funding is not assured. For example, a federal agency may already have a certain type of project in mind, or may not have enough dollars to fund your idea. Therefore, providing resources and mechanisms for effective pre-submission review of proposals, and actively encouraging faculty members to benefit from agency resources is extremely important.

In fact, all preliminary project summaries and such other exploratory communications with program officers should be vetted and advised by a peer/mentor.

The second most common mistake made by grant writers is to initiate the proposal writing close to the submission deadline. It is important to encourage them to start early (3). Starting early, and following a methodical proposal development process as described below can yield handsome payoffs. It can not only result in a more persuasive proposal that has a higher probability of being funded, but also reduce the amount of time needed to write it.

5. A DEPARTMENT CHAIR’S GUIDE

It is best to provide this document to the mentor as well as the mentee so both are aware of the expectations and rationale.

The grant writer (the faculty member seeking pre-submission feedback), is asked to bring a draft Summary Page (NSF) or a Specific Aims page to the meeting. The idea is to start off with the one-page summary(4) that is reviewed as described below, and refined (iteratively) until it provides persuasive answers to the core questions described in the next section (5). Once the summary page is sufficiently well developed, it can serve as the guide for writing the rest of the proposal in an efficient manner^[6]. This guided approach is efficient since it avoids extensive editing and reorganization of the proposal text (a notoriously error-prone process).

It is best focus on the NSF grant Summary Page (or the NIH Specific Aims page), for two important reasons:

1. Reviewers’ initial impressions of a grant proposal are influenced greatly by these one-page summaries. These pages frame, guide, and shape the subsequent (more detailed) narrative of the proposal. Federal review panel discussions (or NIH study sections) are heavily influenced by the summary pages, almost to the point of using them as triage tools, since only a subset of panel members is required to read the full proposal.
2. From a grant-writer’s perspective, a well-written summary page can provide a concise and effective narrative for the proposal, and the help frame for the rest of the proposal. In other words, these one-pagers are disproportionately influential and useful. Once these one-pagers are solid, they serve as a guide for writing the rest of the proposal in an efficient manner, saving valuable time and preventing editing errors that happen when sections of the document are re-arranged.

The reviewer should try to answer a series of questions from a checklist (a sample is provided below), and react to the answers based on first impressions, from the writeup alone. It is important to rely on first impressions since it recreates the realistic scenario of grant reviewers who are often pressed for time. It is equally important to rely on the written summary alone since this is what the real reviewer sees.

The summary page is expected to provide direct, simple, and persuasive answers to these questions. Importantly, these answers should be readily apparent in the proposal, and should not be hard to find. Ideally, the answers are bluntly presented in the draft summary statement itself.

 

It is really important for the individual mentor or faculty panel to be quite critical and brutally honest. The mentee should see this as being helpful rather than discouraging. Setting such a constructive tone makes this process work better.

 

When the grant writer’s answers are not sufficiently convincing or hard to find, the meeting participants can provide helpful feedback and perhaps brainstorm ways to come up with more convincing (and easily apparent) answers to the questions (7). This is usually enjoyable. The meeting participants are expected to take good notes, all of which are provided to the grant writer. The end goal of this exercise is to make sure that the grant writer ends up with clear feedback aimed at generating persuasive and convincing answers to the basic questions. Sometimes, one or more follow-up meetings may be needed after the grant writer has had the opportunity to refine the draft. Happily, subsequent rounds go faster. All told, they are well worth the additional effort.

There are two basic ways for a department to provide pre-submission reviews to proposal writers in an efficient manner.

1. An Individual Mentor: For a small or mid-size department, it is quickest and most effective for an experienced faculty member, or the Chair, to review the summary page for a new proposal, using the efficient question-driven method described below. The goal is to help establish an effective framework, and a compelling narrative for proposals before they are submitted, by providing pointed feedback to the grant writer. The department chair has the benefit of maturity, and having at least a first-order understanding of faculty research (this gets harder with larger departments), and therefore is the person who can best assist faculty members with identifying a suitable mentor, or serving as one when no one else is available.

This process does not require advance preparation beyond a reading of the on-page summary, and can be followed up with a short (15 – 30 minute) meeting. A face-to-face meeting is most effective since it allows a back-and-forth exchange of ideas and active brainstorming. When this is not practical, alternative communication methods (e.g., Zoom / Email / Phone) may be sufficiently effective.

1. A Faculty Panel (Red Team): Larger departments may consider maintaining a list of designated reviewers who act as individual mentors, or creating a “red team” committee. In this method, a team of 2 – 3 faculty colleagues challenge the grant writer’s draft with a series of questions as described below, and provide feedback on ways to make the proposal better. The process and goals are the same as with the individual method. The department chair can either choose to convene a panel meeting, with the logistical difficulty that it entails, or ask the panel members to provide independent reviews. When dealing with a cross-disciplinary proposal that involves multiple departments, it makes sense to seek reviews individually and separately from multiple mentors who bring different disciplinary angles.

5. THE CHECKLIST of QUESTIONS

This section provides a reasonable palette of questions to ask of proposals. It is not necessary to hit every question for every proposal. Our goal is to provide the mentor with a good collection to choose from.

What matters most is that the proposal provides clear and quick answers to a core set of questions that are on the minds of reviewers and funding agencies. The classic example of such a list of core questions is the Heilmeier Catechism (8). George H. Heilmeier, a former DARPA director (1975 – 1977), crafted the following set of questions to help Agency officials evaluate proposed research programs.

• What are you trying to do? Articulate your objectives using absolutely no jargon.
• How is it done today, and what are the limits of current practice?
• What is new in your approach and why do you think it will be successful?
• Who cares? If you are successful, what difference will it make?
• What are the risks?
• How much will it cost?
• How long will it take?
• What are the mid-term and final “exams” to check for success?

A proposal should provide direct and convincing answers to all of these questions(9). Importantly, unconvincing answers to any of these questions need to be fixed.

If you look at the above set of questions, it is clear that they are applicable to a wide variety of proposals and technical areas. The answers to these questions can be evaluated with just common sense, with minimal preparation, and general scientific expertise.

Opening Question 1: What is your overarching goal for this project? In other words, what is the project’s purpose, and what are the expected outcomes? The best answers to this question outline a transformational capability that, when achieved, will provide widespread/important community benefits by meeting a compelling need. Such a capability should not exist currently since there are key barriers that will be overcome by the proposer. It should meet a broadly felt need.

In choosing the overarching goal for the proposal, keep the reviewers’ psychology in mind. These people are your peers and competitors, they are very human and have the full range of emotions, especially selfish interest and jealousy. and you need to (somehow) convince them to support your idea. For this, you must consider project ideas that create a feeling of “desire” in the reviewer’s mind.

Examples:

• A project that will result in an enabling toolkit that is of broad use to the community
• A project that overcomes an important hurdle that is holding back the community
• A project that opens the doors to a new set of applications that benefits the community

Notes: In screening the answers, focus on the significance of the project outcome(s), rather than the approach (10). Also make sure that the outcomes are clearly understandable from a quick reading of the summary page. The initial answers to this question can often be unconvincing from an outcome(s) standpoint. For example, it is common for grant writers to be overly focused on an elegant or novel way of solving old problems, rather than a practical way to solve an important new problem. Their answers are often framed with words like “new” or “cool” rather than “needed”. The answers may be fascinating from a mathematical / algorithmic / technical perspective, but may not be compelling from an applied perspective. The best answers from a funding standpoint offer a project outcome that can transform one or more application areas. Finally, do a sanity check to make sure that the level of ambition of the proposal is appropriate.

Quite often, it makes sense to re-frame the overarching goal in order to align it with the expectations of the funding agency, the peer community, or such other higher-level considerations, rather than the project methodology or technique.

Opening Question 2: Why is your goal worth achieving? Who will care, or benefit from the fruits of this project?

Notes: Expect the initial set of answers from the grant writer to be somewhat jumbled and incoherent. Usually, the answers congeal into a coherent and concise statement after a few back-and-forth attempts.

The best answers are those that save/improve numerous lives, contribute valuable knowledge/tools to the research community, or achieve national competitiveness, in a clearly understandable manner.

Ultimately, the best answer becomes (the new and improved) opening sentence in the Summary Statement.

Opening Question 3: How do you know that the funding agency cares about your research topic and goal(s)?

Notes: A common mistake among faculty members is to not communicating with program officers about the prospects in order to understand the agency’s expectations. Another common mistake is not studying the Request for Proposals (RFA) with sufficient thoroughness. Finally, it is not uncommon for agencies to be interested in a topic, but not have the funds allocated. In such cases, program officers are often able to point researchers to other funded agencies or programs.

Look for wise selection of the funding agency and program. Look for indications of a lack of clear confirmation of the proposal’s alignment with the funding source, and availability of funds, and encourage the faculty member to get a clear confirmation, and feedback about the project idea. Interestingly, a well-drafted summary page is needed to communicate with a program officer, even on a preliminary/exploratory basis, so a peer review can be very helpful.

Opening Question 4: What is your plan to make your proposal stand out from the crowd? After all, it will be reviewed by a panel of judges, and will be among a group (a veritable sea) of proposals from comparably smart researchers, with comparably brilliant ideas. It is often helpful to ask this question for each part of the summary page. For example, an NSF summary page consists of an opening statement stating the overarching goals of the project, a brief summary of approach, a statement of intellectual merit, and statements regarding broader impacts and outreach. An NIH Specific Aims page consists of an opening paragraph stating the background and significance, a paragraph stating the central hypothesis and scientific premise, a statement about the research team, followed a list of specific aims, and a closing statement. Asking how the grant writer plans to make each of these parts stand out can often help sharpen the proposal and make it more competitive.

Note: This simple question is surprisingly impactful. It triggers competitive thinking in a good way. The best answers promise to help the proposal stand out by: (i) leveraging unique resources (instruments, facilities, databases, talent, experience, etc.); (ii) addressing a particularly important need that others cannot address; or (iii) offering a uniquely innovative strategy that can result in valuable (perhaps multiple or sweeping) outcomes and new knowledge/tools. It is not uncommon for a faculty member to completely re-think the proposal in trying to provide a convincing answer, especially the way it is framed, and/or the overarching narrative.

The manner in which a proposal concept is framed is especially important. Often, the same project idea can be cast in a far more exciting / compelling manner. For example, it is common for engineers to be overly focused on their pet technical idea rather than the important societal problem that it solves, or the expectations of the funding agency. In such cases, it is helpful to guide the mentee towards a radical re-framing of the proposal, even if that entails placing their pet technical idea in a role that is subservient to the expected applied outcome.

This process may take multiple iterations that must be guided towards achieving a convincing answer. The end result is usually very helpful to the faculty member (hopefully, fruitful from a funding standpoint as well).

Opening Question 5: How do we know that this project is feasible? It helps to do a sanity check on the preliminary studies that indicate project feasibility. They should be convincing. For example, pilot experiments and data that establish feasibility are invaluable.  Another way to establish feasibility is to refer to the work of your peers who have made the needed breakthroughs. It is also helpful to examine the project team. All of the needed expertise must be clearly present. For example, the PI of a project that requires some statistical analysis may consider himself/herself sufficiently expert, but a reviewer may not be convinced. In such a case, it would be more convincing to include a professional statistician on the project team, even if that is for a nominal level of effort.

Detailed Questions: For this part of the discussion, choose one or more appropriate questions from each of the 3 categories A, B, or C, illustrated on the following “Step diagram”. In asking these questions, the goal is to guide the proposal writer towards: (i) thinking about the many facets of a good proposal, and thereby making sure that key aspects are not missed; and (ii) making sure that the grant writer has direct and convincing answers. Importantly, the grant writer should be helped in making sure that the important aspects of the proposal are easy to find in the writeup (11).

 

 

1. Framing the Background & Need (WHY?):
   1. State of the Art: How is it done today? What are the limits or limitations of current practice? It would be ideal if you are able to plot existing technologies on a one or two-dimensional chart.
   2. Need: Why is this project needed? Why now? Why is the need compelling? What is it costing in terms of societal/human suffering or lost productivity? Is the agency soliciting solutions to a problem that is being addressed?
   3. Desire: Would a reviewer be desirous of the proposed contribution (e.g., an open source toolkit)?
   4. Competition: List the current leaders in the field who define the current state of the art, and relate your idea to their work (and by the way, some of them could end up being your actual reviewers, so make sure to cite their work in a positive manner)?
   5. Strategy: What is your plan to make your proposal rise above the competition? It will be one among a sea of proposals from comparably smart researchers, with comparably brilliant ideas, so you need to make sure that your proposal stands out. It is amazing how much impact this simple question has. It is not uncommon for a faculty member to completely re-think the proposal in trying to provide a compelling answer, especially in defining the right goal, the way the proposal is framed, innovative approaches, and the overarching narrative. This process may take multiple iterations that must be guided towards convergence to a convincing answer. The end result is usually very helpful to the faculty member (hopefully, fruitful as well).
       
2. Setting the Right Objectives, Impact, Outcomes, & Significance (WHAT?):
   1. Goals: What are you proposing to achieve? What are the expected outcomes? Try to set a goal that is clearly transformational in terms of impact. Make sure it is easily understood and appreciated as being worth achieving.
   2. Significance: Why is this goal worth achieving? Is it transformational, and if so, in what way?
   3. Direct impact(s): What is the expected impact or benefits arising from your project if you are successful? Who benefits, and in what way? How does it advance the state of knowledge?
   4. Broader impact(s): What are the broader impacts to society, K-12 education, undergraduate research, etc. Importantly, are the broader impacts exciting and novel in some manner? Are they imaginatively described and named? Have you thought about the potential to create intellectual property (IP) and will your students participate in entrepreneurship development programs like NSF I-CORPS? Have you thought about including relationships and collaborations with key research centers and companies?
   5. Sponsor Alignment: Is the grant sponsor actually interested in your goal? Does the sponsor have funds allocated for this type of goal? Have you communicated with the program officers, and did they encourage you to submit?
   6. Dissemination: Will your project result in methods, protocols, code, or data that will be disseminated to the scientific community? How will that transform the field?
       
3. Project Approach (HOW?):
   1. Advancement: How does your project advance the state of the art? Importantly, does it: (i) address the limitations of current practice; and (ii) the needs identified in Item A above?
   2. Innovation: What is special/innovative about your approach compared to current approaches? Why is it better (being “new” is uninteresting, it should be better in a demonstrable manner)?
   3. Outcomes: What are the intellectual/fundamental outcomes from your project? What are the practical/applied outcomes from your project? Are you planning to disseminate tools, methods and data, and how will they benefit the scientific community? Is there anything special about your dissemination strategy?
   4. Feasibility: Why do you think this project will be successful?
   5. Barriers: What barrier(s) must be overcome, and how will you overcome them?
   6. Challenge: Why is this project hard to do (therefore worthy of generous funding)? Naming a defined set of barriers that must be overcome, and directly relating the proposed methods to the barriers is a good strategy.
   7. Preparation: How are you best prepared to do this project? For example, do you have pilot data indicating feasibility? Why are you and your team of investigators the very best people to tackle this project?
   8. Pitfalls & Alternative Plans: What can potentially go wrong with your approach, and do you have an alternative fallback approach if needed?
   1. Metrics: How will you measure your progress and know when you are successful? Try to use generally accepted and objective tests/metrics. If you make up your own, say why it is appropriate.
   10. Milestones: What are the “midterm” and “final exams” for measuring your progress? When are they?
   11. Budget & Justification: How much funding are you requesting and why is it justifiable/appropriate? The latter is more important.
   50. Duration: How long will it take to do this project? Why is that reasonable?
        
4. Personnel (WHO?)
   1. Personnel: Why are you the best person/team for this project?
   2. Is the proposal conveying “Trust” to the reviewer and program officer?
   3. Do you have the best minds on your team?
   4. Is there any missing expertise (from the standpoint of reviewers)?

6. AFTER THE SUMMARY PAGE IS “GOOD TO GO”

Once the summary page is clear, convincing, complete, and persuasive, the writing of the proposal, and its review becomes especially efficient and straightforward. Below are some suggestions on providing guidance for this phase:

1. Sponsor specific matters: Does the sponsor have specific requirements in the RFA? Have you addressed them? Have you discussed them with the program officer and did they approve?
2. Opening Figure: Review and update the opening paragraph and opening figure (usually Figure 1). The opening figure should clearly and simply convey the goals, innovation, and strategies of the proposal. A well-made opening figure makes the rest of the proposal easy to write, and for a reviewer to understand.
3. Simple and Direct Language: It is best to advise the proposal writer to use simple and direct language. There is no room for arcane jargon, acronyms, or language that is indirect, vague, or flowery in a grant proposal. The answers to the questions in Parts A – C above should be clear and unambiguous to anyone.
4. Logical Organization: While grammar and spelling receive the most attention, the readability and understandability of a proposal is influenced by its organization. Most funding agencies require specific sections in proposals, so the table of contents is often standard. Therefore, the proposal writer needs to pay attention to how the content is organized within each section. It is important to make the section titles as clear as possible In fact, it should be possible to get a quick take on the proposal from reading the section headings alone. Each section should have an opening statement that directly summarizes the section’s main message. Subsequent sentences and paragraphs should provide supportive details. Each section should end with a favorable “take home” message for the reader. Each paragraph should have a clear and direct lead sentence, detailed text that supports the lead sentence, and a closing sentence with a clear take-home message.
5. Consistency: Make sure that the proposal content is consistent with the summary page.
6. Math/technical Content: Putting an excessive amount of mathematical details is a common mistake made by inexperienced grant-writers. It is best to be selective, and make sure that the equations help with the narrative. For example, knowing that most methods being proposed will be optimal in some sense, it is often helpful to state the optimization criteria in the form of a general equation that makes the inputs, outputs, and criteria apparent, leaving the details of the optimization open to investigation.
7. Sponsor specific sections: Each of the major funding agencies require specific sections. For example, the NIH has requirements like Rigor and Reproducibility, Animal Welfare, Resource Sharing, and Authentication of key Resources. Review of these sections is best left to specialists.
8. Take-home messages: It is best to encourage the proposal writer the simple question: “What message do you want the reviewer to walk away with?”, and then ask if that message is in plain sight.
9. Highlighting: It is often helpful to highlight key phrases in a proposal to help the reviewer find them more easily. It should be possible for a reviewer to lift phrases from your text and compose his/her review with little effort.

7. POST-REVIEW STEPS

Once a proposal has been reviewed, and the review panel’s feedback is available, it is possible that the proposal is declined and in need of revisions. This process could also benefit from mentoring and pre-resubmission peer review. Actually, especially so. The idea is to make sure that the revisions are sufficiently responsive and well-documented.

Fathoming the reviewers’ real thinking is the hardest part of this task. It is not uncommon for reviewers to be either vague or understated in their comments, for a variety of reasons. It is important to dig and extrapolate beyond the written comments to craft the best proposal revision strategy that addresses the root concern.

It is not uncommon for people in research communities to get “turned off” by certain ideas/approaches, or controversial / divisive topics. It is helpful to develop some understanding for what these turnoffs are and help steer the PI away from them. Distressingly, these are never overtly stated. An experienced mentor can help the grant writer steer clear of these potholes.

8. SUMMARY

It is possible to provide effective pre-submission review and coaching to grant writers in an efficient manner. This process also provides an effective way to reduce the overall grant writing burden, provide clarity, and avoid mistakes from unnecessary editing. Importantly, this process is fruitful, and enjoyable for all parties.

Do you have an initiative in your department worth sharing? We would love to feature your efforts in the next ECE Source newsletter. Increasingly, our articles are in the form of the ECE Conversations video podcast. It is friendly, authentic, personal, and natural.

Do you have interesting initiatives in progress at your department? We would love to feature your efforts in the nextECE Source newsletter. Increasingly, our articles are in the form of the ECE Conversations video podcast. It is friendly, authentic, personal, and natural.

Here are some of the topics of current interest for future ECE Conversations:

1. Innovative strategies for ensuring Student Success;
2. The impacts of AI on ECE education and research;
3. Strategies and Experiences in meeting the semiconductor re-shoring challenge;
4. The growing footprint of healthcare-related research in ECE departments;
5. Growing the workforce for the future electronics-intensive defense industry;
6. The new ECE Chair experience, the ups, and the downs;
7. Teaching engineering values; and
8. Strategies and best practices for developing future ECE faculty.

 

As always, we welcome short articles from ECE department heads & faculty on topics of broad interest to our community.

 

Wishing you a Happy Thanksgiving,

Badri Roysam, D. Sc., Fellow IEEE, Fellow AIMBE

Hugh Roy and Lillie Cranz Cullen University Professor

Chair, Electrical & Computer Engineering Department

University of Houston

Houston, Texas 77204-4005

Phone: 713-743-1773

Email: broysam@uh.edu