Goal/Action: Encourage colleges and departments to develop plans for growth of individual and collaborative grants.
Committee: P. Larson (Geology), N. Lewis (IBC), D. Prieur (VMP), B. Ramaprian (MME), R. Yount (Chemistry)
WHAT ARE BARRIERS TO INCREASED FUNDING?
-
Does a culture exist in some areas whereby grants are not considered important?
-
Is successful grantsmanship adequately rewarded at Washington State University?
-
OGRD and specifically Sponsored Projects need significant improvement.
HOW DO WE OVERCOME THESE BARRIERS?
[Prioritization (high, moderate, low) and cost estimates where appropriate]
-
Washington State University is a research institution, and faculty must be made aware that extramural funding is necessary in most cases to promote their research, and is a job expectation in most cases. [Priority is not high, in the sense that this should be an ongoing and steady process of education, not a crash course]
-
A defined system should be in place at WSU to reward funding success. [High priority, particularly in the current budget situation; costs should include salary increases to get average WSU College of Science salaries to at least the average level of peer institutions]
-
OGRD and especially Sponsored Programs (SP) should be better staffed and more responsive to PI and Department needs, and a sense of pride and ownership need to be introduced into the SP office. [Moderate priority: we are still functional with SP in its current state, but it seems barely so]
-
Hire new faculty that exhibit great research potential, and provide them with the best possible resources and mentoring as they proceed through the early stages of their careers. [High priority, perhaps the highest priority on the list; hire bright and competent young investigators, provide them with appropriate resources to get started, and turn them loose; costs would include significant starting salaries, at a minimum of $55,000 for an academic appointment at the assistant level (we are not going to get the best unless we can offer them competitive salaries), and a minimum of $200,000 start up per new hire (across the board, no questions asked)]
-
Faculty should review proposals for colleagues prior to their submittal. [Moderate priority, this one simply makes common sense and should be covered at the Departmental level]
-
Sound research productivity measures should be established based on the mission of each unit, and these productivity measures (not just student credit hours) should be used in the distribution of budgetary resources at all levels. [High priority and cost free]
-
Bring together small groups of researchers (3-5) to initiate and collaborate on leading-edge research projects on a continuing basis. Such groups should be provided with seed resources, including graduate student support, by the University. [Moderate priority: graduate support on the order of $50,000 per year, which breaks down to about three graduate students, to be awarded perhaps competitively on an annual basis]
-
Substantial resources should be provided for equipment matching requests, research assistantships, and seed grants. [High priority: some of the new programs initiated by the Graduate School and the Office of Research in the past year provide some resources for this and they will be very helpful; matching funds should be available at whatever level are required to provide cutting edge research facilities at WSU, it would be nice to see the CoS have an annual budget of about $1 million for matching requests]
-
Place a value on grants at the Department level. Successful faculty should be rewarded (e.g., ICR to PI's, teaching release time to conduct the research, positive annual merit reviews). [Moderate priority and handled at the Departmental level]
-
Examine successful grant generating units, evaluate the reasons for their success, and use them as role models. [Moderate priority]
-
Each Department and College should have a specific 3-5 year strategic plan with established research (and teaching) objectives that can be quantified and measured. [High priority: it is particularly important to integrate these strategic plans with the University's new strategic plan]
-
Ensure that faculty are made aware of internal and external funding opportunities in a timely fashion. [Low priority: in most cases, faculty are already aware of significant funding opportunities within their discipline]
-
Provide release time to new faculty members so that they can develop their research programs. [Moderate priority: best done on the Departmental level on an ad hoc basis; it would be useful for a pool of about $75,000 per year be established, from which Departments could draw to cover instruction for courses that time-released faculty would normally teach]
-
Allocate more graduate research assistantships to Departments. [Moderate to high priority: about $150,000 per year would cover about 10 RA's, to be distributed equally among the Departments and Programs in the CoS]
HOW DO WE EVALUATE INCREASED GRANT FUNDING?
-
Success should not be defined necessarily by a predetermined increase in funding over a specialized time period.
-
An initial goal should be to increase grant submittals, not just grant awards.
-
The level of grant funding can be evaluated by comparisons to levels of grant funding in peer institutions ("benchmarking"). Achieving levels of funding comparable to those institutions can, in fact, be defined as a goal.
-
Expectations should be balanced and relevant to goals and standards in specific disciplines. Successful research and scholarly activity in some areas are not dependent on large grants.
BACK TO TOP