The RUI proposal: Research in Undergraduate Institutes Mark Lubkowitz Saint Michael’s College

The RUI proposal: Research in
Undergraduate Institutes
Mark Lubkowitz
Saint Michael’s College
What is a RUI?
• Typical NSF proposal with two exceptions:
– Eligibility: “no more than 10 doctoral degrees per
year in NSF-supported disciplines..”
– Impact Statement
• Review criteria: the same as all other NSF
proposal
RUIs fund:
• Individual research projects (and
collaborations)
• Instrumentation
• ROAs (Research Opportunity Awards)
The proposal
• Writing matters
• Remember review criteria: intellectual merit
and broader impact
• Clearly state your hypotheses
• Experiments should address hypotheses
Impact Statement
• Begin by explaining the culture of your college
– 22% of our students have at least one parent who did not
attend college
– 20% of our students are from rural areas
– Research and teaching loads
• Introduce your department
– Number or percentage of students who do research
– Number or percentage of students who go to graduate
school
• Segue to your program and contributions
Selling your program and
contributions
• Measuring research contributions:
– funding, publications, presentations, and
placement of graduates
• Talk about your students and how your
training shaped their careers
– Ex. Grant writing and conference presentations
• Dedicate a paragraph to the culture you are
building
Be prepared to resubmit
“You have to swing the bat to get a run.”
“Although you should wait for the right pitch”
Resubmitting your proposal
• Carefully read your reviews
• Speak to program officer
– Worth pursuing?
– Tone of panel?
– What do I need to do to be competitive?
Responding to reviewers
• Read reviews alongside your proposal
• Criticism is a result of:
– Poor communication
– Flaw in proposal
– No buy in
– Nitpicky
Rewriting your proposal
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Specific aims
Revised submission
Background and significance
Preliminary data
Experimental design for each specific aim
(includes section titled “Analysis of results”)
• Timeline
Rewriting your proposal
Revised submission
This proposal is a resubmission (previous NSF proposal:
0543160), and contains changes suggested by the reviewers.
Since all of the reviewers commented very favorably on the
Broader Impact and Intellectual Merit of the previously proposed
work (all Excellents or Very Goods), we have maintained much
of our earlier grant while addressing the major concern of the
reviewers, namely, the inclusion of more rigorous controls in
certain experiments. Below are the requested controls to
accompany our Preliminary Data as well as additional controls
for our in situ localization. More technical suggestions are
addressed in the proposal.
Directly address major concerns with
data when possible
“As pointed out by a reviewer, it is critical to
ensure that our primers are gene specific.
Therefore, we tested each pair of OPT primers
against a plasmid containing the intended target
and against a pool of plasmids containing all
other OPTs.”
OPT:
1
2
3
D +W D+W D+W
4
5
D +W D+W
6
7
8
9
D W D+W D+W D+W
Change to Specific Aim 2:
“We propose to use in situ localization to determine where
OsOPT2, 4, 5, and 7 are expressed in the germinating seed. As
pointed out by several reviewers, to meet this goal, we require
gene specific probes for in situ localization. To determine the
likelihood of cross hybridization, we used Clustal V to calculate
the percent identity of our OPT2, 4, 5, and 7 probes to other
OPTs. As seen in Table 1, the level of sequence identity shared
between these probes and other OPTs is theoretically low enough
for specific hybridization using stringent conditions given that the
bottom end of detection for low stringency is 65% identity
(Sambrook and Russell, 2001). To ensure that this is the case,
we will test each probe’s ability to cross hybridize with other OPTs
through Southern blots.….”
Summary
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RUIs: all but UVM eligible
Capitalize on your Impact Statement
Your reviews should steer your resubmission
Tenacity
• Copies of my proposal and Impact Statement
are available (email me at
[email protected])