By Esther Pratt, Office of Grant and Research Development, and
Christine Crudo, Office of Research and the Graduate School
Christine Crudo, Office of Research and the Graduate School
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Faculty success stories Training with Stephen Russell has garnered results for many WSU faculty. A few examples:
* Chemistry professor Cliff Berkman’s application for a $1.9 million NIH project went from being unscored to funded with Russell’s help on the resubmission. His proposal was ranked in the sixth percentile of those received by NIH.
* Jeff Bryan, assistant professor of veterinary clinical sciences, participated in Russell’s 2009-10 workshop.
“I have never been more proud of the detail in a written product I have created in my life,” he said of his proposal. “I feel that I have truly crafted this document.
“Funded or not, I will always believe that this was my very best shot for this opportunity at this time,” he said.
* 2009-10 participant Shane Brown, assistant professor in civil and environmental engineering, submitted an NSF CAREER proposal in July and already has received notice that it will be funded.
* English professor Debbie Lee at first was concerned about whether Russell could really help with a humanities proposal. But she was “thoroughly impressed” with his ability to translate his methodology to her discipline.
She was grateful for his help in the success of her proposal to the highly competitive National Endowment for the Humanities. She has gone on to incorporate what she has learned from the workshop into the mentoring she provides her graduate students and the help she gives other faculty within her department.
For more success stories, see an earlier WSU Today article here.
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Grant-writing training from Stephen Russell has helped WSU faculty win approximately $26.5 million in funding awards over the past six years. The Office of Research will sponsor up to 30 faculty to receive mentoring from Russell in his 2010-11 workshop.
Applications are due in November. Interested tenure/tenure-track faculty should contact Esther Pratt (estherpratt@wsu.edu) in the Office of Grant and Research Development.
More than 700 WSU faculty have attended one-day grant-writing seminars conducted by Russell. The seminar is a prerequisite to his comprehensive five-month “Mentored Proposal Writing Workshop,” which 115 faculty have completed.
In the workshop, participants create a proposal that ultimately will be submitted to a federal funding agency. Russell provides guidance and critiques throughout development of the proposal.
Training yields results
Impressive in his diversity, Russell has assisted faculty in departments from English to engineering.
Impressive in his diversity, Russell has assisted faculty in departments from English to engineering.
Four of the six prestigious National Science Foundation CAREER awards received this year and multiple National Institutes of Health RO1s were developed with Russell’s methodology.
The Center for Environmental Research, Education and Outreach’s flagship NSF $3 million Integrative Graduate Education Research Training grant, funded last year, was developed with Russell’s assistance.
Seminar topics
Russell presented his one-day seminar, “Write Winning Grants,” at WSU Pullman in October. It covered conceptual and practical aspects of grant writing.
Russell presented his one-day seminar, “Write Winning Grants,” at WSU Pullman in October. It covered conceptual and practical aspects of grant writing.
Russell discussed: how to develop the skills to identify potential funding sources; how to formulate a focused research plan that incorporates a well-defined hypothesis, compelling rationale and clearly defined, measurable objectives that build toward the researcher’s long-range goals; how to make maximum use of existing institutional resources in the development of a research plan; how to develop and justify a budget for the proposed research activities; how to better understand the peer-review process in grant evaluation; how to respond to that process with a well-organized proposal that appeals to the reviewers and responds to the agency’s funding goals.
Russell holds a D.V.M and a Ph.D. in comparative pathology from the University of California-Davis. He has been funded continuously for the past 30 years and is widely considered to be one of the top grant writing specialists in the country.