Internal Funding Spurs Research Innovation Ripple

For those navigating the process of grant writing, it may feel daunting. Fortunately, UConn has resources to help, including internal funding opportunities that are now available to a wider range of UConn researchers. These internal grants are already paving the way for the innovative research needed to tackle complex research questions.

Zofia Baumann, an associate research professor in Marine Sciences, explains that internal funding opportunities were only open to those with tenure or in tenure-track positions. Baumann describes a recent conversation she had with Manager of Research Development Services Matthew Mroz in the Office of Vice President for Research.

"We were talking about opportunities for internal funding which has been a challenge for me. Getting my hands on some of these opportunities is just a question of eligibility," says Baumann.

To secure funding from highly competitive sources like the National Science Foundation, researchers need to demonstrate having adequate capabilities to conduct the proposed research. The evidence of such capability is access to necessary instrumentation and preliminary data. Therefore internal funds are vital for securing larger grants from outside sources. Limitations in eligibility therefore closed off further funding possibilities for many,

"At UConn, we have a diverse group of research faculty. Sometimes there are people like me, who rely completely on grants, while others are part-time teaching, or supported on other research funding, so, again it's very diverse. I inquired about expanding these opportunities to people who are research faculty and write grants like I do."

Baumann learned that those making the funding decisions did not realize how detrimental the requirements were to many faculty. Because of these conversations and inquiries, Baumann says some funding opportunities are more widely available.

"One caveat in eligibility of the research faculty for some internal grants, such as the Regional Excellence Program (REP) is that research faculty must be supported at least in small (one to two percent) part through institutional funding," says Baumann.

Baumann says it is helpful to share success stories, but it is also useful to draw attention to the ongoing struggle for increased eligibility and support needed to ensure research faculty can be successful at UConn. These stories can help inform and inspire others, both fellow researchers as well as administrators.

"It is important to tell the stories about how institutional funding led you to get more funding and ultimately enabled you to undertake the research project that you believe is important," says Baumann.

Internal funding like the CLAS Research Equipment funding opportunity helps launch additional projects so other researchers can secure funding. An example of this funding ripple effect started in 2020 when Julie Granger, professor of Marine Sciences led a proposal to secure funds for a flow cytometer which now benefits many researchers in the department. Granger says the CLAS funding for acquiring the flow cytometer helped leverage a new grant, highlighting how important internal funding is for securing additional funding.

"During the pandemic, CLAS put out a call that they had money to spend on instruments. I wrote a proposal outlining how the department could benefit from having a cell-sorting flow cytometer, and it was one of the first such calls from the college. I don't know what possessed me, because it's not like anyone had any energy during the pandemic, but I mustered it and then got funded. Then I wrote a proposal to the National Science Foundation, and it got funded. I was able to get one of my students trained on it and now she knows how to run the instruments and helps others run the instrument. This year, I've included the instrument in three more proposals that I wrote. I'm able to leverage this instrument in tackling more complex projects to address questions we could not have addressed before," says Granger.

The equipment grant also helped Baumann leverage funding from the NSF, a milestone as it is her first as lead principal investigator. The funding will help Granger research nitrogen cycling and Baumann will investigate the cycling of contaminants, such as methylmercury. It is also important to note that though the grant writing process for internal funding is collaborative, only tenured professors can be listed as leading the submission, so the credit is not equally shared.

Baumann says that the grant writing process itself, though a huge effort and not a paid undertaking for other associate research professors like her, is an excellent way to pull together faculty members and build research collaborations.

"With the grant writing process, my colleagues help out. If I have more senior colleagues or colleagues who had successful proposals, like Julie, she offered to let me peek at her successful proposal and that was helpful. Ad hoc conversations, and having access to everybody here to brainstorm, even just sometimes for a minute or two, completely unexpectedly, and openly sharing their experiences is extremely helpful."

Granger adds that Sponsored Programs Services is another invaluable resource for grant writing help.

"It's nice to have competent people to help. I hear a lot of my colleagues at other universities don't have those resources. It's important to emphasize that writing a research grant and getting funded by the National Science Foundation or others, on average for me it takes about a month to write a proposal, and that's a full-time commitment. It's a non-trivial task to raise that kind of money. I don't know if everyone knows that. A lot of our time is spent crafting and compiling research proposals to bring funding. It brings a lot of money to the university, and having this positive feedback of getting instruments to leverage to write compelling grants and to then makes us competitive, to bring more funding to the university, which helps the whole enterprise."

Baumann hopes these stories help others learn about new funding opportunities and resources available, "These success stories help inspire new initiatives and future allocations of funding. It's important to convey how one thing led to the next, that is opening new doors for new opportunities."