Competitive grants provide conditional funds—meaning that the grant will be written, funded, and executed for a designated project and purpose. These narrow conditions can heighten grant competition and become daunting for prospective eligible applicants.
To navigate the grant writing process with ease, CSU Writes in collaboration with the Research Acceleration Office designed and piloted the Early-Career Grant Program in spring 2024.
This Early-Career Grant Support Program was part of both offices’ vision to facilitate and advance CSU faculty, research associate, and graduate student success. The program was launched in March and ran through mid-July. The summer sessions provided support for faculty submitting National Science Foundation (NSF) Career proposals.
A primary focus of the program was to provide structure and accountability, support, and encouragement to early career faculty as they navigate complex grant terrains. The program included multiple offerings including in-depth talk on pursuing an NSF grant by seasoned scholars, one-on-one feedback on proposal drafts at various stages as well as peer review. The seminars approached grant writing strategically with an eye to federal funding agencies.
Interestingly, both the RAO and CSU Writes were founded in 2015 to support CSU’s mission of research and scholarly excellence at a land grant institution. These two units have partnered since 2016 on special events to support both individual and collaborative research efforts.
The RAO is housed in the Office of the Vice President for Research and is designed to support both CSU’s contributions to large interagency grants as well as to enhance the competitiveness of individual researcher’s career-defining proposals.
In my recent interview with the Research Acceleration Office Assistant Director, Dinaida Egan and the RAO Proposal Development Coordinator, Lynn Bruning, I learned why the Research Acceleration Office is a great resource for grant writers:
- The RAO can provide researchers with a variety of grant writing and grant support resources.
- They help researchers find funding and partnership opportunities.
- The RAO occupies a unique space at CSU to help researchers progress in their careers and become increasingly successful in researchers.
- They think strategically with researchers about their grant writing specifically in areas like elevating content, connecting with people who share an aligned research interest and appropriate funding sources.
- The RAO is designed to support collaborative projects across colleges to generate high research value and funding.
Learn more about the Research Acceleration Office.
Both CSU Writes and RAO look forward to future opportunities to collaborate in support of your grant projects this coming year.