Workshops teach grant writing

In order to train faculty and provide them with resources to seek out grant money, the University of Toledo is holding a series of grant-writing workshops on the Health Science Campus.

The first of the workshops was on Feb. 19 and was geared toward helping faculty in different academic disciplines gain the knowledge they need to improve their chances of securing a grant. The event was led by William Messer, vice president for research.

“If you look at the numbers, funding is up. The [National Institutes of Health] budget was increased by 3 percent last year,” Messer said, highlighting the increased prospects of receiving a grant.

The NIH is a part of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and is the nation’s medical research agency organization. NIH provides a large amount of grant money and other types of funding to various research projects across the country.

Messer said the NIH is particularly interested in the following areas: translational research on antimicrobial resistance, Alzheimer’s disease, vaccine development and Accelerating Medicines Partnership. According to Messer, these areas have enjoyed renewed interest or increased investment.

“They’ve changed priorities and are doing a lot of translational research, but basic research is still over half of the NIH extramural budget,” he said.

Messer also said there is also a focus on neuroscience and neurotechnology as shown by NIH’s new investments in the area.

UT professor Kathryn Eisenmann, was a panelist at the workshop. Eisenmann said that she was chosen because, throughout her biochemistry research career, she has been able to win various grants to fund her efforts.

Eisenmann said her experience has taught her that the first step is to gain an ally who already knows the ins and outs of the system, which is the role she fulfilled as a panelist at the event.

Eisenmann said at the event that this key strategy made it easier to overcome the learning curve and get access to valuable contacts that helped her career.

Eisenmann also advised professors to strike a balance between grant applications and writing scientific papers, because the number of papers published can affect the success of grant applications as well as the professor’s career advancement.

“I am a classically trained pharmacologist, and developed an interest in clinical research as I got into pediatrics because the information we have about drug therapy on infants and children is largely lacking,” said Jeffrey Blumer, chair of the Department of Pediatrics, who was also a panelist at the event. “Clinical research offers a great opportunity for people to apply research,” he said.

Blumer said clinical research offers a pathway for basic research to be applied and translated into knowledge that can have a major impact on society.

The workshop also included information about sources of funding outside the NIH, which was discussed by Dr. Jason Huntley, an assistant professor in the Department of Medical Microbiology and Immunology.

Huntley encouraged participants to also spend their time developing professional networks by attending conferences and going to meetings, which he said will be immensely beneficial to their research careers.

Huntley also informed participants of the institutional funding available at UT, which is partially to help in the preliminary stages of research so professors have a better chance of securing larger and more competitive grants.