My Story
Are you a frustrated academic science researcher? Keep reading if you are. It doesn’t matter whether you are a junior or a senior faculty member, a postdoctoral researcher, or a graduate student.
More than a decade ago, I was a biology faculty member at a small Research 1 University, teaching biology, botany, plant physiology, and occasionally cell biology. When I wasn’t in the classroom, I was striving to have a stellar (for me) extramurally funded research program. You can read part of my story under A Second Career.
Does this sound familiar?
If any of this sounds familiar, you are like me, throughout my nearly 20-year career. Expectations for getting grants were high, but mismatches existed between academic expectations and available resources. If this is true for my former university, then it is likely true for yours.
Do you need guidance in applying for research grants?
In a smaller college or university, the kind of guidance you had in graduate school is probably absent. I had none and just persevered. Scientific grant writing is difficult intellectual work, requiring perverse attention to scientific, agency, and budget details. Any help would have made it easier. The general advice was and still is to have a colleague review your work. If your colleagues were anything like mine, nobody had the time then, and they certainly don’t have it now.
I have the time, unlike your current colleagues, advisers, and committee members! Not only do I have the time, but I am not competing for grant awards to fund my research interests. Most importantly, I am that friendly colleague down the hall or in another department who can help a fellow academic tell a clear and compelling research story in a grant proposal or journal article.
Do you need a peer-like review of grant proposals and similar documents?
As a generalist in the life sciences, I am offering that kind of review for a fee. Review services focus on an in-depth scientific and editorial review of a grant proposal or scientific document from the perspective of a life science generalist. My flat fee review is mostly for individuals or their institutions needing a quick outside review for grant proposals and other materials (monographs, manuscripts) with critical deadlines. My science background probably isn’t an exact match to yours, but I will research your work and research as necessary as part of my flat fee review package. The last time I was an NSF panel member, I had to do some background research on several proposals assigned to me. Since you are paying for this, you deserve excellent customer service and thorough reviews from me. As a member of the Grant Professionals Association, I am bound by their code of ethics in all matters related to grants. Please use the contact form if my review package does not meet your needs or you need other services.
Do you need a mentor?
If you have one, that’s great! Colleges and universities got wise and started assigning mentors to new faculty. Not all mentors are equal. Some are great at helping you to understand your academic workplace. Indifference, lack of time, and different areas of expertise are common shortcomings of assigned mentors. Tenure and promotion applications and post-tenure reviews are sticking points where faculty members often need help getting to the next career phase. Tenure is special. In my career, I had to appeal tenure and promotion denial decisions more than once. More importantly, when my university downsized and fired me as a tenured faculty member and a current NSF PI, I successfully sued them for breach of contract.
View my Consulting Services Page for information about my grant consulting services which can include mentoring or tenure and promotion assistance. The Grant Science Lab is where all of you life science postdocs, researchers, academic professionals, and faculty can learn from my experiences to further your professional development. If you are not in the life sciences, that’s fine too. One important skill that many of us in the STEM fields lack is the ability to explain our research to colleagues outside our narrow fields, even within the sciences.
My blog, The Lab Notebook, infrequently covers topics on science, grant writing, science funding, academic life, and the nonprofit world.
Now that you’ve read this far and want more information about grant writing for researchers and other academics, please email me using the contact form. I am putting my newsletter, The Grant Science Journal, into retirement. With referrals, private clients who find me, and subcontracting through consulting firms, I find I have plenty of work. Email marketing has its place–everybody loves a sale, but most of the time it’s promotional puffery, which I detest. Pushing back the frontiers of science is your job, especially now in the waning days of the Covid-19 pandemic and worries about the next one on the horizon. My role is to help you do that with sound advice.
Kind Regards,
Deb Cook, Ph.D.