A $1.9 million dollar grant from the National Science Foundation will help Bradley University students and faculty conduct more research projects.
The award, announced on April 18, will mainly involve staffing the Office of Sponsored Programs [OSP] that supports faculty and staff who seek funding for their research, scholarship or other creative work.
With more staff, director Brad Andersh said OSP will be better equipped to accommodate more proposals from students and faculty, which in turn will lead to a higher number of opportunities for them outside the classroom.
“It is transformational,” Andersh said. “It’s been sorely needed to have more staff in the office, and having the honor of the National Science Foundation to recognize that Bradley is an institution that they want to invest in … it’s an honor that we were one of the institutions that were selected.”
The main focus will be hiring a full-time director, as Andersh also teaches chemistry, as well as being an associate director. Additionally, the university will work to establish a network of people across each college to serve as advocates and sources of information for OSP among their departments — something that is present at large universities but wasn’t possible at a mid-sized institution like Bradley.
“Most institutions will have people who are specific to each discipline as well as a central office,” Andersh said. “A large university may have 30, 40 people working in a grant management office and we currently have one and a half.”
The grant also will be used to purchase software to make data and document management easier as well as some new initiatives, including a pre-submission review panel for research proposals in conjunction with Western Illinois University. With the two schools being comparable in size and faculty, Andersh thinks hearing the opinions of the professors and experts at WIU before submitting a proposal will go a long way toward getting approval.
“The more opportunities you have to review and evaluate your proposal before it’s submitted, the better off you are because when it goes to the National Science Foundation or any other federal program, it’s an extensive review process,” Andersh said. “You’re reviewed by your peers, and they’re not going to be peers from the institution but across the country, and so the more information, the more feedback you can get, the better off you are.”
“I always tell people that you really are looking for individuals who are willing to give you significant constructive criticism before you submit, and that’s the goal of this particular initiative,” Andersh added.
In order to receive the grant, Bradley went through a competitive process once it was released last summer. Working with McAllister & Quinn, a grant writing firm Bradley employed, the office was able to achieve funding on its first attempt, something that is uncommon for these types of grant proposals.
The grant also requires the recipient to include a research component, so Bradley will be studying the impact of having a multi-institutional review board with Western Illinois, and the impact of the advocacy board among the different colleges at an emerging research institution like Bradley.
The project is expected to take five years to fully roll out. While year one will be focused on hiring the staff and implementing the software, year two will involve moving forward with the advocacy program and review board before looking at the effects of the changes in the years to follow.
Ultimately, Andersh said the grant will offer more programming and training to ensure OSP employees are as equipped as possible to submit competitive proposals, which will help those who are looking to conduct that scholarly work.
“The ultimate goal is to provide as many experiential learning opportunities for our students as possible and by having external funding, we’re able to do more of that and that’s the ultimate goal is to enhance that student experience,” Andersh said.
