A diverse scientific workforce is crucial for the development of a strong national scientific workforce. This project will support at least 30 early career scientists from underrepresented groups to attend a workshop on "developing skills for grant writing and peer review". The workshop is intended to increase the participation in the grant review process by scientists from underrepresented groups and increase the probability that they themselves will successfully obtain grants for their research. The workshop provides a two-day hands-on event to be held in the Washington D.C. area in spring or summer 2020. As an outcome of the workshop, participants will obtain the knowledge and competencies in reviewing grant proposals and will increase their participation in the grant review process. Over the course of the workshop, participants will learn to critique grant proposal drafts as well as develop their own drafts with the guidance of peers and mentors from funding agencies. Participants will be selected based on their interest in learning the peer review process and the potential impact of the workshop on their career. Faculty and early career scientists at HBCUs, TCUs, HSIs, and other minority-serving institutions are especially encouraged to apply.
This workshop uses a novel approach of bringing together representatives of funding agencies to provide a broad set of perspectives for early career scientists interested in both grant writing and the grant review process. The project will train early career scientists who will be provided with strategies for effective networking. As a result, it is expected that participants will support each other, form a cohesive cohort group, and practice what they learned at the workshop. Successfully securing grant funding is critical to the professional development of early career scientists, and yet professionals from historically underrepresented and marginalized communities receive grant funding at rates lower than their majority colleagues. At the workshop, participants will learn how to effectively communicate their research ideas in a written format (proposal), become aware of how proposals are reviewed, learn the criteria used in a review, and become increasingly confident of their ability to write a competitive proposal and provide useful critical review of other proposals. This project is supported by the Divisions of Biological Infrastructure (Directorate for Biological Sciences) and Human Resource Development (Education and Human Resources Directorate).
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
