Early Career Investigators - Jump-Starting Your Research

For many early career investigators (ECIs), beginning a first tenure track faculty position is intense. Some find themselves in the first semester juggling a heavy course load, including courses they've never taught that they're scrambling to develop. It's no wonder that research goals sometimes fall off the radar until at least the winter semester. It absolutely makes sense, yet a chaotic start to your career can leave some faculty in a sort of slump as to how to really get things started around their research when they are ready to do so.

Drawing from ORDE and Office of Research Services (ORS) resources, as well as other successful research development offices around the country, I offer some tips to get started that can help to get your research and research funding work going.

Attend workshops and seminars
Even if you've written several grants with your mentor, leading a grant development effort can bring new challenges. By registering for grant development seminars and training, you can get insight on how to approach grant-writing, as well as meet other ECIs and seasoned PIs that you might collaborate with and/or learn from.

ORDE offers a seminar series that will begin in January of 2015, open to all CU Denver faculty. The Colorado Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute (CCTSI) also offers various educational programs, including Pre-K and K to R programs for aspiring NIH ECIs. Many professional organizations offer grant development training or intensive programs to their members as well. It's always worth exploring what these organizations offer as it may be a good fit for you.

Meet with a mentor, RD professional, or leader
Having a one-on-one conversation with a mentor, an accomplished investigator or a research development professional can help you put your research career and plans into perspective. Having someone to serve as a sounding board and/or an adviser can be incredibly helpful to ECIs as they juggle their responsibilities and find ways that they can move forward.

The ORDE team is always available to meet with any of our faculty in strategy sessions as folks who you can bounce ideas off of. This can be particularly helpful when you're also wondering what funding sources are available to you.

Conduct a fund search
ORDE is also available to conduct personalized fund searches for our faculty. We work with you to understand your research goals or your specific research project, and provide you with a planning document that outlines potential funding agencies, a summary of those agencies, deadlines, eligibility, etc. These fund searches and our follow-up updates are all focused on your research.

Find seed money
Seed money can be difficult to come by, but it can really make the difference for ECIs trying to grow their research. ORDE offers a New Investigator Funding e-Book and an e-Book for Pilot Project Funding. Additionally ORS offers small and large grants to researchers on the Denver campus. This seed money can help to jump start your project and put you in a more competitive position when applying for larger external grants down the road.

Identify/form a writing group
Although a large amount of grant development and research is done independently, recruiting and working with a group of peers in a writing group or something of the like can keep you moving forward. A writing group that meets regularly can give you accountability to your peers as well as give you a mutually beneficial group of peer reviewers to offer you feedback on draft grant applications.

These resources and tips can be helpful as you grow your research and research support.

Resources
Office of Research Development Education (ORDE)
Office of Research Services (ORS)
Colorado Clinical and Translational Service Institute (CCTSI)