Annual Report on Sponsored Research 23-24
By a variety of measures, the grant-seeking environment to support scholarly and creative work is thriving at Colorado College. We measure success through a variety of means including:
- Faculty engagement in the planning process well in advance of a deadline
- Faculty use of internal funding to become positioned for external funding
- The number of faculty engaged in the process, seeking representation from all divisions and ranks
- The number of newcomers engaging in the grant-seeking process
- The number of proposals submitted
- The variety of funders approached and
- The percentage of proposals funded
CC faculty have experienced significant success in their external grant submissions. In the five-year period from FY19-FY23[1], 57 individual faculty and staff submitted 104 proposals to 34 distinct funders, requesting $13,158,875 in research funding. All told, 49 of the 104 proposals were funded for $3,720,480, representing a 47% funding rate. This is an incredible accomplishment. While funding rates vary significantly from funder to funder – and from program to program within a given funder – it is common for funders – particularly funders in the social sciences and humanities – to support less than 10% of their applications.
While proposal success starts with a great idea, in order to get to the finish line with a proposal submission, it is important to make consistent progress by remaining focused on meeting key milestones. These milestones include reaching out to my office for support, identifying one’s top priority project, identifying a funder, finalizing a budget request, and engaging readers of draft versions of the narrative. Below we elaborate on some of these activities during the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
[1] Given that it often takes 6 to 9 months to hear whether a grant or fellowship has been funded, we are not yet able to report on proposal success for the proposals submitted in the 2023-2024 fiscal year.
Faculty success begins with engaging early in a variety of activities on the path toward a grant submission, collectively part of the “pre-award” process. These activities – such as one-on-one meetings with the Director of Sponsored Research, requesting internal funding to demonstrate commitment and make progress on one’s scholarly and creative agenda, and requesting feedback on drafts – are critical to grant success.
In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, 48 unduplicated faculty and staff engaged in the “pre-award process” including 14 faculty from all ranks who engaged for the first time in the grant-seeking process. To further elaborate on the work accomplished, the pre-award process can be broken down into two stages, the Research Development Stage and the Proposal Preparation Stage.
The Research Development Stage encompasses initial discussions of a faculty member’s scholarly and creative priorities, with the goal of identifying a possible timeline for submission and, if not yet known, an ideal target funder.
A total of 22 faculty (36% from the social sciences, 23% from the humanities, 41% from the natural sciences) engaged in the Research Development Stage in FY24. While faculty from all ranks (from Visiting Faculty to Full Professors) engaged in the process, perhaps it’s not surprising that Assistant Professors are disproportionately engaged in the Research Development stage. Nearly half (45%) of those engaged in Research Development were Assistant Professors, while Assistant Professors constituted 34.1% of Colorado College faculty in the 23-24 academic year.
Of the 10 faculty who came forward seeking support in identifying a target funder this fiscal year, six (60%) identified a funder before the end of the reporting period. This is a vital milestone that helps faculty stay focused and engaged in the process.
Faculty also availed themselves of internal funding that supports and encourages proposal development and submission. Through the College’s SEGway program, there is a mutual commitment to proposal development – the College commits funding designed to make the future submission more competitive and the faculty member commits to submitting the proposal sometime in the next 3 to 5 years. In the FY24, 14 faculty were supported through the SEGway’s seed funding program; $34,105 in funding was awarded to three faculty in the humanities, three in the social sciences and eight in the natural sciences.
Getting to the proposal submission stage is a huge accomplishment that results from hours of planning, engaging with one’s professional network, leveraging internal funding, and writing and rewriting. In the 2023-2024 fiscal year, 28 faculty submitted 27 proposals, representing a 35% increase over the 10-year average of 20 proposals submitted annually.
The Proposal Submission Stage often begins with a “proposal launch” meeting at which we discuss the funder’s guidelines, our internal timeline, the proposal budget and other key components of the proposal. The proposal submission stage can last from a few weeks to several months, depending on how far in advance of the deadline we are able to begin the process; typically the longer we have to work together, the stronger the application.
Of the 28 faculty who submitted a proposal this fiscal year, approximately 18% were in the social sciences, approximately 18% were in the humanities and 64% in the natural sciences. Eight (28%) were first-time applicants at Colorado College and 11 (39%) were Assistant Professors.
We approached 13 funders in FY24, five (38%) of which were funders we have not approached in at least the last 5 years. This is an indicator that the kinds of research for which we seek external funding is broadening, another sign of a healthy grant-seeking environment.
At least 185 one-on-one consultations were held to support the Pre-Award Process: 25 consultations in Research Development stage and approximately 160 one-on-one consultations by phone, zoom and in person during the Proposal Preparation Stage.
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