GRANT WRITING & IRB

Lilly Campbell

Associate Professor English

Marquette University

TWO EXAMPLES

General Research Grant, Council of Writing Program Administrators, $1000

• Received with two colleagues to conduct research on student reflective writing across our first year writing programs
• Funds covered all of us meeting up to do coding together for several days
• It did not cover our time for data collection, analysis or writing
• Provided motivation to keep momentum going with the project. But we probably would have done the project either way.

**Small grants internally and externally are a great resource for reimbursing interview participants or offering gift card awards for completing a survey

TWO EXAMPLES

Future of Work Pilot Grant, National Science Foundation, $150,000  

• Received with two colleagues to conduct research on nurse’s use of a patient deterioration algorithm in a Virtual Intensive Care Unit
• Funds covered both our time (a course release and summer funding), and our equipment, as well as stipends for participants, travel funds, etc.
• Note: In the humanities, our time is cheap, so my collaborators were happy to let take on extra course releases to do the more managerial type work of the project.
• A lot of grants do not allow you to use funds towards course buy-outs, so this is an important consideration; ask and don’t assume!

**This project would not have happened without these funds!

OTHER GRANTS I’VE APPLIED FOR

• 2024 - (Pending) Fulbright Fellowship to Finland, monthly stipend
• 2022 & 2023 - Future of Work Grant, National Science Foundation, $500,000
• 2021- Humanities without Walls Grand Research Challenge, Mellon Foundation, $150,000
• 2019 - Emergent Researcher Award, College Composition and Communication, $10,000

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FINDING GRANTS

• Conversations with folks in your research grant office/using the search engines provided by your institution (ie Pivot)
• I’ve never had much luck with this kind of cold-calling approach to finding grants that are a good fit for research
• Conversations with collaborators and those in other disciplines about opportunities they are aware of – *this is where I’ve had the most success
• Consider whether this is a project you will undertake either way and you’re looking for funding to motivate you vs. a project you cannot do without funding

ADDITIONAL CONSIDERATIONS

Give yourself a long timeline to do this information-gathering work and really consider alignments between your project and the funder’s goals

• Reach out to folks you know who have received the grant – ask for their applications or to have a conversation about the process
• Reach out to grant contact people in your discipline or on campus; often there is someone whose job it is to provide feedback on drafts or offer insights about the grant
• Join listening sessions (Fulbright and NSF both hold these) and ask questions

IRB CONSIDERATIONS

• Often it’s persuasive if you have IRB at least under review when you submit a grant application. However, really think about whether this is a category 1 or category 2 type project (ie would you do it without the funding?)
• Definitely DO talk to your IRB office on campus because the process is very idiosyncratic and they can help you anticipate issues and answer questions
• Ask around about people’s experiences with IRB on campus because it varies greatly in terms of timeline, level of feedback, etc.
• If you can, find someone with a similar project and use their IRB application as a template; a lot of explanations about things like data management, consent procedures, etc. can really be cut and pasted from previous applications

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IS IT “RESEARCH”?

Research – “a systematic investigation, including research development, testing and evaluation, designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge.”

Not Research:

• Class/capstone projects that won’t have audience beyond the university
• Quality assurance activities designed to continuously improve the quality or performance of a department or program
• Oral history activities, in general, are designed to create a record of specific historical events and are not intended to contribute to generalizable knowledge

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TYPES OF REVIEW

• Exempt – “Minimal risk” and includes one of the following - surveys; questionnaires or interviews; benign behavioral interventions; research use of data protected by HIPAA; and research on teaching or instruction

**Most of my projects have fallen into this category

• Expedited – “Minimal risk” and includes blood draws; non-invasive specimen samples; data collected from running on a treadmill; sensitive identified interviews; and secondary data analysis from non-public sources.
• Full Board – More than minimal risk and generally invasive

**I’ve never had a project involve full board review

CONSIDERATIONS FOR RHM

The main concern for a lot of RHM projects is probably going to be the involvement of patient data and/or vulnerable people that might push us into Category 2.

• Consider the role that patient data could play in your research (Do you need patient information or are you more focused on patient interactions/procedures around patient care? Can it be anonymized?)
• Consider whether retrospective accounts or hypothetical narratives could give you the kind of information you need (Angeli (2019) has a great discussion of this in her book, Rhetorical Work in EMS)
• Don’t be afraid of HIPPA waivers; I was surprised how easy that process was when I had to complete it for the NSF grant