Partnering to Coordinate Grant Writing Professional Development for Health Sciences Researchers

Background: At research intensive universities, various offices have a stake in developing grantsmanship and supporting researchers competing for funding. There can be considerable diversity of scope and mission among these units, resulting in siloed development and delivery of grant writing professional development. Librarians led a group of non-library colleagues to coordinate offerings to ensure broad access to programming, avoid duplication of effort, evaluate current offerings, and develop a plan to address the needs of researchers at varied skill levels.

Description: Librarians brought together individuals from three units within the university with vested interests in grant writing professional development programming for health sciences researchers. The group met monthly to review and develop a coordinated strategy. The group first mapped existing programming to a timeline that took into account semester calendars and internal and external funding deadlines. The group then developed a shared mental model of skill levels, applied that model to existing offerings, and used this information to identify gaps and opportunities in programming. Capitalizing on existing knowledge of managing video content, the librarians developed a shared video repository and workflow for tagging and sharing content. Finally, the group worked with a team science expert to plan to evaluate the coordination efforts.

Conclusion: The group’s work has led to a consistent sharing of information across university units focused around the area of grantsmanship professional development. The library, as a discipline neutral and health science focused entity, proved to be the ideal unit to orchestrate these efforts. Common evaluation components will be implemented across grants programming regardless of the unit where it originated, allowing for consistent optimization practices. Evaluation data will be collected on the relationship between attendance at grant professional development events and funding success rates.