The University of Michigan (U-M) hosted the 2019 NORDP Great Lakes Regional Meeting on October 21 at the Michigan League in Ann Arbor. The full-day conference received 180 attendees representing more than 30 institutions and organizations across the region.
Chaired by Jill Jividen and Beth LaPensee, the conference featured sessions on topics such as sustaining interdisciplinary initiatives, measuring research impact, coordinating complex proposals and managing internal funding programs. A NORDP-NACRO Alliance, led by Don Takehara from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, resulted in three joint sessions around corporate relations, and Scott Hutcheson from the Agile Strategy Lab at Purdue University offered a three-hour Strategic Doing introductory workshop.
The event provided knowledge-sharing and networking that NORDP members always appreciate, and a welcoming first-time experience for prospective NORDP members.
“As a NORDP member for the past three years, I can really feel our networks deepening and expanding as a result of regional meetings like this,” said Allison McElroy, associate director for foundation relations at U-M and a volunteer at the event. “The smaller scale makes it easy to re-connect with NORDP members from other institutions, and I met a lot of first-time NORDP attendees as well—many of whom were already making plans to follow up with regional colleagues about specific meeting content, as well as sharing hopes to attend the annual conference in May.”
Jessi Bishop-Royse, senior research methodologist in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at DePaul University, found the sessions valuable: “This past week was the first time I have attended any meeting of NORDP. I was blown away by how useful it was.”
Martina Jerant, administrative coordinator for U-M’s Center for RNA Biomedicine and a certified workshop leader in Strategic Doing, also enjoyed her first NORDP experience: “The topics were so rich—I only wish I had more time to see them all! I really enjoyed speaking to colleagues within and outside of my institution. This was the perfect setting to share information, learn best practices and make connections. The speakers were informative and incredibly generous with their time and resources, and offered to stay connected with any future questions we might have.”
The 2019 Great Lakes Regional Meeting was sponsored by the U-M Office of Research, the Michigan Institute for Clinical & Health Research (MICHR) and InfoReady Corporation, an Ann Arbor software company. Available slide presentations will be stored on The Ohio State University’s Knowledge Bank.
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