Tag: Innovation Award

2023 Innovation Award Winner: The University of Nebraska-Lincoln’s Office of Proposal Development

The NORDP Innovation Award recognizes individuals, groups, or teams; functional units; or organizations who leverage unique skills or resources to kick-start innovation in research development and advance the profession or the field in ways that generate evidence of promise or demonstrable results. Innovators leverage partnerships, experiment with tools and techniques, or generate and share knowledge to advance NORDP and the work of its members.

Then NORDP President Anne Maglia, left, and NORDP Vice President Nathan Meier, right, present the NORDP Innovation Award to University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Office of Proposal Development (OPD) team, from left, Matthew Dwyer, Katie Pelland, Tisha Gilreath Mullen, Jaclyn Tan, and Amanda Bohlin, at the 2023 NORDP Conference in Arlington, Va., on May 10. UNL OPD won the award for their leading-edge programming to help UNL faculty win National Science Foundation Faculty Early Career Development Program (NSF CAREER) grants. Not pictured: Jocelyn Bosley.

NORDP is proud to spotlight the University of Nebraska-Lincoln (UNL) Office of Proposal Development (OPD), a group recognized May 10 with the Innovation Award. UNL OPD won the award by exhibiting inventive approaches and fostering impactful change on campus through its CAREER Club programming, which is designed to increase faculty success in securing these prestigious awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF).

At the core of UNL OPD’s success lies a team of dedicated individuals with unique expertise and roles positioned within the institution’s central research development (RD) structure. Team members include:

  • Amanda Bohlin, Proposal Development Coordinator
  • Jocelyn Bosley, Research Impact Coordinator
  • Matthew Dwyer, Senior Proposal Development Coordinator
  • Tisha Gilreath Mullen, Director of Proposal Development
  • Katie Pelland, Senior Proposal Development Coordinator
  • Jaclyn Tan, Proposal Development Specialist

In UNL’s NSF CAREER Club, the team employs a three-pronged, integrated approach focusing on programming, personalized proposal development support, and fostering connections among researchers and partners—both internal and external. What started as a one-week program in 2017 has since evolved into a six-month program. Key to innovation is the team’s commitment to constant evaluation and improvement: sessions are evaluated annually and OPD uses data-informed practices to evolve. 

Over the years, UNL’s NSF CAREER Club has shifted from didactic-centered interactions to more conversational sessions, assisted networking, one-on-one mentoring, and continued support. Today, programming also emphasizes synergistic networking to catalyze future research through cross-departmental and external collaborations. Through this networking, faculty develop connections across and beyond campus, ultimately increasing the sense of community Principal Investigators (PIs) feel at UNL. OPD offers one-on-one mentoring and safe spaces to create what they call “collateral beauty,” where PIs receive valuable feedback, support on deferment or selecting better fitting mechanisms, or encouragement to submit. These spaces integrate difficult conversations seamlessly into a strategic, positive experience. OPD also developed two new tools to enhance how researchers communicate their vision: a career trajectory graphic that visualizes past, present, and future growth, and a mini poster designed to facilitate virtual conversations with program officers, impact partners, and other stakeholders.

As a testament to their successful innovations, UNL now averages six or more CAREER Award winners per year—a significant increase over the past five years—with a 50% success rate for faculty who complete CAREER Club. Through partnerships with external NSF consultants, UNL OPD demystifies the process, supports their investigators, and ensures PIs acquire the necessary experiences and co-mentorship to achieve their goals.

For institutions wanting to start a similar program, UNL OPD recommends evaluating how programs can work together to maximize impact despite limited resources and bandwidth. Institutions can start by taking inventory of unique assets and strengths, chart them against leadership priorities, then develop objectives and define metrics for success. Consistent messaging and marketing before, during, and after programming is crucial as well.

Additionally, OPD encourages leveraging the wealth of NORDP resources in developing programs. The team conveyed gratitude for the NORDP community’s invaluable expertise and support in catalyzing their innovations from ideation to execution. For example, their mini poster tool was refined based on NORDP members’ input. Many OPD members also applauded the NORDP Mentoring Program as a hub to ideate, problem-solve, and gain resources related to programming. The team praised NORDP’s contributions to the RD field, such as providing a common vocabulary, offering growth frameworks, working toward developing an RD credential program, and creating virtual spaces for engagement. Furthermore, NORDP’s collaboration with other professional organizations, such as ARIS (Advancing Research Impact in Society), has driven the field further. OPD also noted that a former NORDP president now serves as the director of NSF GRANTED, further exemplifying the impact of NORDP involvement.  

OPD’s CAREER Club stands as a beacon of innovation and a catalyst for progress. By providing personalized support, fostering connections, and engaging with the NORDP community, the UNL team has propelled researchers to new heights of success. Through constant evaluation and collaboration, they continue to push boundaries and empower researchers to embrace innovation. As institutions seek to innovate, UNL OPD serves as an exemplar that offers tangible steps for success and advocates for the power of networking, resource sharing, and co-innovation within the NORDP community.

2022 Innovation Award: Karen Walker

The NORDP Innovation Award recognizes individuals, groups, or teams; functional units; or organizations who leverage unique skills or resources to kick-start innovation in research development and advance the profession or the field in ways that generate evidence of promise or demonstrable results. Innovators leverage partnerships, experiment with tools and techniques, or generate and share knowledge to advance NORDP and the work of its members.

Karen Walker

Who: Karen Walker, Associate Director of Research Development

Where: Arizona State University

Number of years in research development: 12

Length of NORDP membership: 10 years

Karen Walker was awarded the 2022 NORDP Innovation Award for her contributions to establishing academic competitive intelligence as a field within research development. She founded the function at ASU and has given numerous national and international presentations on the topic. She also founded the Competitive Intelligence Working Group, a national group of professionals that meets monthly to share insights and best practices within the world of competitive intelligence.

What is competitive intelligence and how did you first become interested in establishing CI as a component of research development?

Competitive intelligence is the ethical collection and analysis of information, which informs decision making. We’re taking both quantitative and qualitative information, and we’re putting it into context in order to arrive at actionable insights for our stakeholders. So in an academic setting, CI is an approach that provides a better understanding of the funding landscape, allowing our faculty to submit more competitive proposals. At ASU, we also use it to help our leadership gain a better understanding of how our university is positioned in various research areas, which allows them to make more informed decisions. Competitive Intelligence has been around in industry and government for many years, and I first became interested in applying CI practices to work practices in the research office at ASU around 2012. I was trying to get a better understanding of sponsors and other universities, and figure out how we could help faculty develop more targeted strategies for seeking funding, and CI seemed to be a useful tool for doing that.

What was the process of building out competitive intelligence, both at ASU and at the national level, and how did your membership in NORDP play a role in your efforts?

For the first four years that I was doing CI, I was working on my own. At that time, I was also running our limited submissions process, so it was a bit of a challenge trying to get CI off the ground here. But I was fortunate in that there were a number of people at ASU who saw the value in what I was trying to do, not the least of which was Faye Farmer our Executive Director of Research Development at ASU. In fact, Faye was the one who encouraged me to submit an abstract to NORDP for a presentation at the 2016 conference, and that got accepted. I didn’t expect much response, but I presented to a packed room, and I think so many people were interested in learning more about CI because it was such a new thing. 

After that presentation, I had a number of people come up to me and I was able to connect with them and begin to form a network of people interested in CI. We have a CI working group (founded in 2017), which is a national group that meets and puts on presentations, about six times a year. Our goal is to build best practices and increase our exposure to different CI techniques. And the formation of that group is all due to those NORDP connections

Meanwhile, back at ASU, we were getting more and more requests from the leadership for projects. And so the team started to grow. We have a team of three amazing analysts now! It has been wonderful to see institutional investment in CI grow over the years, not only here at ASU, but also at other universities. I have talked to a number of colleagues at other universities who are either getting practices off the ground, or actually building out full-time positions within their offices, which is something I never would have imagined when I first started working on CI and has been incredibly rewarding to see.

What relationships have you built as a result of NORDP, and how have these relationships influenced your work?

The relationships I’ve built through NORDP have been really amazing. I have made some good friends, and the people I’ve met have exposed me to things I never would have thought of. Ryan Champagne, from University of Pittsburgh was one of the first people who reached out to me after that presentation. Ryan is not only a fantastic person, but he was the first person who exposed me to the whole world of Library Science and he brought that to our whole CI working group. Alba Clivati McIntyre and Matthieu Karamoko at The Ohio State University have also become close colleagues for our team at ASU. Alba is an incredible source of knowledge. And there are so many other people who have joined the CI working group or who have contacted me because they’ve heard, through NORDP, about CI and they’re interested in learning about it or building CI out at their institutions. It has been wonderful to have an extensive network to draw on, and people are extremely generous with their ideas and their time.

I was honestly shocked to have received this award and I am so grateful to my colleagues for nominating me. I feel immensely rewarded that competitive intelligence has been taken up so much by the NORDP community.

What other innovations have you observed within NORDP (or the field of research development) since you first joined?

After working in research development for more than ten years, one thing I’ve noticed many of us in the field collectively doing is trying to shift our faculty and leadership away from being so reactive, and toward being more proactive or more strategic. It seems like there has always been that mindset of “What’s the latest funding opportunity that has come out? What can I apply to right now?” But what we want our leaders and faculty thinking about is how to plan years out into the future. I think adopting a strategic mindset is so much more at the forefront now than it was years ago, and I think that is a really great place for those of us in RD to be — supporting our leadership and helping shift into that proactive mindset.

What advice do you have for NORDP members leading their own innovative initiatives within the field of RD?

One thing I have learned throughout this process is that nobody is an island. You can’t do it alone. You can have the idea and the vision and believe in it passionately, and that’s great, but you need to find others who will understand what you’re trying to do and support you and want to be part of that journey. I have been thrilled to see people incorporating CI into their office — that is something I never would have imagined when I first started doing CI. And the process of growing CI as a priority within RD wasn’t always easy, but luckily I had people who supported me and who could see the value of what I was doing. So my advice would be to find your vision, but also find your people. Cultivating a network is key to reaching those lofty goals and it’s also really rewarding to see people appreciate and see the value in what you’re doing. It can feel hard at times to let others in on something you may feel ownership of, but I also believe people will recognize you for what you do, so be generous and let people in.