Development Core

DEVELOPMENT CORE: PROJECT SUMMARY The mission of the Population Research Center (PRC) Development Core is to help faculty successfully compete for external funding for population dynamics research by meeting three aims. Aim 1 is to facilitate the development of grant proposals that will successfully compete for external funding. Activities include a successful Seed Grant Program, Shut Up and Write! Retreats, and Workshop That Grant reviews of proposals. Key innovations for this application are two new types of seed grants, namely Interdisciplinary Seed Grants to facilitate research among PRC faculty scholars from different disciplines, and Interuniversity Catalyst Grants to promote collaborations between PRC faculty scholars and external faculty affiliates in the PRC’s TEXPOP Network. Aim 2 is to mentor Early Stage Investigators (ESIs) and external faculty affiliates in successful grant writing through a Mentoring Program and the PRC’s signature Proposal Writing Boot Camp. Aim 3 is to provide outstanding pre-award services to PRC faculty scholars, who collectively submit an average of 86 applications per year. The PRC’s Development Core has a particularly strong record of success with regard to its Seed Grant Program, with a $54 return on every $1 invested, and its Proposal Writing Boot Camp, which has resulted in 100% of participants submitting proposals for funding, half of which have been funded to date. Both programs have also contributed to the Development Core’s extraordinary success in mentoring six ESIs to successfully compete for K01 awards.