Research in CTS (formerly CROW) Meeting: February 8, 2024

 

Present:   Emily Houston, Jerry Landau, Ben Littenberg, Charlie MacLean, Gail Rose, Connie van Eeghen (6)

1.                   Warm Up:

a.       Warm days ahead already!

2.                   Group discussion on how to find funding

a.       Emily’s favorite funding searches for graduate students

                                                   i.      Pivot.proquest.com: create an account, save searches, save options that are interesting. Gail has used it to create a profile that will send options every week, but much is not relevant. Nancy knows it taps into foundation funding and smaller opportunities to support dissertation work.  

                                                 ii.      Grants.gov for NIH opps

                                               iii.      Candid.org includes Gates Foundation and other private foundations

b.       Weekly NIH TOC listserve

                                                   i.      Also NIH RePORTER to see what has been funded in the past

                                                 ii.      ClinicalTrials.gov

c.       Internal UVM Office of Research listserve

                                                   i.      Their website indicates the number of grants they’ve helped support

d.       Emily received an investigator initiated award through private company

e.       Charlie: available awards through https://www.med.uvm.edu/nne-ctr/funding/PPP .  Charlie and Connie have one currently ongoing.  One award each year must go to a PBRN based study for primary care practice based research. This is funded through MaineHealth (no medical site but site for Tufts, partner with U Southern Maine, have a research institute).  Dartmouth has applied for a full CTSA to conduct additional work. It really helps to have relationships across institutions to build partnerships in developing grant ideas. Rural partners are an asset.

f.        Nancy: found collaborator for NCI grant through lit search and cold call. Targeted Louisiana because needed racial diversity; reviewer comment came back to focus on racial diversity in New England.

g.       Charlie: NNE CTR PBRN is in a system of PBRNs that can help recruit from more diverse, and therefore more generalizable, parts of the country.

h.       Emily: any collaboration outside the country, such as McGill.  Charlie: study on “pre-habilitation” to do rehabilitation work before surgery; resulted in a Grand Rounds talk.  Also worked on de-prescribing: helpful but not resulting in funding, as funders differ widely in methods of funding that don’t apply across international boundaries. This allows researchers to pivot quickly; our system takes a long time to operate. Ben: K awards are like that, but don’t cover lab and other research expenses.

i.         Jerry: goal is to start small smaller projects. Will follow up on the suggestions above.

j.         Ben: two strategies

                                                   i.      Find opportunities that the funder is promoting

                                                 ii.      Create own proposal and find a funder

                                               iii.      Lesson: don’t spend all your time on pleasing the funder

k.       Emily: her dissertation has had funding and, although taking longer than planned, is getting to the end.  Her section has continuous funding and allows for some independent work.

3.                   Next meeting: Feb 15 2024, topic TBD

Recorded by: CvE