Ensuring high quality proposals

We have a number of programs designed to ensure that your proposal is of the highest quality possible upon submission. Whether this is your first time submitting or you have had many prior successful proposals, you may benefit from taking part in one of the following:

  • Team building/Matchmaking

At its core, the Office of Research Faculty Development (ORFD) serves to aid you in putting together the best possible research team. Do you need a statistician, a faculty member with a particular skillset, a regional clinical collaborator, or a nationally-recognized consultant to improve your research team? The ORFD can help identify and facilitate meetings with these individuals.

  • One on one consulting/editing

As time allows, we are happy to discuss any aspects of proposal development, including team building, ensuring your team has the necessary expertise, writing, editing, etc. We work closely with Sponsored Programs staff to establish a realistic timeline, design an appropriate budget, and submit high-quality proposals. New faculty are often intimidated by interacting with Program Officers; the ORFD can aid in these calls and help establish a critical relationship with individuals involved in funding decisions.

  • Internal review of proposals

The ORFD can arrange for experts at Kent to review your proposal prior to submission. While we always suggest availing yourself of opportunities within your own department, we can identify individuals with recent grant reviewing expertise who are able to give comments on your proposal.

  • External review of proposals

The ORFD will pay for external experts to provide an NIH- or NSF-style review of your application. The ORFD will offer external experts $200 to provide an NIH- or NSF-style review. Faculty need simply to contact Dr. Doug Delahanty (ddelahan@kent.edu) and provide sufficient rationale for why the proposed individual would be a valued external reviewer. Appropriate rationales include, but are not limited to, recently serving as a study section member or specific content expertise that is not available at Kent State. Principal Investigators need to have a grant draft completed to allow sufficient time for the external reviewer to provide comments and the PI to respond to the comments.

  • Passport to Grant Success Program – NEW PILOT PROGRAM!!!

Faculty who meet all the necessary criteria to complete their passport will receive $500. In order to receive the incentive, faculty must send a memo to Doug Delahanty (ddelahan@kent.edu) detailing how and when they met each criteria of the Passport Program.  For further instructions, follow this link Passport to grant success program  

  • Resource library

The ORFD has a limited number of up-to-date books and materials concerning applying to NSF, NIH and other funders as well as a library of successful recent proposals that can serve as models for your grant submission.