While it has been around for years, the concept of research development may elude or mislead some researchers. Many people have a narrow understanding of the term – that research development is simply focused on funding research.
Of course, research funding is important. To that end, the Interdisciplinary Health Sciences Institute (IHSI) provides proposal development support directly to Illinois investigators and offers grant seeking programs like the DoD Grant Seeking Workshop and the NIH Grant Writing Series, as well as resources and programming for researchers pursuing community-engaged research that highlights foundation funding.
While research development professionals help researchers become more competitive for funding applications, they often work behind the scenes in a variety of ways to build and strengthen the research enterprise. Beyond proposal development, research development professionals work to increase institutional impact throughout the research life cycle. They identify strategic priorities, foster interdisciplinary collaboration, and help researchers take their work beyond the walls of academia through communications and external partnerships.
Simply put, research development professionals make research better.
But how do they do that? Are they researchers?
Many research development professionals are researchers by training.
IHSI’s Research Development team consists of professionals with advanced degrees in public health, microbiology, food science & human nutrition, and neuroscience.
Many research development professionals are researchers who have gone off the beaten path of the tenure track. They often see themselves making a greater impact by focusing on the bigger picture of research, whether that is facilitating team science, making connections across disciplines, advancing research translation, launching strategic initiatives, or catalyzing research through a variety of other activities.
In addition to their research training, IHSI’s research development team has developed expertise in proposal development, faculty education and training, community and clinical partnerships, and the integration of health equity in research.
They continue to develop their expertise in these areas by participating and serving in leadership roles both in the University of Illinois Research Development Community and the National Organization of Research Development Professionals.
Research Development at IHSI
Research development drives IHSI’s focus on growing Illinois’ health sciences research and innovation portfolio and increasing our university’s impact in health, from guiding campuswide strategic planning through the Health Innovation Visioning Committee to advancing clinical translation through administration of the Mayo Clinic & Illinois Alliance.
With multiple “cores,” or teams, within one collaborative structure, IHSI connects investigators and other stakeholders with both internal and external partners to help maximize the impact of their research activities.
For instance, if a researcher connects with IHSI staff on proposal development support for a project involving data collection, the research development manager may connect the researcher with Illinois’ Research Electronic Data Capture tool or the Biostatistical, Epidemiology, and Research Design core to ensure data quality. Depending on the research focus, they may offer to make connections with other researchers, clinicians, community partners, or institutions to promote team science and advance research translation. They may also make recommendations to ensure the project promotes health equity.
New opportunities with ARPA-H
The broad, collective knowledge of the IHSI staff positions the institute to lead and coordinate campuswide responses to funding priorities, like those recently announced by the Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H).
Formally established in May 2022 within the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, ARPA-H “will support transformative high-risk, high-reward research to drive biomedical and health breakthroughs—ranging from molecular to societal—that would provide transformative solutions for all patients.”
The IHSI Research Development team is working with the Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research & Innovation and a variety of partners to coordinate our campuswide approach to this exciting new opportunity. Researchers can submit their interest in leading or being part of an ARPA-H funding team.
IHSI Research Development Manager Maggie Berg, who serves as the contact for questions regarding ARPA-H funding opportunities, looks forward to working with researchers and stakeholders across campus in some innovative ways.
“ARPA-H poses an interesting challenge for researchers to take a different approach to thinking about health problems and their solutions. As scientists, we often think about making incremental advances, but ARPA-H is looking for projects that are truly revolutionary. This also means that we, as research development professionals, may have to find creative ways to facilitate generation of new ideas and encourage connections among researchers from drastically different disciplines, which is incredibly exciting!”