Volume 13, Number 10: April 4, 2007
FUNDING TIPS
New COS Features for Research Administrators
The COS Workbench and Funding Alerts services have implemented a number of new and very useful features for departmental research administrators. If you are tasked with publishing a newsletter or website about funding or keeping your researchers informed about new opportunities, we believe these features will make your job easier. For example, you can now:
Share Saved Searches
- Send links to faculty, research teams, or use them in webpages and newsletters
- Create permanent links with continually updated results
- Save up to 20 different searches (up from just 5)
Tag and Share Tracked Funding Records
- "Tag" your tracked records with keywords for easy organization
- Share all your tracked records, or just those with a specific tag
- Create permanent links, continually updated with your new selections
- Receive immediate email alerts for tracked records
- Track up to 100 different opportunities
Several of these changes are in response to feedback you have given the GrantSource Library about how you use COS. We are very pleased about the changes, and look forward to sharing them with you. Whether you are a long-time user of COS or a new departmental research administrator, please email or call 962-3463 to schedule a hands-on COS workshop, group presentation, or individual consultation with a GrantSource Librarian.
To access instructions, login to your COS Workbench, or create a COS profile, click here.
NSF Merit Review Criteria
National Science Foundation (NSF) officials evaluate proposals through use of two merit review criteria, which all proposals must address explicitly. While most grantseekers have little difficulty responding to the criterion relating to intellectual merit, many have difficulty understanding how to frame the broader impact of the activities they propose to undertake.
The NSF provides a useful webpage listing the components of the criteria, followed by background information and representative activities for each component. These examples illustrate activities that, when successfully incorporated in a project description, will help reviewers and NSF program staff address the criteria in the review and decision process.
READ MORE (pdf)
RWJF Commits $500 Million to Reverse Childhood Obesity
On April 4th, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation (RWJF) announced that it will commit at least $500 million over the next five years to reverse the epidemic of childhood obesity in America by 2015. The foundation will place special emphasis on reaching children at greatest risk, and will focus primarily on improving access to affordable healthy foods and physical activity in schools and communities. Their priorities will be to:
- Drive a coherent, concerted effort.
- Bring to bear resources on a scale substantial enough to meet the problem head on.
- Make the case for change with solid research and objective evidence.
- Test, measure, improve, and replicate the most promising models.
- Attract substantial public and private resources.
- Promote grassroots advocacy and leadership for change.
In the coming months, RWJF will invite proposals for their expanded efforts in childhood obesity. To register for their funding alerts in childhood obesity, click here.
COS Humanities Funding News
COS's weekly Humanities Funding News includes a sampling of new and updated award information in the humanities from the COS Funding Opportunities database, which contains more than 22,000 funding opportunities from around the world.
COS Humanities Funding News is now available as an RSS feed. To learn more about RSS and instructions on adding COS Humanities Funding News to your RSS reader/news aggregator, click here.
Duke Endowment Grantmaking Strategy
The Duke Endowment is under-going a shift in its grantmaking strategy, according to a recent article in the Philanthropy Journal. While it continues to make grants to individual organizations in response to unsolicited funding requests, the endowment has increasingly issued Requests for Proposals to address broad problems they have identified, often by recognizing common needs among grant proposals from different groups.
Endowment officials have also been working to help groups that participate in joint funding initiatives share information and learn from one another. They have retooled the endowment website to better tell its story and share knowledge developed through its grantmaking. The new website includes news items, notable grants, recent articles, downloadable applications, and a grant approval timeline.