The Research Funding Service: a model for expanded library services

Abstract

Traditionally, libraries have provided a modest amount of information about grants and funding opportunities to researchers in need of research funding. Ten years ago, the University of Washington (UW) Health Sciences Libraries and Information Center joined in a cooperative effort with the School of Medicine to develop a complete, library-based grant and funding service for health sciences researchers called the Research Funding Service. The library provided space, access to the library collection, equipment, and electronic resources, and the School of Medicine funded staff and operations. The range of services now includes individual consultation appointments, an extensive Web site, classes on funding database searching and writing grant applications, a discussion series that frequently hosts guest speakers, a monthly newsletter with funding opportunities of interest to the six health sciences schools, extensive files on funding sources, and referral services.

INTRODUCTION

“I need to start applying for grants from the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and I keep hearing about F32s, study sections, and such. But I don't know much about NIH or how to go about applying for funding from them. Can you help me? Oh, and I also need to know about nongovernment funding that I can apply for as well.”

Currently, most academic libraries direct researchers with such questions to grants and funding books and databases and help them get started in their search for funding. They also are frequently able to refer researchers to university offices of sponsored research for database searches and other grants and funding services. Sometimes these offices, such as the one at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston,* employ librarians to provide a variety of funding services. Librarians also teach information retrieval skills in grantwriting classes. For example, librarians at the Florida Atlantic University in Boca Raton participate in faculty-librarian teams in a grantwriting course taught in the Division of Continuing Education [1].† Then, too, many universities offer campus-wide Web access to such specialized funding opportunities databases as the Community of Science (COS) Funding Opportunities Database [2], GrantsNet [3], the Illinois Researcher Information Service (IRIS) [4], or the Sponsored Projects Information Network (SPIN) [5]. Many have, in addition, developed search guides for these databases. The University of Illinois Library at Urbana–Champaign has a unit called the Illinois Researcher Information Service, which compiles the IRIS database of funding opportunities mentioned above.‡ This unit began in 1979 as part of the office of the vice-chancellor for research at Urbana and moved to the library in 1994. The IRIS database is available to colleges and universities for an annual subscription fee. However, few libraries provide comprehensive, in-depth services.

Ten years ago, the University of Washington (UW) Health Sciences Library and Information Center (HSLIC) and the School of Medicine began a joint venture to provide such an in-depth service in grant funding and grant-acquiring skills for biomedical and health sciences researchers. This paper presents the background that led to the creation of this joint service. It describes the services offered at its inception and then describes the current program. The paper concludes by drawing attention to some of the many benefits of joint operation as well as some of the challenges.

BACKGROUND

Before 1989, researchers who approached the UW Health Sciences Library Reference Desk could expect around fifteen to twenty minutes of help with grants and funding questions. Serious in-depth service was not possible.

To help develop librarian expertise in responding to grants and funding reference questions, the University of Washington libraries wrote a grants manual in 1979 for use at reference desks [6]. Twenty-two pages long, it walked the librarian step-by-step through the funding process, discussing the best information sources at each step. In 1988, the School of Medicine sponsored a half-day symposium on how to get research funding. Out of this symposium came the idea for an integrated, library-based service to provide services for grants and grant-acquiring skills. One person central to the development of the workshop was Janet Rasey, professor, Radiation Oncology, in the University of Washington School of Medicine, who became, and continues to be, the director of the funding service described in this paper. Very soon after the symposium, Sherrilynne Fuller, director, Health Sciences Library and Information Center, was approached by Dr. Rasey and Dr. Karen Holbrook, then associate dean for scientific affairs in the School of Medicine, with the idea of forming a joint program with the library. She responded enthusiastically to this opportunity and planning for such a program began immediately.

THE BEGINNING OF THE RESEARCH FUNDING SERVICE

In June 1989, the Research Funding Service (RFS) began providing services to health sciences researchers. How did the service work at its inception? Imagine the year is 1990 and you, as a University of Washington health sciences researcher, come to the library with fairly complicated funding questions, ones that involve more than finding a specific reference book for you. For example, imagine you are a senior fellow needing funding for a pilot study involving children and abdominal pain. You hope to find some federal or nonfederal sources of funding. You then plan to use the pilot data to apply for a larger grant from the National Institutes of Health (NIH), but do not know anything about the grant application process at NIH. You have many questions: “How can I find out if NIH might be interested in funding the type of research I propose to do?”; “For what type of grant should I apply?”; “Can I apply by myself or do I need to apply with a faculty member?” A person at the reference desk would describe the Research Funding Service and refer you to the RFS office in another part of the library. There you would sit down with a staff member, close the door for privacy and confidentiality, and spend forty-five minutes or so discussing your funding need, determining your eligibility for different funding opportunities, and finding information about funding possibilities for you.

Discussion of a client's funding need would involve clarifying the scientific details of the research projects for which the clients wanted funding. Determining their eligibility would require getting answers to such questions as: “How many years has it been since you received your doctoral degree?”; “Are you a U.S. citizen or permanent resident?”; and “What is your faculty rank?”

Finding the federal agencies most relevant to the researcher and the funding opportunities these agencies provide would be done by using resources such as the NIH Guide for Grants and Contracts [7], the weekly newsletter from the National Institutes of Health, and the Computer Retrieval of Information on Scientific Projects (CRISP) [8], which is a listing of grants awarded by the U.S. Public Health Service. The search for nonfederal funding would be done using continually updated hard-copy files about individual funding sources and books from the library's reference collection, such as the Directory of Biomedical and Health Care Grants [9].

During the consultation, the RFS staff member would use the 134-page booklet written by RFS called Getting to the Bottom Line: A Guide for Grantseekers in the Health Sciences at the University of Washington [10].§ No longer available, it covered information about organizations that fund research and about selected grants and funding resources. It also contained a discussion about the review process of National Institutes of Health grants and had one-page summaries about University of Washington offices of possible interest to the grantseeker.

In addition, the researcher, for a fee, would be able to request an individualized search by the RFS librarian of the funding opportunities database, Sponsored Projects Information Network (SPIN). Or the researcher could review standardized SPIN searches on a number of popular topics such as cancer or AIDS. The staff member would also make available hard-copy files and books most appropriate for the client's research topic. And, finally, the staff member would offer the client a subscription to the monthly Funding Bulletin [11], a newsletter available to University of Washington researchers that lists funding opportunities and important news.

Over time, the client's knowledge about and skills in acquiring grants would develop through the individual consultations with RFS staff and through attendance at the workshops and symposia sponsored by the service. Although the primary goal of the service has been to teach the researcher how to identify relevant funding opportunities, from the beginning the service has also tried to offer a multifaceted approach to providing grants and funding information that enables grantseekers to acquire skills in acquiring grants themselves.

THE RESEARCH FUNDING SERVICE TODAY

In its present form, the RFS has a faculty director, who devotes 20% of her time to the service, and two full-time staff members, a librarian and an information specialist.

The librarian serves as a liaison between the RFS and the library and, as a result, attends biweekly liaison meetings to ensure communication between the two, reports regularly to the HSLIC deputy director, evaluates electronic and print resources on funding, makes recommendations to the library acquisitions staff, and gives a grants and funding orientation to all new library staff.

The information specialist serves as a liaison between the RFS and the Office of Research and Graduate Education in the School of Medicine. This role involves administrative and budget reporting, evaluation and sharing of funding information, and promotion of selected local funding opportunities.

The goal of the Research Funding Service remains very similar to the original 1989 goal, namely, to help University of Washington faculty, fellows, and staff obtain accurate and relevant research funding information easily, quickly, and from a wide variety of sources and to help researchers develop their skills in acquiring grants.

Some of the means used to accomplish this goal have remained the same as when the service was started ten years ago, while others have changed dramatically. New services have also been added. The collection of services and resources now includes:

▪ individual client-consulting appointments

▪ electronic services, including an extensive Web site of funding and grant resources at: healthlinks.washington.edu/hsc/rfs/

▪ publications, including a monthly newsletter of upcoming funding opportunities

▪ print resources, including books and files on individual funding sources, located in the Research Funding Service office or the library reference collection

▪ sponsored events, including a monthly noontime seminar and a grantwriting seminar

▪ referral services

Individual client consulting services

Ultimately, the funding process comes down to people communicating with people, and this process starts at the Research Funding Service, as it has from the beginning, with its core service of one-on-one consultations about funding sources and grant-acquiring skills. The RFS staff tries to give each researcher the time he or she needs, whether it be a five-minute question-and-answer session or a five-hour consultation.

Novice grantseekers need time to discuss the ins and outs of complicated federal agencies, while expert grantseekers may bring complex or difficult funding questions that need hours of research. But RFS has a “teach them to fish” orientation because there is not enough staff to do extensive searching for everyone. So even though many funding opportunities are identified in the individual appointment, the RFS staff want researchers to leave the consultation knowing more about the grants and funding process, knowing how to do a funding search on their own, feeling comfortable contacting the Research Funding Service again for more assistance, and being motivated to attend ongoing presentations about grant-acquiring skills.

As in 1989, each consultation explores the federal agencies of most interest to a researcher, but now this information mainly comes from searchable Web-based electronic versions of earlier print resources. The search for nonfederal funding still uses print resources, hard-copy files and books, in addition to Web sites and searches in several electronic databases available by subscription, such as SPIN or the COS Funding Opportunities Database.

The search for nonfederal funding especially demonstrates how the service is individualized to meet the broad and diverse research funding needs of health sciences researchers. The many different sources of nonfederal funding opportunities are described to the researcher and a course of action worked out between the researcher and the RFS staff member conducting the consultation. Some researchers prefer doing electronic database searches with a Research Funding Service staff member; the researcher contributes expertise in the subject matter and the RFS staff member contributes expertise with database searching. In addition to learning about relevant nonfederal funding opportunities, the researcher learns about the kinds of information that can be obtained in each database, the best search strategies, and the limitations of each database.

Other researchers prefer to do electronic searching on their own at a later time and to spend their time with the RFS staff member reviewing available printed information on nonfederal funding sources. Many times, clients will choose to focus on a collection of hard-copy files of individual funding sources that offer funding in their research areas because this method very efficiently surveys the nonfederal funding possibilities. And books still play an important role in the search for funding. For example, corporate funders often do not put their funding information on their Web sites, so a book like the National Directory of Corporate Giving [12] is often the best resource for finding this type of funding.

Quite frequently researchers want to do both, searching databases with a staff member and reviewing printed information. In these cases, multiple appointments are scheduled.

Because of the increasing complexity of funding information, more time is spent conducting individual consultations than in the past. Most individual consultations take at least ninety minutes, up from an average of forty-five minutes per consultation in 1990. Fortunately, faster computers and the availability of the RFS Web site have given staff the ability to answer many less involved inquiries in a shorter amount of time.

Each client consultation over twenty minutes is documented with a consultation form that tracks client contact and eligibility data, staff time required, type of service, research focus, prospects, and follow up required. Information requests that require less than twenty minutes of staff assistance are classified as informal requests for information and are tracked using telephone logbooks. These and other service use data are included in the RFS annual report. An even more important use of the information is for discovering trends in the use of RFS services. For example, the telephone logs last year showed that several departments were using the existence of RFS services to attract good faculty candidates. This kind of information is used to modify the services offered and is reported in a narrative “Trends” section of the annual report.

Electronic services

To assist clients in doing their own research, RFS has created an extensive Web site (Figure 1) [13] that is part of HealthLinks, the Web site developed by the Health Sciences Library at the University of Washington. The RFS Web site is divided into two major parts: twelve annotated pages and an unannotated page, called the “Grantseeker Toolkit” (Figure 2) [14], which includes the most important items from the twelve pages with minimal description. Searchers of the Web site can use the annotated pages when they want to browse and increase their knowledge of funding resources on the Web, or they can use the Grantseeker Toolkit when they want to get quickly to a major resource. Among the annotated Web pages, one is devoted to the key NIH Web resources, where there is access to important items such as the NIH Guide and the CRISP database of grants awarded, the NIH phone book, and NIH study section rosters.

Figure 1.

Research Funding Service home page

Figure 2.

Grantseeker Toolkit: the most important grant resources for health sciences researchers

Because many federal agencies are of interest to biomedical researchers, RFS has created a Web page that links to funding information on each agency's Web site or directs the searcher to the appropriate federal database to search, such as the Federal Domestic Assistance Catalog (FDCA) [15], a government-wide compendium of federal programs, projects, services, and activities (also referred to as the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance [CFDA]), or the Federal Register [16], one of the daily publications of the United States Government where many federal funding opportunities are officially announced.

One of the more popular Web pages is called “Late-Breaking Opportunities,” where funding opportunities are posted that arrive too late for inclusion in the monthly Funding Bulletin. Most entries carry deadlines to serve an internal review and nomination process of the School of Medicine or the university. A ListProc e-mail notification service, developed and maintained by the information specialist on the RFS staff, alerts subscribers that new late-breaking opportunities have been posted to the Web. This service has the advantage that researchers can sign themselves on or off the ListProc.

Until 1996, the librarian on the staff did searches for researchers from the Sponsored Projects Information Network (SPIN) at a cost of between $15 to $45 per search, and this service was billed to the researcher. In the last few years, the University of Washington has arranged for campus-wide Web access to four funding opportunities databases: Community of Science (COS) Funding Opportunities, GrantsNet, IRIS, and SPIN. This arrangement has required an increased emphasis on teaching information-searching skills, both in individual consultations and in database-searching classes taught by the RFS staff. Some of the resources developed for these classes have been posted on the Web site, including a popular table of searching tips for the five major funding-related databases.

Other frequently used resources on the RFS Web site are links to computer-based application forms, essays on grant-acquiring skills, and University of Washington–specific funding resources. The Web site is also used to announce seminars and workshops sponsored by the Research Funding Service.

Publications and print resources

The information specialist on the RFS staff writes and edits a monthly newsletter of upcoming funding opportunities, called the Funding Bulletin. It is published both in print and in electronic format, with the print version mailed directly to campus mailboxes and the electronic version available on the RFS Web site. The electronic version is made available in two electronic formats: a hypertext markup language (HTML) version for easy online searching and a portable document file (PDF) version with formatting similar to the paper version of the Bulletin. The ListProc notification service also alerts subscribers that the latest electronic version of the Bulletin has been posted to the Web.

With the advent of searchable databases, print resources are no longer as important a resource as they once were, but books and hard-copy files of primary source information still play an important role, especially in the search for nonfederal funding. The information specialist on the staff has developed this crucial resource into a collection of around 2,000 files of funding opportunities and application materials from grantmakers that are of interest to biomedical and health sciences researchers. An important feature of this collection is that a number of these funding sources do not appear in the electronic funding databases mentioned previously or books listing funding opportunities, giving University of Washington researchers a unique resource.

Sponsored events

RFS offers a monthly, noontime discussion series, called “Grant$ for Lunch” that teaches the fundamentals of grant-acquiring skills. The director of the Research Funding Service, Dr. Janet Rasey, often invites junior faculty who have been successful grant seekers to describe their experiences and answer questions. In addition, Dr. Rasey presents various grant skills topics or recruits visiting personnel from funding agencies such as the National Institutes of Health to give a presentation and answer questions. Some of the Grant$ for Lunch topics include “News You Can Use: An Update on NIH Grant Review,” “Early Career Awards for Postdocs,” and “What Successful Grant Applicants Know.” She also teaches a two-session workshop (5 hours total) on how to write research grants, which has proved to be very popular.

The librarian on the staff teaches an introductory class on searching grants and funding databases once or twice per quarter. The students in this hands-on computer class perform database searches under the direction of the instructor. Frequently, researchers take the class and then sign up for an individual consultation because the class can only introduce them to the grants process. They often realize that the individualized service is a productive and efficient way for them to gather the information they need.

All three staff members give presentations; some of these are sponsored by the service, and many are invited. Such an invited presentation may come, for example, from a librarian who wants an RFS staff member to present funding information to classes the librarian is teaching. Or the director of the RFS may give a presentation at the National Council of Research Administrators (NCURA).

Referral services

Finally, the staff of the funding service puts considerable effort into developing and maintaining contacts with other units of the university so that they are able to make appropriate referrals.

CONCLUSION

Experience has shown how important it is to have a variety of ways of providing service—services for groups or individuals; resources in a variety of formats, both written and electronic; and services tailored to the career level of each researcher. The RFS attempts to make its services fit varied schedules, different learning styles, different degrees of access to or comfort with technology, and variable levels of experience in grant-acquiring skills.

One of the strongest features of the service is that it has constantly evolved to meet the needs of researchers. To accomplish this evolution, feedback from clients has been sought from the very beginning. For example, written evaluations from workshops and classes have provided valuable clues for the design of future services. When evaluations from a 1990 symposium indicated that attendees found some of the information too general to be of immediate use, many future presentations were planned that featured individual case presentations with question-and-answer sessions. The feedback also underscored the importance of the individualized consultation service.**

The service has also changed to fit new technology and trends. The Web has had a major impact on the provision of RFS services. There is increased availability of grants and funding information for health sciences researchers on the Web, and researchers are growing increasingly comfortable using the Web to find it. The use of the Research Funding Service Web site and Grantseeker Toolkit has more than doubled in 1998. The total electronic requests went from 15,203 in 1997 to 36,996 in 1998. So one of the highest priorities of the service continues to be developing and using electronic resources and integrating these resources into the lives of health sciences researchers.

The relationship between the Health Sciences Library and the Research Funding Service is one that has proved beneficial to both parties. By working jointly, the Health Sciences Library and the School of Medicine have been able to provide a much more extensive and useful service than either could have done alone.

Six years after the development of RFS, a similar service was created for the nonhealth sciences portion of the University of Washington campus. The Grants and Funding Information Service, a cooperative project of the University of Washington Libraries and the Office of Research, offers grants and funding services to faculty and staff in the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences, and engineering.

Locating the service in the Health Sciences Library gives RFS staff and its clients access to the library book and electronic collections. This arrangement is cost effective because duplicate resources do not have to be purchased. Research Funding Service staff also has access to the library's computer classrooms, equipment, and training and the expertise of library staff. For example, technological developments for the library's Web site can be used on the RFS Web. Conversely, the library staff is encouraged to attend training classes offered for them by the RFS or to contact the RFS with questions. Both RFS staff members work at the library's Information Desk, which requires them to attend library staff training and increases communication between the two units.

RFS also takes part in other library activities: the librarian has contributed articles for the library's newsletter and electronic mail announcement service; the RFS staff has given presentations as part of the library's “HSL Presents” series; and the Research Funding Service has been one of the unique library services featured in the Health Sciences Library's recent fiftieth anniversary celebration.

The service also has access to the resources of the Office of Research and Graduate Education in the School of Medicine. For example, the RFS staff has access to specialized databases maintained by the School of Medicine.

The service has benefited considerably from having as its director a senior faculty member in the School of Medicine who provides the experience and perspective of a working scientist. A good deal of Dr. Rasey's time is spent teaching the fundamentals of effective grant-acquiring skills. She also works with other grants and development staff at the University of Washington, in addition to her work with researchers and funding agencies in other parts of the country.

Having two staff members working full time in the area of grants and funding means that they have the time to develop expertise in this area. In addition to saving the faculty and staff considerable amounts of time, they can help researchers interpret and use information, in addition to helping them locate and filter the information.

In sum, librarians and other information professionals can play a significant role in finding, evaluating, and managing grants and funding information if they are given the time and training to develop expertise in this area.†† A service such as the Research Funding Service makes it possible for a library to offer an array of services with knowledgeable specialists who can provide timely, accurate information on matters of great importance to academics at research universities.