This web page is a one-stop shop for learning about funds available for research, people who can offer guidance, writing resources and IRB approval.

Money

Grant Funding Opportunities:

When seeking grant funding, one must determine which type of grant is most appropriate. Intramural grants are available through the University and extramural grants are available via the state, foundations or the federal government. If you are just starting in research or trying to collect pilot data start by seeking intramural grants, and in some cases, state or foundation grant opportunities. Federal grants often expect some level of pilot data for a successful application.

Intramural Funding Opportunities:

Internal Grants Competitions Administered by VPR, OVCR and OVPR
Current and upcoming grant opportunities offered through IU.

Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute
Many intramural grants are specifically sponsored by the institution. These grants support translational research (aims to “translate” findings in fundamental research into medical practice and meaningful health outcomes) through funding for pilot studies, career development and training, fellowships and mentoring.

Extramural funding opportunities:

Foundations Directory Online
Grants can also be obtained from Foundations supporting research that addresses a specific cause or mission aligned with a particular Foundation. Access to 100,000 Foundations are available through the directory.

All Federal Grant
All federal grants can be searched for at grants.gov. You can also subscribe to listservs to receive notifications regarding specific funding opportunities.

NIH Loan repayment grants
LRPs are a set of programs established by Congress and designed to recruit and retain highly qualified health professionals into biomedical or bio-behavioral research careers. The escalating costs of advanced education and training in medicine and clinical specialties are forcing some scientists to abandon their research careers for higher-paying private industry or private practice careers.

Grant Writing Resources

A lot goes into writing and submitting a grant application, from the narrative and budget to the routing process at IU. Below are links to a variety of grant-related resources.

Grant Proposal Support and Mentoring
Investigators seeking to improve their grant applications and move their discoveries into successful translational research project can make use of several peer-review opportunities offered by IU School of Medicine and the Indiana Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute.

Steps for Preparing and Submitting a Proposal through IU
This site outlines the basic steps required to fulfill the Proposal Development and Submission requirements. Plan to start early!

NIH Planning Your Grant Application Tips
This site helps with planning and organizing your application, providing information from identifying mechanisms that are the best fit for your research, finding a funding opportunity, getting to know the NIH peer review process, time organization and tips for actually writing the application.

NIH Research Training and Career Development Programs
Explore this website for resources on training program leaders and individuals seeking research support at various career stages. Information can be accessed on career development awards, research training awards, fellowship awards and more.

Grant Writing workbooks
Workbooks on this site provide guidance on successful grantsmanship. Each workbook begins with a discussion on how to develop and refine a compelling idea. The reader is led systematically through tips and strategies that are relevant to writing each section of the proposal. Examples of well-crafted components are provided.

Grant writing workshop for Rehabilitation Research (TIGRR)
The centerpiece of the TIGRR Workshop is the opportunity for one-on-one mentorship which maximizes the chance of success. TIGRR participants are not “attendees” that pay a fee and just show up. They are mentees selected by the review committee from the many applications they receive each year. This is what makes TIGRR so distinctive! The selected mentees will come prepared to complete at least the specific aims for a grant proposal for submission to the NIH or other funding agency.

People

Getting started with research can be daunting. It is helpful to seek out people who can serve as collaborators, mentors or just offer guidance as to where to begin. A good first place to learn about potential people who can become collaborators and mentors is within one’s own department. Most departments have Directors or Vice Chairs of Research, typically these leaders can make introductions with key individuals internally within the department and across campus. Additional resources are listed below.

Choosing a Research Project and a Research Mentor
This is an article from Circulation that provides some guidance to early-career individuals who are considering pursuing research in the cardiovascular sciences (but is applicable to doing research in any discipline).

Guide to Collaboration for the young scholar
This is an article that offers practical advice for approaching, arranging and managing collaborators.

Team Science Leadership
This is a book chapter that gives an in-depth history and explanation of organizational leadership and how it applies to the concept of team science.

Building and Managing a Research Team
This is an article that provides practical advice for building a diverse and balanced research team as well as how to manage the team once it is created.

For Mentees; Faculty Affairs, Professional Development, and Diversity
IU School of Medicine Faculty Affairs, Professional Development, and Diversity (FAPDD) offers guidance on what qualities to consider as one forms a mentoring dyad.

Career Development Consultation
FAPDD explains how one can sign up for a career consultation.  By clicking the sign-up link, a list of research faculty are presented to select from if one wishes to seek guidance from consultants.

Writing

Many investigators want to turn their research into written work. Here are some tools – on and off campus that will help you get started (and finish) writing.

Finding articles – you will often want to figure out what’s already been written on your topic. These links are easy ways to find citations or to search for the full-text of articles when you already have the citation.

IU and IU School of Medicine Library Resources:

Online resources:

  • IUPUI Library Databases – An exhaustive list of multiple by subject databases
  • PubMed (MEDLINE) – Contains over 20 million citations in medicine, nursing, healthcare, basic sciences and other related disciplines.
  • Scopus– Abstract and citation database which includes peer-reviewed titles from international publishers, Open Access journals, conference proceedings, trade publications and quality Web sources
  • Web of Science – Provides bibliographic data, full-length author abstracts and cited references for peer-reviewed journals.
  • Google Scholar – Provides articles, theses, books, abstracts and court opinions, from academic publishers, professional societies, online repositories, universities and other websites

Starting to write – it can be challenging to figure out how to actually put pen to paper (or fingers to keyboard).

    • Purdue OWL– The Online Writing Lab (OWL) is hosted at Purdue University and offers resources on research, style guides, grammar, mechanics and other topics.
    • Duke University has some great tips on how to make writing fun!

Publishing your work

Finding the right journal for your work can be a challenge. Here are some tools for finding the right place for your article.

Rules

If you are conducting clinical research it is likely that you will need IRB approval. If you answer yes to any of these questions, then you will need some type of IRB approval.

      • Is your research a systematic investigation?
      • Is the study designed to contribute to generalizable knowledge?
      • Do you intend to use the findings for publication or presentation outside of IU?
      • Does it involve collecting information or specimens from living individuals through interaction or interventions?
      • Will you collect, use, analyze or create identifiable information or biospecimens about living individuals?
      1. The first step in this process is to complete human subjects training through the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) program https://research.iu.edu/training/citi/index.html. Note that this training can take several hours to complete.
      2. Next, you need to determine the level of IRB review required.

You can determine the level of review needed by following this decision tree https://research.iu.edu/compliance/human-subjects/review-levels/protocol-decision-tree/index.html, or if needed, by speaking to someone in the IRB office.

Most levels of IRB review will require a protocol and subject information or consent form. Templates for these documents are available here.

Once your forms are complete you will need to upload them to KC in order to submit your project to IRB.

Training: Learn how to use the KC system.

Before your study can be reviewed by IRB you’ll need to complete a conflict of interest disclosure.

Research