Grant Development & Strategy
Students Are Our Research Future: Let’s Treat Them Well, Research Administrators
When it comes to the future of research, research administrators should not forget current students in our programs. Whenever possible, students should be supported in their grant development because they are the future of research.
If you work at a research university or a research institution, you may or may not miss the fact that although you primarily support faculty researchers now, it is their students who will be the researchers of tomorrow. Current students working in your labs, classrooms, and in the field, are gaining valuable skills and training through their programs of study. They are learning from their faculty mentors, how to do research, write, submit, and manage grants in the hope that one day they will be independent researchers of their own. At least that’s the hope, right? But what can you do as research administrators (RAs) to help in the process of creating future researchers?
If you are the RA in an academic department or school within a research university, you may have frequent engagement with students who work on grants with lab researchers or faculty who have ongoing grant support. As RAs, you can add a lot of value to the student training and experience by helping students develop their own knowledge in grants, grant writing and grant development. Now most of this would naturally fall to the students’ faculty mentors and advisors but, to the greatest extent that RAs can also help raise the student awareness and knowledge of the grant development and submission process, the better.
For example, if you develop grant training or sessions for your faculty, ask the faculty if you can invite students to the sessions. In many training programs, it would be encouraged for students, especially doctoral students, to attend training and seminars on a regular basis. If you work a lot with students, you may already have an easy way to share upcoming sessions via email listserv, announcement boards, or other messaging channels.
Just as funding support is an issue for faculty researchers, funding may also be an issue for students in training. If you work in a research development or pre-award office, think of hosting a “finding funding” information session for doctoral students. Dissertation funding grants and travel grants are two funding areas in high demand with some doctoral students. Students may need support for data collection, participant recruitment, or data analysis for their dissertation project, or they may need travel funds to support a conference presentation.
If you are fortunate enough to have an internal grant process for students, encourage your students to go through the “application process.” No matter how easy the process is or how small the award amount is, having the students go through the application process is a learning experience and with practice will add to their own skill building in grant writing and submissions. Leverage other internal funding streams and encourage students to also look for funding and to apply for any graduate school travel support, for example, national scholarship office support, or central office research support. Your encouragement and even just sharing of these opportunities will help students in their development and training activities.
As a research administrator, you may have the opportunity to support students in their training and development in grants, to include grant writing, or the grant submission process. Just as you may serve as a grant coach for your faculty (see related Catalyst article, “The Road you Should Travel…”, Alcaine, 2025), you may also serve as a key motivator and supporter of the students’ grant training process. Given that the student of today is the researcher of tomorrow, let’s do everything we can as RAs to support them and treat them well. Wait, is that an old song, students, children, future, treat them well… or something like that?