Research development professionals at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln are part of a multi-institutional team honored with a national award for its work helping faculty successfully compete for scientific research funds.

The team, comprising staff from UNL, the University of Nevada, Reno, Montana State University, the University of Idaho and Utah State University, received the Innovation Award on Tuesday from the National Organization of Research Development Professionals.

The collaborative effort among the five institutions is known as Fostering Opportunities Through Collaborative University Synergies, or FOCUS. Launched in 2023, FOCUS has enabled the universities to stretch their limited research development resources by working together.

Jen Nelson, interim vice chancellor of research and innovation, praised the collaboration as a creative solution to the challenges faced by universities in seeking federal grant funds.

“When other institutions want a playbook for how to increase faculty research success, they look to UNL,” she said. “It is thrilling to write this new chapter and be able to point to our regional collaboration as a new model to foster multi-institutional collaboration and achieve faculty- and institutional-level goals for research success.”

The program, believed to be the first of its kind in the country, promotes a prioritized set of limited-submission funding opportunities in which one institution takes the lead but is open to the other institutions, too. FOCUS also has developed a cohort-style program for faculty members to develop competitive National Institutes of Health grant proposals. That effort, known as Inter Faculty Academy for Competitive Excellence, known as InterFACE, has included online and in-person training sessions and networking.

Initial results have been encouraging. Four institutions submitted proposals to the 2024 National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research, with UI winning four fellows awards, its first since 2019; UNL, three; and Montana State, two.

Nathan Meier, associate vice chancellor for research, capacity and competitiveness, said FOCUS is grounded in a cooperative approach. UNL and its collaborators drew inspiration from the model used by agricultural cooperatives, food co-ops and the Big Ten Academic Alliance.

“If we can form collectives to get better deals on fertilizer and commodity prices, groceries and open-access journal fees, why not serve our faculty and institutions better by employing a cooperative approach toward research development?” Meier said.

The groundbreaking model has cracked the code on two of the most significant challenges facing the nation’s research enterprise: the need for scalable, sustainable approaches to increase faculty research capacity and competitiveness, and the opportunity to do more with less in a resource-constrained research environment, Meier said.

The FOCUS initiative already is drawing interest from federal program officers and research development professionals at other universities. In supporting the award nomination, Jeralyn Haraldsen, director of research development at the University of Vermont, said FOCUS sets a worthy example of transcending administrative and institutional barriers in supporting faculty success. She said institutions in the northeast are piloting a similar effort inspired by FOCUS.

NORDP’s Innovation Award recognizes research development professionals for leveraging unique skills or resources to kick-start innovation in research development in ways that generate evidence of promise or demonstrable results. It is the second time Nebraska’s Research Development team has received the award. UNL’s National Science Foundation CAREER Club won the award in 2023. UNL staff members on the FOCUS team include Heather Borck, Research Development Program coordinator; Matthew Dwyer, partnerships and programs lead; Nathan Meier, associate vice chancellor for research, capacity and competitiveness; Tisha Gilreath Mullen, director of proposal development; and Jackson Hardin, funding opportunity coordinator.

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