GradGrants Center
"I found the GradGrants Center to be one of the most valuable resources I have used at Indiana University. Your staff has provided extensive feedback on my specific proposals and helped me locate funding opportunities."
IU Graduate Student Sara Mandel
The University Graduate School sponsors The GradGrants Center (GGC), a free service available to all Indiana University graduate students.
The GGC provides five funding database searches to help students locate grants, scholarships, internships, etc. They are IRIS, GrantsNet, Community of Science Funding Opportunities, Foundation Grants for Individuals and Foundations Directory On-Line. The GGC also provides workshops in the writing of winning grant proposals, one-on-one grant-writing assistance, a funding newsletter, and a vacancy bulletin board of available student academic assistantships at IU.
Patrons of the GGC's services win hundreds of thousands of research dollars each year. For example, in 2006-07, GGC patrons received $731,000 or 60% of the awards attempted. In 2007-08, GGC patrons applied for over $1,300,000 worth of awards.
One successful student, Sara Mandel, wrote, "In one hour, [staff] read through my proposal and were able to make valuable comments on a variety of areas that really helped shape up my application as well as my ideas in general. Furthermore, not being in Indiana, [the staff were] available to conference via telephone..."
The grant-writing consultants are doctoral-level students who have obtained grants themselves; however, the experience obtained in assisting graduate students with these numerous proposals provides career development for future faculty. GradGrants positions are sought after by many graduate students with each vacancy; and many past consultants are now faculty across the United States.
New Member of the National GEM Consortium
"The sole graduate program that BEST evaluated as exemplary was the National Consortium for Graduate Degrees for Minorities in Engineering and Science (GEM)...GEM has helped thousands of students...overcome one of the most pervasive barriers to pursuing an advanced degree: identifying and securing funding for their studies."
Council of Graduate Schools 2009 report on Broadening Participation in Graduate Education
In the spring 2009, Indiana University Bloomington was inducted into the National GEM Consortium, a collaboration of universities and corporations whose mission is to increase the participation of underrepresented minorities in science and engineering fields.
With IUB as a member of the GEM Consortium, GEM fellows, who are underrepresented minorities in the science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) disciplines, can use their GEM funding to fund one year of their graduate studies in Bloomington. GEM fellowships are funded by sponsoring corporations, which also guarantee internship opportunities that complement GEM fellows' graduate studies.
SABIC Innovative Plastics' largest site, which includes manufacturing and R&D, in Mt. Vernon, Indiana, has partnered with IUB to provide GEM fellowship funding and internships.
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Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA)
The Office of Postdoctoral Affairs (OPA) was established in the University Graduate School in the autumn of 2008 in collaboration with the Offices of Research, Vice President for Faculty and Academic Affairs and College of Arts and Sciences at IUB.
The OPA will spearhead the development of postdoctoral policies, serve as a clearing-house for information about postdoctoral activities on campus, work in collaboration with appropriate units to create mentoring and career development programming and serve as a support unit for postdoctoral fellows at IUB.
The OPA has already partnered with the Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions to develop a seminar series on the Responsible Conduct of Research for our Postdoctoral Fellows. Development of the course was funded by a seed grant from the National Postdoctoral Association (NPA). IUB, under the sponsorship of the University Graduate School became a sustaining member of the NPA, making the extensive resources of this advocacy organization available to all of IUB's postdoctoral scholars and their faculty mentors.
An Advisory Committee composed of faculty and postdoctoral fellows has been constituted.
