With Federal and State governments divestment from higher education research expanding over the last decade and sequestration impacts hitting the funding streams of major Federal funding agencies this year, many faculty across all disciplines are scrambling to find alternative sources of funding. Who are the major stakeholders within our campus landscapes, and how can the Library collaborate with stakeholders to insure faculty have access to the necessary tools and resources to find funding for their research, programmatic efforts and creative endeavors? How can academic libraries facilitate effective access to and use of information around grant funding for faculty use across disciplines?
During the summer and fall of 2013, two University of Michigan librarians conducted interviews with faculty from the health sciences, the arts and humanities, social sciences, sciences and engineering to better understand the changing grants landscape, its intersection with research at our university, and how faculty undertake their grant-seeking activities. Wanting to know more about how grant-seeking fits into the overall research life-cycle, what resources and tools faculty utilize, and who they talk with about their grant needs, the librarians found some interesting trends and some disturbing truths.
This poster compares traditional and emerging trends in grant-seeking across the disciplines at the University of Michigan. We also present a model containing the funding stakeholders, and potential ways for librarians to more closely collaborate with faculty grant-seekers.
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107043/1/MLA2014PosterHandout.pdf
http://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/107043/2/MLA14_GrantsAssess_Poster v3.pdf