About this role
Engineering Grant Development Manager
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Are you looking for a new opportunity where you can make the difference in the lives of students and faculty? We’re always looking for highly talented individuals to join our team – people who think big, care deeply, and believe in being the difference in their work and community.
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This is your next opportunity to join an organization that invests in their employees’ career journey by diversifying their skills, deepening their expert knowledge, encouraging a healthy work-life balance, focusing on personal wellbeing, providing leadership training, and sustaining a culture of respect and inclusion.
The Engineering Grant Development Manager advances externally funded research in the College of Engineering by partnering with faculty to identify funding opportunities, develop proposal plans, and prepare competitive proposals to federal, foundation, industry, and other sponsors. The position provides grantsmanship consultation, substantive editing of faculty-generated proposal narratives, development of supporting proposal documents, and coordination of complex multidisciplinary and multi-institutional submissions. The specialist proactively works with faculty to develop funding strategies, coordinates proposal budgets and administrative requirements with the Associate Dean for Research and Office of Research and Sponsored Programs, and maintains current knowledge of sponsor requirements and research-development practices. The position also supports faculty research planning and selected College-level activities related to sponsored-project effort and salary recovery.
Duties and Responsibilities
| 1. Faculty Proposal Development, Editing, and Grantsmanship: Partner with faculty investigators in the development of competitive research proposals. Review faculty-generated aims, objectives, technical narratives, and research approaches and provide substantive recommendations to improve organization, clarity, consistency, responsiveness to sponsor requirements, and overall presentation. Assist faculty in interpreting solicitations and review criteria and in organizing proposal content to communicate the significance, impact, feasibility, and relevance of the proposed work effectively. Draft and develop supporting proposal materials as appropriate, including project summaries, broader impacts or impact statements, management plans, facilities and resources descriptions, institutional information, letters and related documents, and other nontechnical or administrative proposal components.
| 2. Proactive Faculty Research Development and Proposal Planning: Develop and maintain knowledge of College faculty research programs, expertise, funding histories, and emerging research directions in order to provide proactive research-development support. Meet regularly with faculty to discuss prospective funding opportunities and proposal plans, including meeting with Assistant Professors at least once each semester to develop and update individualized proposal-development plans. Identify potential funding pathways, anticipated proposal timelines, collaborators, and other resources needed to support faculty funding strategies. Encourage appropriate proposal activity and follow through with faculty on identified opportunities rather than functioning solely in response to faculty requests. Identify external and internal grant-writing seminars, sponsor workshops, webinars, and other professional-development opportunities relevant to faculty and communicate these opportunities to appropriate investigators.
| 3. Large and Collaborative Proposal Coordination: Coordinate the development of large, multidisciplinary, multi-investigator, center-scale, training, instrumentation, and multi-institutional proposals. Develop and manage proposal timelines, internal deadlines, document assignments, required components, meetings, collaborator materials, institutional information, and submission checklists. Coordinate College administrative activities associated with these proposals and maintain communication among investigators, departments, external collaborators, and relevant university offices. Integrate proposal components and monitor progress toward submission deadlines.
| 4. Pre-Award Budget and Administrative Coordination: Work with faculty investigators to develop proposal scope within sponsor budget limitations and available institutional resources. Prepare and maintain College proposal budget worksheets and work with faculty and the Associate Dean for Research to identify and address cost-sharing, matching, equipment, personnel, and other institutional resource needs. Initiate proposal records in Kuali and provide budget, scope, and other proposal information to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs for development of the institutional budget, completion of required internal documentation, institutional review, and final submission. Assist investigators with budget justifications, collaborator and subrecipient information, institutional proposal materials, and other pre-award requirements. Coordinate with ORSP while maintaining a clear distinction between College proposal-development responsibilities and ORSP’s institutional submission and compliance responsibilities.
| 5. Funding Opportunities and Sponsor Strategy: Identify, evaluate, and communicate federal, foundation, industry, and other external funding opportunities that align with faculty expertise and College research priorities. Match targeted opportunities with appropriate faculty and facilitate formation of interdisciplinary teams when appropriate. Maintain familiarity with sponsor priorities, funding mechanisms, proposal requirements, and emerging research initiatives. When appropriate, assist faculty in preparing for interactions with program officers and in developing concept papers, white papers, letters of intent, or similar preliminary materials.
| 6. Sponsored-Research Effort Coordination and Research Office Resources: Interface with College faculty, university post-award personnel, and College business managers regarding faculty effort supported by existing sponsored projects. Assist faculty and the Associate Dean for Research in monitoring planned sponsored effort and identifying opportunities or issues related to appropriate salary recovery. Maintain proposal-development resources, templates, sponsor guidance, institutional information, and other Research Office materials needed to support efficient proposal development. Maintain current professional knowledge through relevant continuing education and participation in the research-development and research-administration communities.
Required Knowledge, Skills and Abilities
- Bachelor’s degree in Engineering, physical or life sciences, scientific or technical commu