Research Career Development

Early Career Faculty Information

The Research Development Office supports early career faculty to elevate the university’s profile and position individual faculty members for long-term success. Collaborating with unit business officers, college/school research administrators and grant writers, and department/college administrators, the RDO positions early career faculty to accelerate their research funding pursuits.

A Brief Introduction to Sponsored Research at the University of Maryland

Roles

• Department business managers support budget development and internal proposal approval routing through the university’s Kuali Research (KR) system
• Department chairs, associate deans for research, and deans facilitate requests for institutional resources, letters of support, and Kuali Research proposal approvals  
• School/college grants offices conduct preliminary proposal review for compliance, and may have a grant writer/proposal manager to support proposal development 
• UMD’s Office of Research Administration (ORA) conducts final compliance review and submits proposals on your behalf
• The Research Development Office manages limited submission competitions (when a funding competition limits the number of applicants from each institution), publicizes early career funding opportunities, and offers workshops and programming
• If requested, the RDO also offers individual proposal development and management support for early career faculty pursuing nationally prominent, career-defining opportunities

If requested, the RDO also offers individual proposal development and management support for early career faculty pursuing nationally prominent, career-defining opportunities

Proposal Preparation Process

See the infographic below for a simplified timeline of a single proposal through two parallel processes (internal/institutional and external/sponsor) of creation, review, internal routing, and external submission.

Programming

Below is a list of recent past programming. All upcoming programs are listed on the Announcements page. Please reach out to Cara Kennedy - ckenned3@umd.edu with requests for additional workshops.

Seminars, Info Sessions and Panel Discussions

• NSF Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Info/Panel, April 2024
• NSF Science and Technology Centers (STC) Forecast Opportunity Brief, March 2024
• NIH Career Development (K Award) Series: Reviewer and Faculty Recipient Panels, March 2024
• DOE Early Career Research Program Overview and Faculty Panel, November 2023
• NIH Strategy for Response to Reviewers, October 2023
• NIH 101 for Researchers Across Career Stages, September 2023
• NIH Overview Seminar Series, August 2021

Writing Groups

• NSF CAREER Award Writing Group, Summer 2024
• NIH Resubmissions Writing Group, Summer 2022
• NIH R01 Writing Group, Fall 2021
   

Research Leaders Fellows Program

The University of Maryland’s Research Leaders Fellows Program, held in 2020, was launched by President Pines to accelerate the growth and potential of future research leaders at the University of Maryland. Through an intensive 10-month cohort-based leadership program, the Research Leaders Fellows Program was designed to elevate the research career, productivity, and impact of UMD’s most promising recently tenured Associate Professors with the potential to lead multidisciplinary research initiatives and/or direct future campus-wide centers or institutes. As part of the program, Fellows also engaged in individual Strategy Discussions with the Research Development Office to discuss their research, identify potential early career funding opportunities and/or collaborators, and learn about other resources to help launch their research careers at UMD.