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Method for success: Faculty are winning grants with support of Research Methodology Services

February 15, 2022

NIU faculty members who seek to improve the likelihood of success on external research funding proposals might be wise to check out Research Methodology Services (RMS).

Over the past five years, RMS consultants have helped faculty from six different colleges at NIU win external funding awards totaling over $1 million for their research projects.

Best of all, the services are free to faculty while they are preparing proposals—those initial consultancy costs are covered by the Division of Research and Innovation Partnerships. Faculty members who enlist these services, however, are expected to use the RMS and include the cost of post-award services in their award budgets during the funded project period.

Alecia Santuzzi

“This is a unique resource for faculty that isn’t available at many other universities,” says Psychology Professor Alecia Santuzzi, RMS director. “Our services are delivered by NIU faculty who are themselves researchers and methodologists.”

Often, when researchers submit funding proposals, reviewer feedback and questions are related to statistical methodology.

“We have faculty members university-wide who have very interesting research topics,” Santuzzi says. “This service gives them a competitive edge by adding some additional support of well-trained methodologists and analysts.”

Santuzzi, an expert in quantitative methodology, has been assisting NIU faculty for a decade. She also has expertise in translating data analysis and methodology to a broad audience, an important skill when explaining proposals to funders.

In addition to its director, the RMS team includes:

Team services include attending meetings to discuss a project, its design and its analysis needs; consultation on the qualitative or quantitative analysis requirements for a project; and writing analysis and evaluation sections of a grant proposal.

Consultants can contribute to plans for study design, sample size estimation, data management, data analysis, project evaluation and other methodological tasks. Team members also can provide reference materials and other resources to support the use of methods and analyses involved in the project.

“We want to make sure faculty have the best resources at their fingertips to be successful,” Santuzzi says.

RMS currently has two active projects that have been awarded, one through the National Science Foundation and another through the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). The latter is led by Liz Shelleby, an assistant professor of psychology.

Shelleby’s $340,000 NIMH award funds a study that is examining the impact of ParentCorps, a universal family-centered preventive intervention delivered as an enhancement to pre-K programs for children attending high-poverty schools. She reached out to RMS after receiving the first round of reviewer comments, which suggested use of a more complicated statistical analysis.

“I needed someone with more expertise in running those types of analyses,” Shelleby says. “I didn’t realize I could get free assistance from RMS prior to a proposal being approved, and that was really important.”

After an initial conversation with Santuzzi, Tom Smith was assigned as Shelleby’s consultant.

“Tom is extremely knowledgeable and explains things in a very digestible way,” Shelleby says. “I told him later that that I didn’t know if I would have been successful without his help making sure the statistics were sound. I think it was hugely important in terms of getting that award.”

In addition to research proposals, RMS can help with the evaluation plans for new course and program funding submissions. “There are a number of funded projects that are curriculum-based, to design undergraduate programs or certificates. We do that, too,” Santuzzi says.

The first step is to contact RMS through the “Request RMS services” link on its website. The link will take faculty to a brief form to fill out, and RMS will set up a meeting to discuss the project’s scope, needs, timeline and budget. Typically, one RMS expert is then identified and assigned to the project, although Santuzzi facilitates all researcher-consultant relationships.

Faculty who might be interested in joining the RMS team of consultants are also encouraged to contact Santuzzi at asantuzzi@niu.edu.