Written by: Jessica Bloomer
Every year the University of Cincinnati, NIOSH-funded Education and Research Center (ERC) hosts a Research Capacity Building Workshop. This year’s workshop was on March 13th - 14th, 2023 during UC’s spring break. The workshop is an important piece of the ERC’s Pilot Research Project Program because it helps prepare individuals to write a research proposal by presenting information on sources of funding, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) processes, preparing the application including the budget, and aligning research priorities with federal grant administrators. 

There were fourteen attendees consisting of PhD students, postdocs, and junior faculty from Eastern Kentucky University, Purdue University, University of Cincinnati, University of Kentucky, University of Toledo, and Western Kentucky University. Some of the participants’ fields of study included industrial hygiene, mechanical engineering, chemical engineering, nursing, social work, public health, kinesiology (recreation and sport), and communication sciences and disorders. 

On day one, Dr. Burr Zimmerman a principal consultant from the Urban Venture Group, led six sessions on grant overview, different funding agencies, SBIR/STTR, finding grant opportunities, how to prepare to write a proposal, and executing under and award. 

Day two was lead by Dr. Eric Smith, a research scientist in the UC College of Medicine with Dr. Elizabeth Kopras, a senior research associate in the UC College of Medicine and Dr. Amit Bhattacharya, a professor in the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences and director of the ERC. Dr. Kopras taught skills on writing a research proposal, Dr. Smith did an overview of IRB, and Dr. Bhattacharya discussed the peer review process. In the afternoon, the participants were grouped together into interdisciplinary teams and worked to prepare a practice proposal with a hypothesis, specific aims, approach, and to incorporate all group members’ research backgrounds. This activity was meant to demonstrate how interdisciplinary research teams are developed as well as to practice writing questions and aims. The proposal topics developed by the groups were; 
Analyzing alkylphenol ethoxylate biomarker levels among breastfeeding infants of exposed, working mothers

Efficacy of a novel resource support intervention strategy in improving health outcomes in Ohio social workers after the East Palestine disaster

Reducing farmers' exposure to pesticides using precision agriculture

Condoning sex or preventing cancer? Identifying the structure of parents’ health information networks

The groups then presented their proposals and then scored each other’s presentations based on the NIH scoring criteria. The instructors and additional faculty including Dr. Jun Wang in the Department of Environmental and Public Health Sciences, also evaluated the practice proposals and provided feedback as well as advice from their proposal writing experiences. The winner of the most outstanding group proposal was;

Reducing farmers' exposure to pesticides using precision agriculture

Thank you to the presenters and panelists for making this a valuable workshop for our attendees.