Author: NCFDD Faculty research funding support has become one of the most urgent and misunderstood challenges facing higher education today. As expectations around external funding increase, many institutions respond by asking faculty to do more: write more proposals, pursue more opportunities, and adapt faster to shifting funder priorities. Yet this approach often overlooks a central … Read more
Author: NCFDD Strong research ideas are not in short supply. Across disciplines, faculty are asking rigorous questions, developing sophisticated methods, and pursuing work with real intellectual and societal value. Yet many of these ideas never become competitive research proposals, even when faculty invest significant time and effort. This gap is not a reflection of weak … Read more
Author: Lisa Hanasono, Ph.D. The overwhelm is real! For many academics, it seems like there always will be more work to do than can possibly be done in a day, month, year, or career. From floods of emails and requests to jam-packed calendars and ever-expanding task lists, academics are managing a growing number of responsibilities, … Read more
Author: NCFDD Questions about academic integrity in the age of AI are now central to conversations about teaching and learning. As AI tools become more visible in the classroom, many faculty are unsure how to uphold standards while responding to new forms of student work. Concerns about AI and academic integrity often surface as anxiety … Read more
Author: NCFDD Across disciplines, faculty often assume that strong ideas speak for themselves. If the question is rigorous, the methods are sound, and the scholarship is credible, the value should be obvious to reviewers. Increasingly, that assumption no longer holds. Today’s funding landscape places growing weight not only on what faculty study, but on how … Read more
For many faculty, the experience of pursuing research funding today feels fundamentally different than it did even a decade ago. The rules are less clear. The competition feels sharper. Expectations seem to shift midstream. And the emotional toll of repeated rejection often carries more weight than it once did. If funding feels harder, more unpredictable, … Read more
Author: Lisa Hanasono, Ph.D. In the NCFDD’s Faculty Success Program (FSP), we invite academics to think of their lives as a book with many chapters. Each chapter represents a specific time period in a person’s life such as their graduate school years, a post doc period, life as an early career scholar, becoming parents of … Read more
Author: NCFDD For many institutions, faculty funding success is treated as an individual achievement. A strong proposal is a reflection of the scholar’s creativity, discipline, and persistence. While these qualities matter, they do not operate in isolation. Even the most skilled researchers thrive when they work within a system that provides clarity, structure, and opportunities … Read more
Author: NCFDD At the beginning of each semester, many faculty set thoughtful goals. Finish a manuscript. Restart a stalled grant proposal. Make visible progress on a long-delayed project. The intentions are sincere, and the stakes feel real. Yet as the weeks pass, those plans often slip beneath the weight of teaching, meetings, service, and daily … Read more
Author: NCFDD Faculty rarely overhaul their grant strategy because of a single failed submission. More often, it is a steady pattern. You work hard but your proposals feel rushed. You generate strong ideas but struggle to shape them into a compelling narrative. You know funding is essential, but the process feels fragmented, unpredictable, and more … Read more