Re: NANFA-L-- 2005 Conservation Research Grant Winners

Bruce Stallsmith (fundulus-in-hotmail.com)
Fri, 04 Mar 2005 17:30:40 -0500

I guess we have several reasons for the CRG proposals deadline, besides
inertia of course. With the deadline in January I'm able to advertise the
program-in-the beginning of school programs in late August. This involves
mailings and web postings. So possible applicants have several months to
think about it, come up with a coherent proposal, and join NANFA if
necessary. When we announce winners in March, we release the money almost
immediately and grantees have it in hand as they organize for field work.
Many grantees would do their research anyway, in all likelihood. We
(hopefully) help them to do it more easily. I know that Mike Bessert &
Chenhong Li will use much of their grant for travelling around Missouri this
summer.

So this all presumes that someone has an idea for research and is organizing
their thoughts and resources to carry it out on a 6-12 month horizon. In my
experience most graduate students aren't starting projects right as they
begin school, unless they have some specific support already and are
plugging into an ongoing project. Maybe our unthinking bias is towards
helping people who aren't part of a large lab group; arguably those people
would need our help more.

Anyway, I hope you're willing and able to apply for our next grant cycle. I
don't have a 2006 calendar in front of me but the deadline will be the
Friday after MLK day.

As a broad suggestion to anyone who applies, make sure your proposal clearly
and directly addresses a conservation concern, rather than something that's
just ecologically interesting. This year's winners grabbed all three
reviewers' attention with very focused conservation issues.

--Bruce Stallsmith
the Valley of the Tennessee
Huntsville, AL, US of A

>From: matt ashton <ashtonmj2003-in-yahoo.com>
>Reply-To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>To: nanfa-l-in-nanfa.org
>Subject: Re: NANFA-L-- 2005 Conservation Research Grant Winners
>Date: Fri, 4 Mar 2005 12:56:21 -0800 (PST)
>
>Congrats to the winners!
>
>I am going to begin working on mine in about a month and can't wait!
>
>Which brings me to this ...
>Has the grant deadline always been in January? It seems that it is awfully
>early in the year for someone to apply for it that will be a first year
>student in the upcoming summer. I know in my case, I was offered the
>position several days before the deadline. I also konw that other
>professors in my department have not offered many of their positions up
>yet, so obviously the deadline has long since passed for them. In my case,
>with just finding out, I knew so little of the information needed to
>compile the application there was no way I could have made one. While alot
>of application deadlines for schools around around the 1st, many are not,
>and many things come up well afterward, because of the spotty nature of
>funding. With all of those factors involved it seems like it would be very
>hard for someone to apply for the grant for their first year.
>
>Is this just the nature of the beast or is the grant really intended to
>suppliment research that has already begun? Has this ever been brought up
>before, to move the date around in the year to facilitate more
>applications?
>
>Matt Ashton
>
>Don't know what my drainage will be in a month ...

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