Research Development Support

Office of Research and National Laboratories

Mentors

Sarah Kirstine Lain | Assistant Director of Research Innovation | Research Development Support | Office of Research and National Laboratories

Background

The Research Development Support (RDS) team supports large-scale, interdisciplinary projects across all fields of research at the University of Chicago (UChicago). Our office also manages collaborative seed grants among the University, Argonne, Fermilab, the Marine Biological Lab, and partner industries and institutions. We maintain a funding portal that gives access to multiple internal funding opportunities on campus and manages all federal institutionally limited opportunities. We support nascent research by identifying internal funding mechanisms at UChicago, recommending external funding streams for early stage research, and managing collaborative grants across University Divisions and affiliate laboratories. Informed by these insights, we support faculty in developing large-scale proposals through project management, resource identification, and proposal reviews.

Internship Description

The internship’s primary focus will be the following areas of operational research support:

1. COVID-19 Funding. COVID-19 research funding is vital to developing strategic solutions and collaborations around testing and vaccine development. RDS is currently central to this role at UChicago. Every day, RDS seeks out COVID-19 research funding opportunities and makes that information available to researchers–from epidemiologists, psychologists, data scientists, economists, spanning every discipline– to enable our doctors and scientists to collaborate on COVID-19 PPE, testing, vaccines, health disparities, and more. In this internship, the selected candidate will be responsible for the following COVID-19 funding tasks: (a) data extraction among various R1 institutions, our Pivot funding database, and keyword searches; and (b) coding and updating UChicago’s Research Continuity website with COVID-19 funding opportunities so that UChicago researchers have the resources and capacity to drive novel, cross-cutting projects. This internship will place you in the middle of the University’s response to the COVID-19 pandemic and the research that is galvanized to address it.
2. Limited Opportunities. The limited opportunities process is integral to grants management across UChicago. E.g., federal funding agencies may only permit an institution to submit one application for a $30M center grant. Because of this, we require an internal review process to decide which applications move forward to the federal submission phase. In this internship, the selected candidate will be responsible for the following limited opportunity responsibilities, with training and guidance provided by your mentor: (a) find and post federal funding opportunities limited by institution; (b) determine UChicago’s eligibility for some of the largest funding opportunities available to our institution; (c) use Pivot and InfoReady databases, which will automate many aspects of searching, posting, and sharing funding opportunities with UChicago researchers.
3. Website, Graphics, and Proposal Development. The selected intern may have opportunities to support large-scale, cross-cutting research grants; website development; and proposal graphics. Because RDS spans a broad scale of research development opportunities, the specific scope of the internship will be tailored to the intern’s prioritized interests and mutually agreed with the mentor. 

Qualifications

The successful intern will be self-motivated, tech-savvy, organized, process-oriented, and deadline-driven. Database, graphic design, and website development skills are preferred.