Dear Colleagues,
In today's competitive funding extramural environment, research is shifting to teams. Coordinated teams of investigators with diverse skills and knowledge must integrate their work across disciplines to solve complex, multi-factorial social problems with multiple causes. This ‘team science' approach is essentially by definition, and in practice: integrated interdisciplinary research-education-extension.
ANR Contracts and Grants inquired with Dr. Toija Riggins, National Program Leader at the NIFA Division of Family and Consumer Sciences, to gain insight into how a team proceeds with proposing a competitive integrated extension project. Dr. Riggins provides national leadership for the rural sociology program, including work in community vitality, family well-being, and research and evaluation in the Division of Family & Consumer Sciences. She leads the Farm Business Management and Benchmarking and Extension Risk Management Education programs.
Dr. Riggins shared the following helpful opinions in response to the questions posed:
What is meant by well-integrated extension project? What are some tips and best practices for ensuring that research activities appropriately feedback into education and extension components; balancing research, extension, and education throughout a project?
Answer: In my opinion, when NIFA solicits applications for "integrated" projects, this means there are at least two of the three mission areas (research, education and extension) fully incorporated into the lifecycle of the proposed work. Whichever two areas are included (e.g., research and extension, or research and education, etc.) each of those areas must be fully seen in all aspects of the proposed project. That is what a "well-integrated" project means; from the very beginning of the project all the way through the very end, there is clear and obvious involvement and infusion of both sets of faculty, literature, delivery methods, etc. The full life cycle of the project takes full advantage of the skills, approaches and advantages offered by each part of the team.
What strategic advice would you give a new academic who is developing an integrated extension project? What are common mistakes to avoid?
Answer: Ensure that education or extension faculty/approaches are not simply added on to the end of the project. In fact, ensure nothing is simply "added on" at the end, such as evaluation specialists or outreach. Rather, per the comments above, ensure that the full life cycle of the project involves all parties and takes full advantage of the valuable contributions of all parties in solving the societal issue being addressed. Most societal problems are extremely complex, requiring an interdisciplinary, multi-person team approach from beginning to end. Each person on the team brings a valuable perspective and way of approaching the problem that when fused together, make the overall project much stronger. It is often very obvious to review panels when things have been tacked on at the end and not properly thought through from the beginning. This full integration, however, requires having teams/relationships and plans in place well before the deadline for the grant application.
The academic literature on "systems theory" or "systems thinking" might be helpful in better understanding how multidisciplinary teams can work together and take a "big picture" approach to tackling a challenging problem.
We thank Dr. Riggins for taking the time to provide her informative and helpful comments.
If you are planning a large, interdisciplinary integrated project, ANR Contracts and Grants can support you by providing proposal development assistance. Contact us at ocg@ucanr.edu to discuss your upcoming project plans and funding needs.
Thank you.
Kathleen Nolan, Director, ANR Office of Contracts & Grants (OCG)