Proposal Development Services

Mission & Responsibillities

The Research Proposal Development Unit facilitates the planning, organization and submission of academic grant proposals. Research development professionals started emerging on college campuses across the nation in the mid-90s. Overwhelmed by increasing demands on their teaching and service, faculty wanted persons with whom they could work on the often grueling logistics of grant applications. Thus, sponsored programs offices began hiring peer-scholars who could work with full-time faculty to facilitate the processes of securing and maintaining innovative research funding. Today, the National Organization of Research Development Professionals is an international collective of scholar-administrators dedicated to serving the faculty on their campuses and supporting their colleagues across the globe (www.nordp.org).

Currently, Texas Southern employs two research development professionals. Dr. Albertina Hughey specializes in Rhetoric and Composition with an emphasis in discourse analysis and qualitative research. She serves faculty in the Arts, Humanities, Business, Education, Law, Social and Behavioral Sciences. Dr. David Owerbach, a geneticist, specializes in Biomedical Research with an emphasis in technological and quantitative analysis. He serves faculty in Science, Technology, Engineering, Mathematics, Transportation, and Pharmaceutical and Health Sciences. Both have secured funding from an array of foundations, federal agencies, state and local sources for personal and institutional research. Drs. Hughey and Owerbach have over 25 and 30 years, respectively, of successful grants writing experiences.  

Thus, the Research Development Unit responds to the University’s strategic goals for individual, interdisciplinary, and inter-institutional research by providing resources and training through workshops and seminars. Among the most requested are the following:

• Locating Project Funding: A Workshop on Finding the Right Fit 
• Working with InfoEd SPIN (Sponsored Program Information Network)
• Grant Writing and Proposal Development Workshops
• Writing Data Management and Project Assessment Plans 
• The Interdisciplinary Research Seminar Series—Colloquia held in the fall, winter,  and spring of each year highlighting Texas Southern faculty’s cross-disciplinary research ideas and projects.
  
  

The unit also oversees the Undergraduate Research Program. In this capacity, the research development officers work to increase Texas Southern University’s external research funding in support of undergraduate student research opportunities. In addition to coordinating the undergraduate summer research programs at Texas Southern, the unit provides resources and information to student researchers at both the undergraduate and graduate levels.