ND EPSCoR pre-planning grant awardees share their advice for E-CORE and E-RISE applicants

To better support researchers in ND to build capacity and competitiveness through NSF awards, especially the E-RISE and E-CORE, ND EPSCoR is offering a pre-planning grant for PUI and TCU institutions in ND. These awards are to initiate early-stage team building and project ideation by providing resources to convene collaborative, interdisciplinary, and interinstitutional conversations.

We checked in with previous planning grant awardees Hilde van Gijssel of Valley City State University and Joe Krieg of Minot State University to find out what advice they have for the researchers considering applying for an E-CORE or an E-RISE.

What was your approach to selecting your research theme?

van Gijssel: Maria Morrell at UND had been working on quantum dots made out of lignin and was looking for a partner at VCSU who could do antibacterial testing. I was part of the SPARK-ND application in 2024 and have been part of ND-ACES for the last 5.5 years, so I knew about the new E-RISE program at NSF. We checked it out and decided it was worth it. The team realized very quickly that we needed to think much bigger than our original idea which was focus mostly on antibiotic resistance. During our first planning meeting we used a strategic planning approach to settle on the research focus of Engineered Nanomaterials.

Krieg: The topic of how to increase student participation in research has long been discussed on our campus and an undergraduate research center has been part of that discussion. We suspected that other campuses might struggle with the same issues and hence sought to gather input from others across the state on what they found to cause the biggest barriers to engaging undergraduates in research and what mechanisms they thought would be most helpful to increasing undergraduate research participation.

How did you go about finding collaborators to commit to an E-RISE or E-CORE application?

Krieg: We reached out to each campus in the state to ask for people who might be interested in being part of this project. We contacted a broad range of people, including those we knew who were engaged in undergraduate research, science department chairs, and administrators (VPAAs or Presidents at smaller institutions and VPs of Research at the larger campuses). We reached out to a broad range of institutions as well including R1s, PUIs, TCUs and most recently, private colleges and universities.

Were there any key things that helped to coalesce the team and application?

van Gijssel: For me the in-person planning meetings proved to be essential. We all set aside two days to talk and explore the research topic and the budget without distractions of day-to-day research and teaching. I appreciated the opportunity to just talk science and share ideas and evaluate what we thought would work and what not. We really created a vision and framework that was the collective result of working as a team.

Krieg: We used a portion of the funds to bring faculty and administrators from institutions around the state to Minot State University in early January. We believe an initial meeting was essential for discussing common challenges and actionable solutions. By inviting input early on, we ensured stakeholders felt engaged and empowered to collaboratively work together to write and submit an E-CORE proposal this summer.

The team coalesced by moving from institutional SWOT analyses to collaborative working groups, where representatives from every institution contributed equally to designing the activities for the different cores. This inclusive structure ensured that the initial proposal design reflects jurisdiction-wide representation and shared ownership of the project goals.

Do you have suggestions for those considering an E-CORE or E-RISE application?

van Gijssel: Utilize the EPSCoR seed grants to start a collaboration. For E-COREs and E-RISEs the team needs to think big, so the team needs to have some sense of the potential. Both programs are about capacity building and workforce development and that cannot be an afterthought, so this idea needs to be part of the planning from the beginning.

Krieg: These are big grants that should not be taken lightly. Starting with a vague idea and then bringing people together to discuss what the clear vision for the application will look like is helpful. Before bringing a group together, though, make sure to do the background work of knowing what the grant is looking for and having a loose framework of ideas to work from can help keep discussions focused. And start early.