BRE-SPAD at Western Washington University

About This Grant

Abstract Western Washington University (WWU) seeks BRE-SPAD funding to strengthen its research infrastructure and expand faculty and student engagement in biomedical research. As a Predominantly Undergraduate Institution (PUI) with a strong commitment to liberal arts education, WWU has seen steady growth in research activities in the past several years. Research expenditures have almost doubled in less than a decade from $8.5 million in 2014 to $15.9 million in 2023. Yet, WWU’s biological, biomedical, and health sciences R&D expenditures were only $864,000, representing just 5% of total institutional R&D expenditures. WWU will use BRE-SPAD funding to address several institutional challenges, including high teaching loads, lack of key research equipment, limited pre- and post-award administrative support, no central system for recruiting students into undergraduate research opportunities, and a lack of dedicated research development programming. The proposed SPAD initiative at WWU will enhance research capacity through the following specific aims: 1) Improve sponsored programs administration capacity by hiring a new research administrator, training all pre- and post-award staff on NIH proposal submission and award management best practices, and learning from an external evaluation process to improve overall research administration and research development services. 2) Enhance WWU’s research environment by establishing the Viking Biomedical Research Institute (VBR), hiring a program manager, purchasing key biomedical research equipment and supplies, training biomedical faculty in effective NIH research design and proposal writing, incentivizing faculty to develop new course- based undergraduate research experiences (CURES), and creating a centralized mentoring hub for students interested in pursuing biomedical research. and 3) Launch a pilot research project funding program by offering pilot awards, providing faculty release time to focus on research activities, providing resources for undergraduate student participation in the research projects, and enabling faculty to collect data and conduct preliminary analyses that will make subsequent NIH proposals more competitive. By achieving these aims, WWU expects to catalyze a significant increase in the number of faculty – and faculty from a wider range of disciplines – who submit NIH proposals, growth in biomedical research expenditures, increased student participation in biomedical research, an increase in the number of students who graduate with biomedical and health-related degrees and qualifications to enter the regional biomedical workforce, and the establishment of a sustainable and robust biomedical research enterprise.