Career Development
CHHE maintains a Career Development (CD) program that provides investigators at all career stages with valuable opportunities for collaboration, leadership, cross-training, and intellectual enrichment, as well as the foundational funding necessary to compete effectively for extramural research grants, with an emphasis on enhancing the success of early- and mid-career investigators, including those with varied backgrounds and lived experiences. The Center offers many events and enrichment activities.
Individualized Grant Writing
In addition to enrichment activities, the CD program provides individualized consultation and mentoring in federal grantsmanship. For proposals still in planning phases, the CD program provides chalk-talk sessions for team feedback and discussion on hypotheses, aims, approach, and overall structure. For applications already written or resubmissions, the CD program connects applicants with established investigators who provide one-on-one proofreading and organization/editing suggestions. Watch this short video for additional information.
Grant Writing Resources
- Drafting Specific Aims
- Grantsmanship: Writing a Specific Aim Page by Jerry Heindel, PhD
- NIH Grant Deadlines
- NSF Funding Opportunities
Writing a Successful Grant
A successful grant application will:
- Communicate clearly and convincingly that you are addressing a significant issue in basic or applied science.
- Provide a clear hypothesis.
- Propose experiments that will directly address your focal issue and stated hypothesis.
- Convince the reviewers that you understand the issues and related research literature.
- Convince the reviewers that you have expertise in the proposed techniques or you have the right team to complement your expertise to successfully fulfill the aims.
- Inventory all of the necessary equipment and facilities you have access to that will allow you to fulfill your aims.
- Provide an appropriate budget to fulfill your aims.
- Explain that you will fulfill your aims and share your data in a timely manner.
Read the full grant writing guidelines here! →
Pilot Projects
Pilot project funding aids in the career development of early stage investigators. Ultimately, pilot funding supports research aimed at understanding the adverse impacts of environmental factors on human health and disease. We encourage multidisciplinary/collaborative approaches and the use of CHHE’s cores and resources. All NC State, ECU and NCCU faculty are eligible to apply.
Supplemental Funding
As part of CHHE’s mission to stimulate and support research, we provide supplemental funding in the form of:
- Seed Funding
- Systems Technology Core Voucher Program
- Scored Grant Program
These supplemental funding resources can be used to generate new data for new applications as well as to support scored but not funded applications. To learn more about these resources click the link below.
Travel Awards
National Meetings/Workshops
One of CHHE’s mission is to support career development of new and early stage investigators. As part of this effort, we will provide awards (up to $1,000) to help defray the cost of travel to scientific meetings or small symposia relevant to environmental health science or a workshop that will provide new skills.
Methodological Training
CHHE will also support early- and mid-career investigators to travel (up to $1,000) to another laboratory/location to learn critical new techniques/methods/cross training to advance their research program.
Awards will be reviewed and prioritized by members of the Career Development Core. Your request should be succinct (less than 250 words) and document the importance of attending. Please also include the entire budget for travel/registration, etc.