Office of the Associate Vice President for Research
Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Activities

Michael Hadjiargyrou, Associate Vice President for Research and Associate Professor of Biomedical Engineering(michael.hadjiargyrou@stonybrook.edu)

Stefanie Massucci, Multidisciplinary Project Associate, Office of the Vice President for Research (Stefanie.Massucci@Stonybrook.edu). 
Tel. 632-8589.

Address: W5510 Frank Melville Jr. Memorial Library, Stony Brook, NY 11794-3365

• Purpose and Objectives

• The Multidisciplinary Approach

• Forming Working Groups

• Development of Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Proposals

• Research Interests and Funding Opportunities Database

• Research Resources

• Multidisciplinary research Initiation Grants (MIG) Awards

• SharePoint Services for Team Projects (Under construction)

• Administrative Support for Multi-Million Dollar & Multidisciplinary Grant Applications

Purpose and Objectives

Strengthening multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research at Stony Brook University is the primary responsibility of the Office of the Associate Vice President for Research. Specifically, the main objective of this office is to encourage, orchestrate and support the creative research activities of our faculty, especially in the context of facilitating greater collaboration across different disciplines and to help those teams develop and successfully submit large multidisciplinary proposals. In essence, this constitutes an effective platform needed to overcome barriers to team formation and collaborative research, necessary components for today’s scientific and societal challenges.

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The Multidisciplinary Approach

To support research addressing complex problems, several major agencies have announced programs that require multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary approaches to bring together investigators from different disciplines.  Although these terms are often used interchangeably, funding agencies such as NIH and NSF are starting to use specific terms to express the expected level of interaction among investigators.  In this context, multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary research are defined as the coordinated efforts of several disciplines to achieve a common goal and the integration of several disciplines creating a unified outcome that is sustained and substantial enough to enable a new discipline to develop over time, respectively.   

Similarly, many training grant opportunities require the development of curricula and research opportunities that cross disciplines. Good examples are the NIH’s roadmap initiative, http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/, which is designed to foster interdisciplinary biomedical research by lowering artificial organizational barriers to research, and NSF’s focused priority areas, http://www.nsf.gov/od/lpa/news/publicat/nsf04009/cross/priority.htm.
           
While a single PI may have expertise in multiple areas of research, it is common to bring together a team of investigators drawn from different disciplines to address complex problems and come up with innovative solutions.  However, developing multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary proposals is often far more complex than single investigator proposals.  It requires forming a team, establishing shared goals, integrating concepts from the different disciplines, holding numerous meetings, and a higher level of organization.  Often multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary funding opportunities are cast as Center proposals, which require far more than a description of the proposed research.  For example, aside from research, center proposals often have to describe organizational structure, outreach activities, and educational programs.      

Examples of Thematic Multidisciplinary Groups:

In the past, the Office of the Associate Vice President for Research has organized several Faculty Working Groups on Campus in the areas of:

• Nano Science and Engineering
• Obesity
• Sensors
• Astrobiology
• Biocomplexity

Currently, our office is involved in initiatives with working groups in the areas of:

• Medical Humanities and Bioethics
• Engineering of Excitable Cells
• Clinical and Translational Research
• Environmental Toxicology
• Alzheimer’s Disease
• Stem Cells
• Climate Change/Global Warming

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Forming Working Groups

One of the barriers to initiating multidisciplinary research is to find faculty from different disciplines that share a common interest. To this end, individual faculty members are encouraged to maintain a research interest profile on the SBU Research Interests and Funding Opportunity Database (www.stonybrook.edu/researchinterests). This will assist our office, as well as other university faculty, staff, and administrators, in identifying faculty with common or complementary interests. Our office will also be pleased to offer advice on possible collaborators for your proposal.

Additionally, the Office of the Vice President for Research supports multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary seminars to foster collaborations.  Specifically, this office will supply $100 toward a speaker's luncheon when a department invites a Stony Brook colleague from an unrelated discipline to give a seminar.  Please contact Dr. Ann-Marie Scheidt (amscheidt@notes.cc.sunysb.edu) to determine eligibility.

Lastly, formation of a successful multidisciplinary team requires:

• Committed members who are excited about the possible collaboration
• Committed members who are willing to actively participate in the preparation and completion of the proposal
• Development of a pathway that clearly defines the overall goals of the team, the division of labor, responsibilities of each member, and a defined time frame

We look forward to forming new working groups as faculty interests and sponsor opportunities warrant.  Faculty interested in forming a topical multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary group should contact our office and we will be happy to facilitate subsequent working meetings.

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Development of Multidisciplinary and Interdisciplinary Proposals

The Office of the Associate Vice President for Research has been involved in several interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary proposals as stated above. The guidance given below draws on this experience. Developing interdisciplinary and multidisciplinary proposals requires far more than developing a single-investigator award or a collection of single-investigator awards.  Regardless of whether a sponsor’s call for proposals seeks a multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary approach, the goal of collaboration is to produce outcomes that normally would not be achieved independently.  Thus, a proposal in response to a call for multidisciplinary or interdisciplinary research, that is a collection of parallel projects without any interaction among the investigators, is often considered not responsive to the announcement.

Developing a successful multidisciplinary and interdisciplinary proposal requires several steps:
Formulating a theme and a set of objectives: A compelling theme that is responsive to the announcement provides the framework for the proposal.  The set of the common goals define the work plan for the proposal.  While the theme may be rather broad and long term, the goals should be achievable within the award period.

Distribution of proposal preparation tasks: Once a set of objectives has been defined, the team should develop a distribution of tasks and responsibilities. For large proposals it is often useful to break the team into subgroups with a leader. By dividing the team into subgroups, the proposal preparation task can be developed in a logical way. The subgroup leaders schedule meetings for the subgroups and report to the overall Project Director. Each subgroup is responsible for developing a component of the proposal. It is also important that each subgroup is given clear directions on what they need to produce, what the constraints are, and the time frame from completing their assignment. At a minimum the instructions should include:

• scope of component(s) to be developed
• instructions on how to prepare the text  (i.e., font, line spacing, margins)
• a page limit
• a budget allocation
• deadline by which the component has to be available for review by the team

Compilation of a coherent proposal and securing approvals: Many investigators have limited experience working in a team and may be accustomed to finishing a single-investigator proposal on the last day.  In contrast, larger proposals require a significant amount of time to prepare.  Individual components need to be integrated into the overall proposal.  The PI and subgroup leaders need time to edit the entire proposal, prepare a single reference list, and format the entire document.  The final compilation and preparation of large proposals can require several days.  For example, center proposals are often several hundred pages in length, they often include numerous budgets, and lengthy appendices.  A polished copy of such a proposal cannot be completed in one day.    

Extra time is needed to assure that the team has addressed all other requirements stated in the announcement, had adequate time to develop budgets, and secure all institutional approvals for the on-time submission to the sponsor. It is recommended that administrative staff begin securing all internal signatures as early as practical, collect letters of intent to collaborate from subcontracting organizations, and have budgets finalized, reviewed, and approved by Sponsored Programs as early in the process as possible. 

Final complete proposals and internal (4-page) forms are expected to be submitted to Sponsored Programs at least five business days prior to the sponsor’s deadline.  It is an advantage to submit proposals early, as any errors detected by Grants.gov or the Sponsor’s electronic system can sometimes be corrected in time to resubmit a proposal before the deadline.

During this phase of proposal preparation, our Multidisciplinary Project Associate, Stefanie Massucci is ready to assist in specific ways. See Administrative Support for Multi-Million Dollar & Multidisciplinary Grant Applications.

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SharePoint Services for Team Projects (Under construction)

The Office of the Vice President for Research will work with Teaching, Learning + Technology to make available a website for team proposals and collaboration.  Each multidisciplinary proposal will be given a virtual home.  Access to the project, will be made available upon request, using various levels of security.  For example, if a team of investigators will submit a proposal and need to share files, manage calendars and meetings, send postings about specific topics, etc., there will be a single electronic storage location made available to all members of the proposal team and their administrative staff.  All members of the team will be able to see who has the most recent version of a document, track changes made, add or remove files with ease, from anywhere in the world, opening more possibilities for more geographically diverse collaborations. 

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Administrative Support for Multi-Million Dollar & Multidisciplinary Grant Applications

The Multidisciplinary Project Associate reports to the Associate Vice President for Research, and works closely and independently with faculty to develop, prepare and submit large scale proposals in excess of $1 million per year. 

Proposal Criteria:
To qualify for this support, the proposal must meet the criteria below:

• Multidisciplinary – usually involving more than one department or scientific discipline, or multiple organizations
• Multi-million dollar – proposal generally will have an annual budget of at least $1M
• Center proposals, which may be for less overall money per year but have the potential to be long-term in nature (5-10 years), may also qualify

Proposal Development:
Each investigator/grant will require different skills and involvement.  Below is a listing of some services which may be available to departments and projects that qualify for this assistance:

• Help with identifying and enlisting potential collaborators
• Organizing proposal team meetings
• Creating a virtual shared workspace for proposal team members
• Helping to ensure adherence to sponsor guidelines
• Developing and reviewing proposal budgets and justifications
• Managing proposal documents, monitoring progress of assignments to subgroups
• Editing or proofreading documents
• Assistance with obtaining required subcontract and sub-award paperwork from faculty and university administrators located at collaborating institutions
• Soliciting/gathering/formatting CV data and current and pending support information
• Preparing appendices, formatting proposal documents
• Generating charts, graphs, and PDF documents
• Managing the coordination of local approvals (institutional endorsement by the Deans and Chairs)
• Preparing sponsor application forms

Post-Award:
In rare instances where a new Center grant is awarded but administrative staff are not already available, the Multidisciplinary Project Associate can continue to maintain a level of interaction with the PI (with salary support from the funded award) to assist with such tasks as establishment of accounts, development of position descriptions and handling initial personnel transactions, and training new administrative staff.