Project Summary
California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH) is a public Hispanic-serving, minority-serving,
primarily undergraduate institution (PUI). As a PUI, CSUDH focuses more on teaching than research, and
faculty have heavy teaching loads. This limits faculty time for grantwriting and creates a substantial need for
support from the Office of Sponsored Research and Programs (OSRP). In response to its 2014 strategic plan and
to raise graduation rates, CSUDH is hiring more tenure-track faculty, increasing its emphasis on research, and
providing students, most of whom are low-income or from underrepresented groups, with more high-impact
practices, including undergraduate research. To increase faculty applications for external support, CSUDH has
invested significantly in sponsored research, e.g., combining pre- and post-award functions in one hybrid office,
hiring a director for Sponsored Research and Programs, and Faculty Research Development, as well as creating
an office of undergraduate research. But with the influx of 120 assistant professors in the past five years, many
of whom are eager to pursue external funding for research, the sponsored-programs office lacks the resources to
provide sufficient support. The specific aims of the project, which align with the CSUDH strategic plan, are to
a) Increase the capacity of OSRP to strengthen faculty research, increase innovation and engage students in
research. b) Increase efficiency and consistency of OSRP through dissemination of policies and procedures. c)
Enhance ability of faculty to develop and submit competitive biomedical research proposals. NIH SPAD
funding will enable a rapid transformation of CSUDH's sponsored programs office to make it responsive to the
university's and faculty's growing needs. Within three years, CSUDH will be on track to house numerous NIH
principal investigators, similar to our sister CSU campuses, who can train the next generation of biomedical
scholars and diversify the future workforce. Long-term, institutionalizing successful SPAD strategies will
increase the total number and dollar value of external awards and NIH awards, involve many more
undergraduates in research, and increase the number of CSUDH graduates from underrepresented groups who
achieve PhDs in biomedical fields. The design and methods include 1) Strategically hiring new staff and
comprehensively training current OSRP staff to provide high-quality support to faculty who are planning to
submit proposals or managing awards; 2) Institutionalizing policies and operational procedures for efficient
operation of OSRP and disseminating them, along with proposal-preparation material, via campus-wide
trainings and a one-stop, self-service website for faculty; and 3) Expanding a successful pilot program to
provide biomedical faculty with an NIH-specific yearlong training program, mentoring by external experts, and
summer pay to write NIH R15, SCORE and R25 proposals. This multifaceted approach addresses CSUDH's
fundamental barriers to increasing biomedical research, CSUDH's SPAD project will achieve maximum impact
within a short time on faculty research, external funding, and undergraduate research opportunities.