Why pursue external funding for research?

Overview

Sometimes answering a research question requires special equipment, activities or support that aren't budgeted by WKU.  To answer these important research questions our faculty submit proposal to receive additional funds 1) from WKU (internal grants) or 2) state, federal or other agencies (external grants).  These are highly competitive, but because our faculty do important work that is highly regarded, we successfully acquire these funds. These additional funds allow our faculty and student researchers to do exciting important work.

 

What is external funding?

External funding is money that is awarded from outside WKU.  These awards can be from nearby (Owensboro Health Regional Hospital), state (KY Academy of Sciences, KY-INBRE IDeA) and federal (NIH, NSF, DOD) agencies or businesses. These opportunities can be extremely competitive, but provide important support to our students, faculty and the work that they do.

Example:

Dr. Katrina Burch  KY-INBRE IDeA Grant, Investigating the Spillover and Crossover Effects of Workplace Incivility on Family Health and Behavior.

What is internal funding?

Internal funding is money that is awarded within WKU from resources dedicated to supporting student and faculty research.  These awards include Research & Creative Activities Program (RCAP) and Faculty-Undergraduate Student Engagement (FUSE) awards.  Although they are typically smaller than external awards, they provide crucial short-term support for research and are often associated with a specific student.  They are great opportunities for students to learn about research proposals and to develop writing and critical-thinking skills that will benefit them for their whole career.

Example:

Why pursuing funding is valuable?

With increased funds our students and faculty can ask big questions with state-of-the-art tools.  Asking the big questions sometimes requires a team.  This might be undergraduate Psychologica Science majors, I/O Psychology graduate students and Psychological Sciences graduate students working together in a research lab or collaborations with labs across the country and world.

In addition to supporting the research, these awards acknowledge the strength of our students and faculty.  When the National Institutes of Health receive a grant proposal from us, they are seeing evidence of the excellent work happening in the Psychological Sciences department and WKU.

 

What does the funding says about our faculty?

We value our students and if teaching wasn't important to us, we wouldn't be here.  We believe that exposure and engagement in research is critical for a student to fully appreciate the importance of science in psychology.  Psychological science is fundamental whether a student is pursuing a career in clinical psychology, a career in behavioral science or a career that would benefit from a deep understanding of how humans think.  Just as publishing articles in highly respected journals and presenting research in at international conferences demonstrate the high caliber of our faculty, so do our ability to acquire research funding.