Sustaining Biological Infrastructure: Expanding and Enhancing an ESA Training Initiative for Project Directors

Ecological Society Of America, Washington DC

Investigators

Abstract

The Ecological Society of America (ESA) is awarded a grant to expand and enhance the Sustaining Biological Infrastructure (SBI) training initiative. This initiative helps scientists gain the business planning, marketing, and communication skills needed to sustain research infrastructure (e.g. databases, collections, field stations, and marine labs). Research infrastructure is vital to scientific discovery and supports innovation in fields such as agriculture, genetics, environmental science, and human health. These resources also require informed planning to maintain their long-term financial sustainability and to meet the research community's constantly changing needs. The SBI Training Initiative will help create a new community of scientists with enhanced business and communication skills. These scientists will be better equipped to ensure that critical resources continue to enable discovery and advance the health, prosperity, and welfare of the United States. The SBI Training Initiative is designed to impart key skills to scientists in a language they understand, and to provide ample opportunities to: 1) learn from experienced faculty, 2) practice using key tools that they can implement immediately at their own project, and 3) network and learn from peers who possess a deep understanding of the specific challenges that the research community faces. This award supports the following activities: offering the keystone 3-day "Strategies for Success" course in two different locations each year for the next three years; developing and offering a more advanced 2-day course on "Creating a Successful Business Plan"; and offering two, shorter workshops annually (one day or less) at professional society or other organization meetings. Expanding and enhancing this training program will lead to the following outcomes. Infrastructure directors will exchange information useful to project sustainability more frequently and effectively. Business and financial planning will become a routine part of managing biological infrastructure projects and programs. Infrastructure directors will report greater fundraising success, increasingly varied funding sources, and more effective financial management of their projects. Infrastructure directors will increasingly develop and regularly update formal business and strategic plans for their projects. The expansion of the SBI Training Initiative (www.esa.org/sbi) will promote scientific progress by ensuring that vital infrastructure continues to support innovation and discovery in biological research.