A webinar on acquiring and securing grants was hosted this past week at UW-Platteville by Jeremy Miner, Director of Grants and Contracts at UW-Eau Claire. This presentation was broadcasted to several schools in the UW system, kicking off a series of webinars sponsored by WiSys to demystify the grant process. The complexity of grant writing has been a problem the university system has struggled with for a long time. Very few members of the university system receive any formal training on how to write successful grants. 

This week’s webinar was designed to help students and faculty identify grant programs that support book publication. It covered how they can leverage grant proposals into book proposals and where they can access related resources such as funding databases and the Grants Resource Center. While most funding of databases provides wide-scope lists of grants for the graduates of larger campuses, Grant Resource Centers provide a better-focused list of potential grants for graduates of smaller campuses like UW-Platteville.

Miner focused a majority of his time introducing the attendees to common grant programs. Examples of what potential grant seekers could find included the Guggenheim, Macarthur and Andrew W. Mellon Foundations. While they are the most commonly known names in grant writing, they are also notoriously competitive, which made the introduction to funding databases even more valuable.

His knowledge on the process was the reason he was chosen to host this semester’s round of webinars.

“Students benefit directly and indirectly. Directly, they gain grant-writing knowledge, beneficial as they continue academic careers and enter the workforce, especially in nonprofit and government service. Indirectly, they profit from the grant projects that faculty undertake,” Miner said.

“In an area of stress funding, it’s always nice to realize grant opportunities that are available for faculty members and organizations that are willing to support research,” assistant professor in the school of business at UW-Platteville Jason Woldt said.

Will Hoyer, Interim Director of the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs at UW-Platteville, lauded Miner’s involvement in the webinar series.

“Jeremy Miner is one of the most knowledgeable grant persons in the state of Wisconsin,” Hoyer said.

He hopes the rest of the webinar series “will at least encourage a few people to write some more grants and get some more funding to support the work that they are passionate about.”

Miner will be hosting several more webinars throughout the semester to further introduce useful grant writing techniques to those who attend.

More information can be found on the WiSys website by clicking “Professional Development Grant Webinars” under the Grants tab, or visit http://www.wisys.org/grants/webinars.