To begin this new quarterly entry in the DER Newsletter, I want to wish everyone a Happy New Year and thank everyone who reached out to welcome me to DER and back to MSU.

During my interview I was asked the question, “What immediate changes are you going to make within DER?” To that I responded, the first thing I will do is to spend time listening and learning. I understand that there are many different aspects to DER’s processes that I will become more familiar with as time goes on.

As I progress through my first phase in this role, I keep coming to the same conclusion. We have a dedicated staff who is working hard to serve a faculty who is changing the world through innovation in their respective disciplines. Now it is our turn to push DER further to match your innovation, not only continued steadfast service, but to innovate our operations to bring you new tools for success in the everchanging discipline of Research Administration. Together we can foster and support your research success.

As we continue to innovate our DER processes, I want to remind faculty and staff that I am always available for your ideas of ways that we can continue to streamline our processes to help our staff continue to become stronger in their Research Administration discipline. DER is here to help and support faculty. Feel free to contact me directly at alexd@msu.edu.

Healthinnovations has named Dr. Bryan Smith's (Associate Professor, MSU Biomedical Engineering) research on nanoparticle-based treatments to clear atherosclerotic plaques the top study of 2020 - see the full list and more about the study: https://health-innovations.org/.../the-top-10.../

The Project Summary is one of the most important parts of every NSF grant proposal. A clear and concise Project Summary will make a positive first impression on reviewers and succinctly convey the key points of your project. However, writing a strong Project Summary can be deceptively hard. With only a single page to work with, it can be difficult to decide which information to include and how to best frame that information for impact. During this seminar, Dr. Sara Steenrod (Grant Consultant with OSVPRI) will walk you through best practices for writing a compelling Project Summary for your next NSF proposal.