UO researchers and scholars now have a powerful new search tool to reach for when looking for opportunities to fund their research, scholarship and creative activities.
Pivot, a subscription service paid for by the Office of the Vice President for Research and Innovation, maintains a database of grants, fellowships and other funding information from public and private, domestic and international sources for science, social sciences, humanities and community outreach funding. The new service is open to the entire UO community.
Research Development Services, the UO unit supporting faculty members and researchers in funding and program development efforts, will lead a series of free Pivot trainings starting in October.
“Gone are the days of researchers scouring multiple websites for funding opportunities,” said Kate Petcosky-Kulkarni, director of strategic research initiatives for the unit. “Pivot is a true one-stop shop for researchers and scholars in all disciplines, and it’s a critical resource in today’s hypercompetitive funding environment.”
Pivot helps research administrators such as Petcosky-Kulkarni pinpoint funding opportunities for UO faculty members and staff and target special funding, such as limited submissions. It also allows researchers to create and save their own searches, find UO internal funding opportunities, see internal deadlines for limited submission opportunities, find colleagues both at the UO and across the nation, and set up alerts on targeted searches for collaborative groups of users. Research administrators hope it will translate to stronger, more strategic and, ultimately, more successful proposals.
“Regardless of whether you’re a biologist looking for a multimillion-dollar grant to fund your biomedical research, a historian looking for a modest award to help fund your book project or part of a multidisciplinary team looking for a major center grant, Pivot will lessen the burden on our researchers and raise our success rate,” Petcosky-Kulkarni said.
New Pivot users can find instructions on creating a new account and profile on the Research Development Services website. The unit is offering a series of Pivot funding opportunities database trainings this academic year on the following dates:
- Tuesday, Oct. 15, 9-10 a.m., EMU 231/232 Cedar/Spruce.
- Monday, Oct. 21, 3-4 p.m., EMU 023 Lease Crutcher Lewis.
- Monday, Oct. 28, noon-1 p.m., EMU 231/232 Cedar/Spruce.
Trainings will help new users learn the ins and outs of Pivot, as well as support researchers in targeted federal funding areas such as National Science Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities and National Institutes of Health. These and other training opportunities will also be announced in the unit’s free biweekly Funding Opportunities newsletter.
New users can sign up for trainings by filling out the Pivot training registration form. For more information, contact rds@uoregon.edu.