Abstract

Grants Offices face many challenges in a competitive funding landscape: managing multiple funding sources, staying informed about funding opportunities and priorities, communicating with funders, helping researchers write compelling proposals, ensuring compliance, including ethics and research integrity. Balancing short-term needs with long-term sustainability requires a well-organized and complementary team that works with stakeholders and maintains continuous awareness of the evolving funder landscapes and regulations.

In this talk, as the head of Institut Pasteur’s Grants Office, I will share how we continually improved the support to the researchers by strategically reorganizing the team, including new skills and dedicated tools.

Based on my experience, I will share to the audience the following key success elements:
1. Grant Manager Tool: our IT department developed an internal software solution designed to simplify and improve the grant management process by researchers and RMAs within our institution. Its primary role is to facilitate all aspects of grant management and ensure efficiency, compliance, and transparency at every stage of the grant lifecycle. It helps RMAs to become aware of the researcher's intention to apply for funding.

2. Geographic Segmentation: our Grants Office is structured into three divisions (France, European Commission, International) based on the geographical origin of our funders. This segmentation across scientific departments enabled us to develop a strong expertise beyond funders like NIH, HFSP, Wellcome Trust, etc., guaranteeing that the proposals align with funders’ priorities and expectations.

3. Communication strategy: Targeted incentives are an important step in increasing the number of submissions. We also hired a person responsible for promoting Institut Pasteur towards public funders, to actively shape the strategy to boost Institut Pasteur’s participation in funding calls.

4. Dedicated Grant Writers: the recruitment of specialized grant writers is very valuable as they work closely with researchers to craft compelling narratives and ensure each proposal stands out in a competitive funding landscape. They are aware of funder’s requirements and researchers’ potential.

5. Ethics and Compliance Expertise: members of our team gained expertise in ethics and compliance, ensuring every funded project adheres to the most rigorous ethical standards. This expertise within the Grants Office is particularly valuable for EU and US grants.

In conclusion, the challenges faced by Grants Offices require a multifaceted approach to success. At Institut Pasteur, our Grants Office has continually evolved to meet these challenges head-on and to proactively support its workforce with capacity building activities and the formation of topic-specific expert groups. We have improved our support to our researchers through strategic team organization, skill development, communication, and tools implementation. From my experience, I have a global overview of these processes and I look forward to sharing these insights with the RMA community.