Source: Uninorte

By: José Luis Rodríguez R.

Under the strategic commitment to advance excellence in research and increase the execution of external funds, the Vice Rector's Office for Research, Creation and Innovation develops from April 8 to 12 a workshop on the formulation of proposals for international funds, led by Thomas Gabriel Sors, Director of Scientific Strategy and Relations of the Institute of Inflammation, Immunology and Infectious Diseases at Purdue University.

During the activity, developed with the support of the International Relations Office, 24 professors from Universidad del Norte (Uninorte) and 6 from the 4U Alliance acquire knowledge and tools to understand the research funding landscape, as well as the peer review exercise, the search for funds and the development of successful funding proposals, especially NIH and NSF (National Institute of Health and National Science Foundation).

"I want to give them the knowledge about the process, what are the fundamental techniques to prepare the proposals, and when they receive the funds, how they can manage it and contribute. I want Uninorte to increase its research reputation with this knowledge," said Sors, who is also director of operations at Purdue University for the Indiana Clinical and Translational Science Institute.

Research at Uninorte is a substantive function of its academic work and in this context, the consolidation of doctoral programs, the training of high quality professors in renowned universities around the world and the willingness to access international funds for research financing have been key factors.

Source: Uninorte

Sors meets in the afternoons with different professors and deans to generate links between Uninorte and Purdue, especially in the areas of life sciences; and with graduate students and Purdue alumni faculty who maintain academic collaboration.

"To formulate a successful proposal an important aspect is to start forming alliances so that faculty can apply to these funding methods with U.S. colleagues. To begin to collaborate in student exchanges and for Purdue researchers to understand a little more about the challenges in Colombia," says the workshop leader.

From his experience, Sors seeks that Latin American researchers begin to understand how to form this type of alliances and that, with this type of activities where specific knowledge is provided, a regional reading of how research and its financing is done begins to be built.

According to Javier Paez, Vice Rector for Research, Creation and Innovation, the university's efforts to ensure that more and more professors have a research profile and doctoral level training is one of its greatest strengths. The workshop is the first result of the visit that Uninorte had at Purdue in November of last year, in the framework of the 4U Alliance, from which not only this type of research activities, but also academic activities that are worked by the Academic Vice Rector's Office.

"This conference is in line with what the Vice-Rector's Office for Research is consolidating and that is to try to have more capabilities for the search for international funds, not only to present more proposals, but to be more effective, that is, to achieve a higher level of success with the proposals that we present", emphasized Paez Saavedra.

To read the original article in Spanish, please click here.