91´ÎÔª

Research Development at UM: Catalyzing Research with Purpose

At the 91´ÎÔª, Research Development is more than a support service—it’s a strategic, relational, and people-centered catalyst for research excellence. 
 
We partner with faculty, research teams, and campus leaders to grow a thriving, collaborative research ecosystem. Our mission is to advance discovery, foster connection, and build capacity—all while emphasizing care, creativity, and impact. 

What We Do 

Empower Researchers 

We help faculty navigate the research landscape. Our services include: 

• Research development strategy 
• Navigation of institutional supports and policies 
• Proposal review and editing 
• Grant writing training and workshops 

Build Bridges and Teams 

We create the conditions for interdisciplinary collaboration by: 

• Convening research interest groups 
• Supporting team science proposals 
• Maintaining tools for networking and partnership-building 

Strengthen Institutional Strategy 

We align campus strengths with research priorities by: 

• Advising on research directions and strategic initiatives 
• Facilitating external partnerships and sponsor visits 

Elevate and Communicate Research 

We amplify the visibility and impact of UM’s research through: 

• Research marketing and reporting 
• Grant opportunity dissemination 
• Metrics and storytelling that reflect the value of diverse ideas and approaches 

Why It Matters 

We believe a strong research enterprise begins with people. By centering our work in service—from how we support faculty to how we build partnerships—we encourage collaboration, reduce barriers to participation, and help researchers do their best work in a changing world. 
 
Whether you're a new investigator or an experienced PI, UM ‘s Office of Research Development (ORD) is here to help you move ideas into action—and action into impact. 

Request Our Services 

Proposal Development 

Proposal development includes one review of your proposal narrative with comments to guide your revisions. This service is ideal for faculty who are familiar with grant writing and are not working with a team on a complex proposal. For proposal development support, we require an approximate lead time of three to eight weeks. We may be able to accommodate a shorter timeframe on a case-by-case basis, but our capacity to provide a thorough review may be limited.  

Research Development 

Research development is a professional discipline that includes guidance on strategy, project management to coordinate writing the grant, and multiple proposal reviews. This service is ideal for experienced PIs working with a team on a large grant or a single PI working on a large complex grant. Research development requires a minimum of eight weeks of lead time, but in order to get the most out of the service, RD professionals should be included at the beginning stages of project development. 

To request our services, please reach out to ORD. 

Testimonials 

“Reflecting on the past few months’ grueling writing experience, I’m so glad to have reached out to Naomi in April when I first thought about applying. I can’t say enough thank you to Naomi who has truly helped build my confidence and allowed my ideas to shine with each draft that she meticulously edited. I marveled at her impeccable logic and brilliant ways to wordsmith. I have learned so much from the process and look forward to working with her again.”  

“I am so grateful for your careful reviews, Naomi. On both the first and second rounds, your feedback was wonderful and constructive. You helped make this so much better!”  

“Katherine, Great job drafting, rearranging, taking everyone's comments and putting them into writing, finalizing, incorporating final comments, and then incorporating final-final comments into this. You are great at what you do, and seamless to work with. Thank you so much.” 

“I'm so impressed by Naomi's talents on writing a fantastic proposal with a super diverse group of researchers!  She synthesizes our thoughts, conducts review of relevant literature, provides constructive feedback on our program activities and research! And she managed our strong perspectives/personalities very well!” 

“Kathy helped in collecting biosketches and letters of support, including drafting some of the letters for our Community Advisory Board. For a variety of reasons some of our key personnel did not have updated NIH-style biosketches, and Kathy spent considerable time working with these personnel to ensure that the final bio matched current NIH requirements. When Kathy initially offered to help with this, I did not realize how valuable her help would be. Her assistance was essential and afforded us the ability to focus our efforts on the research strategies and other elements of the application.” 

Metrics

From July 2025 through December 2026 (FY25 + FY26 to date):