The overall purpose of the CAREER grant mentoring group is to afford junior faculty members an opportunity to develop and articulate well-designed long-range plans for their research and other scholarly activities.  These plans will be developed in the context of seeking external funding support from the NSF Early CAREER Development Program and other suitable finding programs.  Whether or not the initial grant application is eventually successful, participants should expect to: 

a)      gain knowledge of the grant development process and experience overall;

b)      develop an in-depth knowledge of one particular grant program;

c)      benefit from a structured process for meeting task target dates and deadlines;

d)      undertake and produce a literature review and other materials that could form the basis for a journal article;

e)      receive guidance in how to strategize personnel needs for projects, and how to develop a realistic budget and budget narrative;

f)        receive peer and OSP feedback on initial concepts and draft narratives,

g)      gain knowledge and insight from outside mentors or other resource people that may be brought in to assist the group or individual members;

h)      benefit from the support and encouragement of the group in career and grant development as individual junior faculty in a challenging new arena. 

At the end of the group, all participants should have in hand a fully-developed federal grant application ready for submission, a product which can then also be used as the basis for future similar grants to the same and other funders.