Externally Funded Research in Counselor Education: An Overview of the Process

Abstract

Publish or perish" is a phrase familiar to untenured and tenured faculty alike. In recent years, prominence has been placed on academicians to secure external funding for their research and training projects. The counselor education field has not been immune to this call for externally funded projects. This article includes strategies for seeking and receiving external funding for counselingrelated research in an effort to help counselor educators flourish in a paradigm that increasingly calls for greater external funding. Emphasis is placed on gaining knowledge and experience with federal funding agencies.

Advancing the Counseling Profession Through Contemporary Quantitative Approaches

“…Furthermore, infusing contemporary quantitative designs into their research agendas extends counseling researchers' efforts to obtain funding and affect policy change. Trends of fundable research suggest that quantitative designs that are robust and appropriately answer research aims are more likely to get funded than are misguided analyses or studies with less generalizability (Bourgeault, 2012;Villalba & Young, 2012). Preparing researchers, especially junior researchers, with the appropriate statistical analysis knowledge can be helpful in increasing grant funding in the counseling profession, thus bolstering the profession and the communities in which researchers serve (Delaney & Gibson, 2019).…”

Closing the Gap: Fostering Successful Research‐Practice Partnerships in Counselor Education

“…One final strategy involves working with sites as community partners or supports on external funding applications. Villalba and Young () detailed several community‐engaged research grant activities for counselor educators, including networking with experts in the field, meeting with community liaisons, establishing partnerships with local community, and exploring data collection practices. Depending on the level of interest, field engagement sites can participate in a grant project in a formal researcher role, invest in the project as a data collection site, or provide a letter of support for the importance of the research inquiry in general.…”

Grant Writing for the Counseling Professional

“…This is especially true for practical applications as only 6% of all articles focus on effective counseling interventions (Ray et al, 2011). Since research is the foundation of understanding the human condition and the knowledge that drives work and practice, there is need in the counseling profession to produce more empirically tested research (Elliot & Swerchuk, 1999;Reisetter et al, 2004;Villalba & Young, 2012).…”

“…As such, it is important to understand differences in funding options in order to successfully identify which agency and/or foundation is most appropriate to target and navigate options. Federal, state, foundation and corporate funding opportunities exist for mental health, school counseling and addiction-related research, projects, and programs (Vernon & Rainey, 2009;Villalba & Young, 2012). Federal government grants are typically the most complex, competitive and lengthy type of proposal.…”