Research Funding (for my GEO 121 students)
In class this week, we were talking about remote sensing and I mentioned the cost of some of the image data (which can run into the thousands of dollars). A student asked "Who buys that?" I explained that people with research grants could afford it and mentioned that I had purchased some recently for a project. Later, another student asked "Did Miami [University] have to pay a lot of money for that?". I mentioned that the USDA did, since they funded our research. The discussion ended there, but I thought it might be a good idea to explain a bit more about the whole process of how we do research and get grants to fund that research. Here is how the process might go: 1) Someone has an idea for a research project. This can come from many sources, including earlier research, reading articles, talking with colleagues, etc. 2) This person looks for funding sources for this research. Depending on the field of the study, this person might look for funding with government ag...