UCSF Faculty Writing Support Project
Funding and publishing scientific research are essential activities for the academic and career advancement of faculty and researchers across scientific fields. To facilitate equitable access to publication and grant writing and to improve scientific communication and dissemination, the Committee on Library & Scholarly Communication (COLASC) and the Library launched a writing services project with three components:
- A Faculty Writing Support Fund which provided financial support to faculty for writing, publication, and scholarly communication expenses in Spring 2023
- Two online writing courses for faculty in Summer 2023, from which the recordings and learning materials are being transformed into a freely available course on the CLE.
- A feasibility study for a centralized writing center at UCSF. The feasibility study is being conducted by Nicole Williams through May 2024 and will include a needs assessment to identify the unique strengths and writing support needs of our learners, educators, and research across the university.
Building on the Library’s Equity in Publishing and Open Science Initiative (EPOSI), COLASC identified a substantial need for centralized writing support to address disparities in resources available to researchers across departments and levels of experience. The central writing center would be a hub for connecting learners, educators, and researchers to services that facilitate equitable access to funding and scholarly communication activities — which could be especially impactful for early career researchers and faculty, departments with limited resources, and groups underrepresented in medicine or facing sociocultural barriers to academic or professional advancement.
The work for this assessment is expected to continue through May 2024 and will engage individuals and groups across UCSF involved with supporting scholarly writing, editing, grant writing, and scientific communication. A business plan outlining approaches and an implementation strategy for a sustainable writing center reflecting UCSF PRIDE values will be presented at the end of the project. Writing and copy-editing services for the UCSF community are not provided as part of this project.
The UCSF Writing Center Feasibility Study is funded by a UCSF Chancellor’s Fund award to COLASC.
Questions? For more information about this project, please contact Nicole Williams, writing center project specialist.
Announcing the Writing Support Needs Assessment Survey
Share your input
We invite all UCSF and UCSF Health researchers, learners, educators, and staff to complete our 15-minute Writing Support Needs Assessment Survey. Responses are collected anonymously. Survey respondents can enter their name and email to win a 50-dollar Amazon gift card. Your input will help us identify the unique strengths, challenges, and writing support needs across campus. Additionally, at the end of the survey, you can sign up for focus groups in March and April 2024.
The survey is available Thursday, February 22 through Friday, March 22. Please share the survey with your UCSF colleagues. We aim to capture as many stakeholder perspectives as possible.
Survey results and feedback
The survey responses and input collected through interviews, focus groups, and peer research, will inform a scenario-based business plan and implementation strategy for a central writing center that reflects the UCSF PRIDE values.
For survey questions, please contact Writing Center Project Specialist Nicole Williams at nicole.williams3@ucsf.edu.