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. Additional funding was provided in 2024 through the Committee on Research.
- 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 between November 2023 and Summer 2024. The feasibility study is being carried out by Nicole Williams, MSW, Writing Center Project Specialist. The report from this study will be shared here by the end of Summer 2024.
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 and authors with limited resources, and groups underrepresented in medicine or facing sociocultural barriers to academic or professional advancement.
The work for this assessment engaged individuals and groups across UCSF involved with supporting scholarly writing, editing, grant writing, and scientific communication. The assessment was conducted through interviews, peer research, a needs assessment survey of the UCSF community (described below), and faculty focus groups.
See key findings on UCSF Box from the needs assessment survey and focus groups (UCSF only). Additional documents are in this Box folder.
A scenario-based 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 (expected by the end of Summer 2024).
The UCSF Writing Center Feasibility Study was funded by a UCSF Chancellor’s Fund award to COLASC. Writing and copy-editing services were not provided as part of this project.
Questions? For more information about this project, please contact Nicole Williams, writing center project specialist.
Writing Support Needs Assessment Survey
Between February 22 and March 22, 2024, we invited all UCSF and UCSF Health researchers, learners, educators, and staff to complete our 15-minute Writing Support Needs Assessment Survey. Responses were collected anonymously, and survey respondents were invited to provide their name and email to win a 50-dollar Amazon gift card or volunteer for a focus group.
Preliminary survey findings as well as the survey instrument and selected data analysis can be found on Box (UCSF only). These findings will be incorporated into the final feasibility study report.