Search the IRIS Database for funding opportunities in every field from agriculture to zoology, or view upcoming deadlines in 25 subject areas.

Need IRIS usage reports for your institution? Here's where to get them.

The Illinois Researcher Information Service (IRIS) is a unit of the University of Illinois Library at Urbana-Champaign. Established in 1979, the IRIS office was originally set up to provide information on federal and private funding opportunities to the University of Illinois community. Over time, that mission grew to include other institutions of higher education in the United States. Today, IRIS offers three Web-based services to over 200 colleges, universities, and research centers:

• The IRIS Database
• The IRIS Alert Service
• The IRIS Expertise Service

The IRIS Database and the IRIS Alert Service help you find federal and private funding opportunities in your field of interest.

The IRIS Expertise Service helps people find you.

The IRIS Database

The IRIS Database contains records on over 8,300 federal and private funding opportunities in all fields, from agriculture to zoology. The database is updated daily, and every record in the database is reviewed and edited at least once a year.

You can search the database by keyword or by specific fields. You can limit searches by deadline date, citizenship, academic level, and other criteria.

IRIS records show you contact information (including live e-mail addresses), a brief but informative description of the program, and clickable keywords from the IRIS Keyword Thesaurus.

Most IRIS records also contain live links to the sponsor's Web site or to online application materials. Getting started on a proposal can be only a mouse-click away.

The IRIS Alert Service

The IRIS Alert Service allows you to save an IRIS search statement as your own personalized funding-alert profile. Your profile is run against the IRIS Database of funding opportunities at intervals specified by you (daily, weekly, or monthly—it's up to you). The search results are delivered to you automatically by e-mail or posted to a password-protected Web site on the IRIS computer, for viewing at your convenience.

With the IRIS Alert Service, you can choose to see every funding opportunity with open or upcoming deadlines that matches your search criteria. Or you can limit your results to only those matching opportunities have been updated by the IRIS editors since the last time your profile was run.

The IRIS Expertise Service

The IRIS Expertise Service allows you to create a detailed electronic CV ("biosketch") and post it to the World-Wide Web for viewing by colleagues at other institutions, program officers at federal and private funding agencies, and technology-transfer departments at private companies. Information from the biosketch can also be used in the electronic submission of grant proposals.

Although the IRIS Expertise Service was intended to help people outside your institution find you, it is equally useful for people inside your institution. Public affairs officers at universities are often approached by representatives of state and national media for specialists on a given subject. Think of the IRIS Expertise Service as an online rolodex of faculty members with expertise on topics in the news.

Why Use IRIS?

Two reasons:

1. It can save you time.
2. It can help you get grants.

First, time. The IRIS Database contains information on 8,000 funding opportunities from almost 2,000 sponsors and funding agencies. We do all the updating, abstracting, and indexing. Using IRIS saves you the trouble of having to search dozens of sites on the Internet to find funding opportunities that meet your needs.

Second, money. Even if you don't currently do externally funded research, it helps to know about funding opportunities in your field. It is true that most of the federal grant money is in the physical sciences and biomedicine, but there are plenty of programs in the social sciences and humanities as well. Many programs in the humanities and social sciences are remarkably flexible. They let you define your research topic and methodology. IRIS also contains interdisciplinary programs that promote collaboration between specialists from different fields.

If you're already an active researcher, IRIS can keep you up to date on programs you know about. More important, it can alert you to programs you may not know about.

Registering for the IRIS Alert Service typically takes between five and ten minutes. Once you've registered for the service, you'll receive automatic updates. You can modify your profile at any time. You can also delete it.

The IRIS Expertise Service brings faculty biosketches from many institutions together in one place and in a common format. It makes it easier for people to find you.

Most university Web sites already have faculty homepages. However, the level of detail varies. The IRIS Expertise Service allows you to include detailed information about your research interests and accomplishments. It's an excellent way to present yourself.

You can include live Web addresses in your IRIS Expertise Service record. Searchers can jump directly from your biosketch to an online version of one of your articles, or even a video clip of a lecture or presentation.

Tips for Using IRIS

1. Start simple. Search the database using simple terms and see what you get. Don't use too many variables at first. Add them later, to pare down your search results.

2. Use fairly broad search categories, at least at the beginning. Think in terms of fields or areas, not specific topics. Many sponsors describe their funding opportunities in general terms. This is especially true of programs in the humanities and social sciences. So instead of searching IRIS for funding to support research on (say) social policy in late 19th-century Germany, try searching on "German History" or "European History". This technique can also work in the sciences, although the likelihood of finding specialized terms in the descriptions for these programs is higher.

3. If you use the IRIS Alert Service, remember to jot down your IRIS Alert Service login name and password. You'll need them to modify (or delete!) your profile later on. If you're already registered for other interactive online services, try using the same password for all of them. It makes it easier to remember.

4. If you decide to use the IRIS Expertise Service, enter your information in a consistent format. For example, always list dates first, then jobs or degrees. Avoid abbreviations—remember that the people who are searching the database may not know what they stand for. The purpose of the service is to help people understand what you are doing and why it's important. Make it easy for them.

After IRIS: Writing the Proposal

The purpose of IRIS is to help you find funding opportunities and advertise your research interests and accomplishments over the Web. What happens when you find an opportunity you want to apply for?

Many colleges and universities have offices of sponsored programs that will help you put together a proposal and a budget. The actual writing of the proposal, however, will probably fall to you. The basic rules of proposal writing are fairly simple:

• Read the sponsor's guidelines.
• Follow the guidelines.
• Relate your idea to the sponsor's interests.
• Allow plenty of time for writing.
• Get feedback.
• Edit for clarity, content, and grammar.

Here are some Web sites with useful advice for the first-time grant seeker:

General Guides

The Foundation Center's Proposal Writing Short Course

Deborah's Proposal Writing Blog

Sponsor-Specific Guides

National Institutes of Health: More Information on Writing Grants

National Science Foundation: A Guide for Proposal Writing

Social Science Research Council: The Art of Writing Proposals