Gateway Focus Week: An intensive and in-depth workshop for innovative research teams that covers a broad range of topics to help you produce a strong development, operations, and sustainability plan.
Jumpstart Your Sustainability Plan mini-course: A Focus Week spin-off, this course focuses solely on sustainability planning.
During the Focus Week workshop, teams
You’ll leave Focus Week with a flexible toolkit that you can use as your project continues to mature.
Focus Week and Jumpstart Your Sustainability Plan are taught by Juliana Casavan and Nancy Maron. Focus Week also includes some guest instructors.
Juliana Casavan is a program designer and facilitator and teaches others how to build and implement strategies for success.
Currently, she is a program manager for MatchBOX Coworking Studio, the leading coworking space in Greater Lafayette, Indiana, where she coaches local startups and entrepreneurs through strategic planning and product development.
Prior to joining MatchBOX, Juliana was a founding member of the Purdue Foundry, an internationally recognized leader in university startups and technology transfer. During her time, she created Firestarter, the premier startup workshop of Purdue University, leading over 500 teams of researchers and students through the ideation process.
Nancy Maron is founder and principal of BlueSky to BluePrint, a strategic research and consulting organization. She is the author of several research reports and guides on business strategy and sustainability including A Guide to the Best Revenue Models and Funding Sources for your Digital Resources (2014), Sustaining the Digital Humanities: Host Institution Support Beyond the Start-up Phase (June 2014) and many case studies of sustainable initiatives. She created and regularly leads workshops in sustainability and business strategy, including the Sustaining Digital Resources course.
Here is a small sampling of the topics we cover:
Napkin Drawing
Effectively communicate the value of your project through verbal and visual communication.
Value Proposition
Identify the primary value that your project brings to its users and community.
Understanding Your Audience & Key Stakeholders
Explore and assess your audiences and stakeholders to better engage them.
Budgeting & Goal Setting
Use impact-driven goals to begin developing a budget and financial forecast
Sales & Marketing
Learn principles of sales and marketing, and how to develop a plan to connect with your target audience and promote your gateway.
Usability
Plan and conduct an informal usability test. Derive actionable insights.
There are two ways that you can participate in a virtual Focus Week.
1. Apply and attend the full workshop. Seats are limited!
Participants who apply for and attend the full program will enjoy:
For those who are planning to use the program to actively develop a sustainability strategy that they can put into action in the near term, this version of the program will be the most impactful.
2. Attend sessions “a la carte”
Participants are welcome to attend the sessions that interest them. However, you won’t have access to personalized instructor feedback.
This is a good alternative to those with limited availability.
The main sessions occur Monday through Thursday over two weeks from 12-1:30 pm ET. Some group feedback sessions follow the main presentations.
Please know that this mini-course is by no means a replacement for Gateway Focus Week, which covers multiple topics in-depth. Instead, we will focus solely on offering practical and effective steps for developing a sustainability strategy. This free mini-course offers PIs of research and teaching-focused gateways and their teams the perfect way to kick off sustainability planning, whether you are writing a new grant or ready to get to the next level with a more mature project.
The mini-course agenda is listed below.
The mini-course will outline the core topics any sustainability plan should address, including:
Key components of a Sustainability Strategy
Practical steps for developing your plan
Pitfalls to avoid
Subjects covered will include:
What exactly is sustainability, and why is it important?
Articulating your value proposition
Audience as the key to a sustainability strategy
Finding the funding model that works for you
Participants will receive:
Examples of real-world sustainability strategies
Tips on what to include in a sustainability plan
Tools to use to develop your plan, including the Sustainability Framework
Each day will include:
Main presentation and discussion addressing a major theme of sustainability
The Jumpstart mini-course is taught by the two main Focus Week instructors, Nancy Maron and Juliana Casavan. Learn about them here.
Day 1
12:00–1:30 pm ET Sustainability: How Science Gateways can thrive (not just survive)
Day 2
12:00–1:30 pm ET Audience & Environment: Sustainability Through Impact
Day 3
12:00–2:00 pm ET Finding your Funding Model, course wrap-up