Career Development Award Grant Applications

Stephen E. Nadeau, M.D.

Malcom Randall DVA Medical Center

Department of Neurology, University of Florida College of Medicine, Gainesville, FL

CAREER Development Award

• Goal: seduce the VA into investing in the development of your career– Providing you the opportunity to take the

necessary course work– Providing you the opportunity to lay the first

building blocks of a lifetime series of grants– Providing you the opportunity to develop yourself

as a complete academician– Paying your salary to free up your time so that you

can pursue these goals.

• The CDA Study Section: venture capitalists

CAREER Development Award: Course Work

• CDA1: the basics– Statistics, statistical software, experimental design, specialized

methodologies, grant writing, discipline-specific courses

• CDA2:– More of the basics– Instruction targeted at specific areas of weakness (e.g., paucity of

papers; subject area; technical proficiency)– Mentorship schedule: +/-

• Degree granting programs but NOT degrees• Mentors:

– For each major research domain in the proposal– Adequate qualifications– Primary mentor must be funded.– Willingness and ability to spend the requisite time.

• Remote courses/instruction/mentoring: acceptable.• Application: summarize with TABLE.

CAREER Development Award: Presenting Yourself

• Identify personal and career attributes that that are particular assets in the line of research you propose.

• Briefly summarize everything else & detail in 10-1313-05,6

• Be honest about liabilities but make silk out of the sow’s ear: use to argue for the particular course work and mentorship you are going to seek.

• Weak track record: consider 3 years funding in lieu of 5.

CAREER Development Award: Research

• THE question:– Can you do it?– Can you do it?– Can you do it?– Can you do it?– Can you do it?– Can you do it?– Can you do it?

–CAN YOU DO IT?

CAREER Development Award Research: Can you do it?

• You– Track record of research, funding, and publication.– Do you, or will you have the necessary academic skills?– Do you have sufficient frontal lobes?– Do you have any stigmata of academic disability?

• The quality of the proposal• Track record• Response to prior critique

• Mentorship– Qualifications of your mentors– Evidence, in the polish of the proposal, that your mentors have

invested the necessary time in you.

• Institutional infrastructure• Recruitment

– Demonstration of ability to recruit the subjects you need.

• Demonstration of technical feasibility: pilot data.

CAREER Development Award: Research Proposal

• Step 1: The research program you want to pursue for the next 15 years.

• Step 2: The first 20% of the 15 year program = CDA2 proposal

• Step 3: Pilot data for CDA2 = CDA1• All steps: cogently spell out the entire development

trajectory and the relationship of all steps to it.• The product to be delivered:

– CDA1: CDA2 proposal– CDA2: Merit Review or R01 proposal– Products should be specified in the short and long-term

goals of your proposal

• The VA is investing in your career, not your study

CAREER Development Award: The Review Process• First submission:

– High quality Detailed review, laundry list of specific suggestions

– Low quality “Dip toe in water review;” few specific suggestions; wasted round

• Second submission:– High quality first submission, fully responsive to critique in the

proposal (not the cover letter) funding– Low quality first submission, fully responsive to critique

Laundry list

• Third submission: why is it taking this candidate so long?

CAREER Development Award: The Review Process• It has been said that democracy is the worst

form of government except all the others that have been tried. (Winston Churchill)

• Reasons for lack of success:– Bad proposal– Weak applicant– Bad mentorship– Ignorant reviewers/reviewers who have forgotten their

mentorship responsibilities– Reviewers changed between rounds– Bad study section leadership– The dice took a bad role

• Focus on process, not proposal

CAREER Development Award

• CDA 1: Getting started• CDA 2:

– Developing as an academician• Teaching• Role in departmental affairs• Paper and grant review• Role in research infrastructure

– Developing your future position as an academic and as a VA researcher.

– Making arrangements for your future position.

CDA 2 Research Proposals• Fewer pages is better.• Focus like a laser. Always be as specific as possible.• Just the parts to complete the jigsaw puzzle: not a single one

more.• Design: Keep it simple stupid (KISS).• Involve a statistician from the get-go.• Literature review: strictly targeted, NOT a complete review of the

field.• Limit the things you are going to measure to those that are

absolutely essential. Once you have the money, you can measure whatever you want.

• Prepare the budget as you are writing the proposal: this will help to keep your proposal pragmatic and assure that the goals are realistic.

• Be kind to your reviewer: you don’t want her migrainous because you tortured her for hours with a wordy, poorly organized, complex, over-long proposal.

CDA 2 Research Proposals: Hypotheses

• Predictions are not hypotheses: you should be neither a fortune teller nor a wishful thinker.

• Formulating a hypothesis requires the existence of a theoretical mechanism and a cogent explanation of that mechanism that justifies your hypothesis. – Your experiment may support or refute your

hypothesis: consider the implications of both alternatives.

• Much research, particularly in early stages, does not lend itself to hypothesis formulation.– A well justified research question is an acceptable

alternative in this circumstance.

CDA 2 Research Proposals• Describe your research four times:

– Problem statement: 1/3 - 1/2 page– Hypotheses: 1-2 pages– Short-term objectives: itemized list of experiments– Current status (of research): 5 pages

• Long-term objectives: – NOT yada yada– Your chance to spell out the deliverables, the long-term research

trajectory, and how they fit together — again.

• Significance: Is your research worth doing? – Specifically relate your research to the problem to be solved.– Distinguish what makes your approach unique/innovative.

• Methods: where the pages should be used.– Make SURE you demonstrate your ability to do the studies promised to

acceptable standards and that your institutional infrastructure is adequate.

• Prose style: Scientific American• Verbotten: jargon, acronyms, abbreviations

• Erik Kandel. In Search of Memory. NY: WW Norton, 2006