Increasing the odds of NIH fundingpart Science part Art

Projects of high scientific caliber

Investigator-initiated research

Unique research projects

What does NIH look for?

• You can never have too many!!• Formal vs. informal mentoring relationships.• One mentor can’t serve for every purpose.• Men can be mentors too.• Ideal mentor:

– Successful Well funded Well published Renown local, national, international scene

– Secure (not threatened by your success)

Find a Mentor

• Yesterday, or better last year

• Preferably during post-doc fellowship

• Grants written over longer time are better

When to start writing?

Distinguish yourself from the crowd

• Join relevant society• Participate in national meetings

• Send an abstract• Introduce yourself to key players• Ask a question

• Publish a few papers on your topic• Get to know the “old boys and girls”…• Get involved in relevant associations

Ground preparation forGrant submission

• Strategy is very important

– advanced discussions

– what institute(s) (RFA or PA)

– what study section or SEP?

– stay on the radar screen

– obtain the best scored grant as an example

NIH grant preparation

Who gets funded?

• scientific merit score• program considerations• availability of funds• institutes set pay lines, paying up to a

given percentile score• last minute funding not uncommon

NIH grant review• Each NIH application is peer-reviewed by an

independent group of experts usually through CSR– study Section or SEP (+ ad hoc reviewers)– triage process– priority score

• Review criteria– Significance– approach– innovation– investigator– environment

http://www.niaid.nih.gov/ncn/glossary/default5.htm

• numerical score (100-500) and a percentile are given to the application

• summary statement is prepared that provides the reviewers’ comments and critiques

• secondary review by the National Advisory Council of the assigned institute

• time from submission to funding 10 months

NIH grant review

NIH grant preparation

Read the instructions!and follow all of them!This is the easy part

DO

• Call program staff ahead of time to learn what's hot-and what's not

• Keep research goals simple and clear

• Ask colleagues to critique your grant application before submission

• Use testable hypothesis

Do and Don’t or You Won’t

Don’t

• promise the world in one project

• stack a grant application with too much history and extra information

• be vague in describing experiments • dash off and send a grant application without

carefully reviewing it

• get discouraged if your grant isn't funded the first time out

Do and Don’t or You Won’t

NIH grant preparation

• Science of the proposal is of utmost importance– new idea, well rationalized– novel hypothesis– cutting edge methods– tell a research story (not a list of methods)– discuss challenges and alternative approaches– figures and tables consistent with text– cite work of potential reviewers if relevant– don't stick out your neck– collaborators and consultants– Include timeline

NIH grant preparation"A sloppy application = a sloppy scientist"

• Be meticulous – carefully justify budget (even in modular grant) – updated biosketch– letters of support should be detailed– additional progress

• Presentation of the proposal is important– large font (minimum Arial 11)– small paragraphs– simple figures and tables– consistency in formatting– Include list of abbreviations

Evaluate the application relative to the "state of the science" and not relative to other applications

Impossible to do this without generalizing or comparing

Few common (dogmatic?) principles

Knowledge of the principles increases your odds

Read instructions for reviewers and review criteria

Just remember -- your goal is to instruct the reviewer on how to review your application

The reviewer’s perspective

Ask for a study section or SEP type of expertise

Ask for a primary and secondary funding institute

Infrequently – ask to exclude a reviewer (competitor)

Your cover letter

who gets funded?

• scientific merit• program considerations• availability of funds• institutes set pay lines, paying up to a

given percentile score• “last minute” funding not uncommon

• Problem not important enough• Not significant to health-related research • Study unlikely to produce useful information • Studies based on a shaky hypothesis or data • Alternative hypotheses not considered •Methods unsuited to the objective • Problem more complex than investigator realizes • Too little detail in the Research Plan to convince • Issue is scientifically premature • Over-ambitious Research Plan with an unrealistically

large amount of work • Direction or sense of priority not clearly defined, no

logical sequence• Lack of focus in hypotheses, aims, or Research Plan • Lack of original or new ideas

Frequent negative peer-review comments

• Investigator inexperienced with the proposed methods • Proposed project a “fishing expedition” lacking hypothesis • Proposal driven by technology, i.e., a method in search of a problem (e.g. the ….omics epidemic) • Rationale for experiments not provided• Experiments too dependent on success of an initial proposed experiment. Lack of alternative methods• Proposed model system not appropriate to address the

proposed questions • Relevant controls not included • Proposal lacking enough preliminary data or preliminary

data do not support project's feasibility • Insufficient consideration of statistical needs • Not clear which data were obtained by the investigator and

which were reported by others.

NIH grant preparationpart Science part Strategy

Reapplication strategy

What if I don’t get funded?

• Most grants do not get funded on the first round

• Talk with program officer• Can resubmit 2 more times• Revised application should address the

critiques of the reviewers in the summary statement one by one

• Stay the course and good things will happen

NIH grant reapplication

• Obtaining information– Carefully read the summary statement and highlight

judgment and recommendation statements– Do not discuss the grant with any of the reviewers– Call the NIH Program Officer to obtain feedback

NIH grant reapplication

• Summary Statement– Is the review lethal, can the grant be

resuscitated?– Should I reapply or write a new grant - Pros and

Cons– Priority score – Unscored vs. Scored

• Score– 100-150 outstanding – 151-200 excellent– 201-250 very good– 251-300 good– unscored = bottom half

How likely is an unfunded score to be improved to a funded score?

Quantitative: scoreΔ

Qualitative: evaluation

Comprehending the review

• Evaluation and Discussion of reapplication chance

(call your NIH program official)

– encouragement to revise

– comments on the hypothesis

– request for more experiments

– critique on lack of expertise

– kiss of death critique

Comprehend the review

• You will have a better grant if:

– You write it over 2-3 months

– You fix everything you know is deficient

– You address all the critiques of the reviewers, one by one

– You ask other people to read the grant

– You cover all bases

– You examine every page of the final product

NIH grant preparation

Top 10 to avoid

4 - Needing magnifying glass to see the figure graph

7 - Abbreviations reviewer needs to go to Google to decipher

10 - Paragraph that extends a page and a half

3 - No quote of a seminal publication of your reviewer

6 - Using more “I” and “we” than any other word

5 - Reading this sentence causes reviewer apnea

8 – Listing all ingredients of a buffer

1 – It is so boring, reviewer wakes up at the end of Section D with retrograde amnesia

2 - Section D is 4 pages long

9 - Spell Checker is turned off