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Junior faculty guide to preparing a research grant
A wise person once said, “Research is a marathon and not a sprint.” Grant writing is the training for the marathon, and it requires discipline and fortitude to succeed. We are junior faculty members with mentored career development awards who are transitioning to independence. Below, we provide for our junior faculty colleagues some tips that have helped us train for our marathon in research.
Identify great mentors
We all understand that outstanding mentorship is critical to success. With that said, we often struggle to understand what a good mentor is. In regard to grant writing, you need someone who is willing to use red ink. While positive reinforcement may be good for your self-esteem, your mentor needs to be critical so that you can learn how to present the best possible product. In return, you must be an invested mentee who is respectful of the mentor’s time, is prepared for meetings, and responds appropriately to feedback.
Attend workshops
Your home institution and professional societies hold outstanding workshops that provide didactic lessons on both the logistics and mechanics of grant writing and allow you to network with like-minded peers, potential mentors, and staff from the funding organization. One excellent example is the American Gastroenterological Association/American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AGA/AASLD) Academic Skills workshop.
Decide on a grant mechanism
There are many different grants available through the government, industry, foundations, and your institution. Each grantor may have a variety of mechanisms from pilot awards to larger multiprovider and institution grants. Deciding which grants to apply for can be more of an art than it is a science. Research the opportunities available to you and develop a long-term plan with your mentors.
Start early and have a plan
An effective grant application is prepared in steps, and every step takes longer than anticipated. About 6 months prior to the deadline, read the instructions and consider using something like a Gantt chart to identify all required sections, special requirements (font, spacing, page limits), and anticipated time of completion. Then, structure a reasonable timeline – and stick to it! Remember to allow ample time for all sections, including the career development plan and research environment. Your institution will probably request the documents early, anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks prior to the deadline so that it can be circulated for institutional signatures. Steady progress wins most races.
Specific aims
There is no grant without a great idea, but not all great ideas are funded. So, the first step is to polish your idea, which must be clearly described on the Specific Aims page, which is a one-page summary that lays the framework for the rest of the grant. For the primary reviewers, it should entice them to read the proposal. For others on the review panel, it may be the only section of your grant that they read. Make sure it is clear and concise. If possible, construct a visually pleasing and easy-to-follow figure that encapsulates your proposal.
Circulate
Ideally, every section of the grant will be circulated but it is critical to have others review the Specific Aims at the very least. Ask not only your mentors and those in the field to critique but also those outside of your area and even your friends and unsuspecting family members; they may not know (or care) about the content but should be able to follow the flow and identify grammatical errors. Remember that everyone is busy, so give ample time for people to review the documents.
Read other proposals
Practice makes perfect. So you can either apply for many grants and make the mistakes yourself or read and review as many proposals as you can to learn from your colleagues’ successes and mistakes. Many institutions, mentors, and colleagues will provide copies of prior applications if you ask. Make sure you know which were successful and try to understand why the others were not successful.
When reading the aims and research strategy, pay close attention to how significance and innovation are detailed. Also, some things like the research environment, which is especially important for career development grants, may be directly applicable to your grant.
Help the reviewer
In general, reviewing grants is a voluntary undertaking. Imagine the reviewer reading your grant at a home filled with screaming children or, alternatively, flying in cramped quarters. Neither situation is stress-free, so put yourself in those positions and decide what you can do to make the reviewer’s job easier.
Use figures and tables to summarize the text, and consider coming back to the figure from your Specific Aims to refer to the specific parts of the proposal. You can decrease reviewer fatigue by using line breaks and fonts to break up sections and highlight important details. This will also be helpful to the reviewers on the panel who were not assigned to your grant and possibly first seeing it during the session.
Learn from rejection
You are either a savant or have not applied for enough grants if you have not received a rejection letter. Often, reviewers provide you with constructive comments, which (after a session of crying in the corner in a fetal position), you can use to improve your grant. Resubmission works!
Apply widely
Identify different possible grants, and work with your mentors on a strategy that allows you to make your idea versatile and package it for various funding mechanisms. Once you have a grant, you can tailor it to other grants as needed. However, remember that quantity does not replace quality, so many poor grants that are not funded will not replace one good one that is funded.
There are multiple approaches to training for the marathon of research, so these tips are not a comprehensive list or mandatory commandments. They have, however, proven invaluable to our mentors and us. Our institutions, societies and government agencies have identified the decline of young scientists and physician-scientists as a major leak in the research pipeline, so there are excellent funding mechanisms that are available to you. Good luck!
We would like to acknowledge Jennifer Weiss, MD, and Sumera Rizvi, MD, for their constructive comments.
Dr. Beyder is with the enteric neuroscience program, a consultant for the department of gastroenterology and hepatology, and an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and physiology at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, Rochester, Minn.; Dr. Twyman-Saint Victor is an assistant professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
A wise person once said, “Research is a marathon and not a sprint.” Grant writing is the training for the marathon, and it requires discipline and fortitude to succeed. We are junior faculty members with mentored career development awards who are transitioning to independence. Below, we provide for our junior faculty colleagues some tips that have helped us train for our marathon in research.
Identify great mentors
We all understand that outstanding mentorship is critical to success. With that said, we often struggle to understand what a good mentor is. In regard to grant writing, you need someone who is willing to use red ink. While positive reinforcement may be good for your self-esteem, your mentor needs to be critical so that you can learn how to present the best possible product. In return, you must be an invested mentee who is respectful of the mentor’s time, is prepared for meetings, and responds appropriately to feedback.
Attend workshops
Your home institution and professional societies hold outstanding workshops that provide didactic lessons on both the logistics and mechanics of grant writing and allow you to network with like-minded peers, potential mentors, and staff from the funding organization. One excellent example is the American Gastroenterological Association/American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AGA/AASLD) Academic Skills workshop.
Decide on a grant mechanism
There are many different grants available through the government, industry, foundations, and your institution. Each grantor may have a variety of mechanisms from pilot awards to larger multiprovider and institution grants. Deciding which grants to apply for can be more of an art than it is a science. Research the opportunities available to you and develop a long-term plan with your mentors.
Start early and have a plan
An effective grant application is prepared in steps, and every step takes longer than anticipated. About 6 months prior to the deadline, read the instructions and consider using something like a Gantt chart to identify all required sections, special requirements (font, spacing, page limits), and anticipated time of completion. Then, structure a reasonable timeline – and stick to it! Remember to allow ample time for all sections, including the career development plan and research environment. Your institution will probably request the documents early, anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks prior to the deadline so that it can be circulated for institutional signatures. Steady progress wins most races.
Specific aims
There is no grant without a great idea, but not all great ideas are funded. So, the first step is to polish your idea, which must be clearly described on the Specific Aims page, which is a one-page summary that lays the framework for the rest of the grant. For the primary reviewers, it should entice them to read the proposal. For others on the review panel, it may be the only section of your grant that they read. Make sure it is clear and concise. If possible, construct a visually pleasing and easy-to-follow figure that encapsulates your proposal.
Circulate
Ideally, every section of the grant will be circulated but it is critical to have others review the Specific Aims at the very least. Ask not only your mentors and those in the field to critique but also those outside of your area and even your friends and unsuspecting family members; they may not know (or care) about the content but should be able to follow the flow and identify grammatical errors. Remember that everyone is busy, so give ample time for people to review the documents.
Read other proposals
Practice makes perfect. So you can either apply for many grants and make the mistakes yourself or read and review as many proposals as you can to learn from your colleagues’ successes and mistakes. Many institutions, mentors, and colleagues will provide copies of prior applications if you ask. Make sure you know which were successful and try to understand why the others were not successful.
When reading the aims and research strategy, pay close attention to how significance and innovation are detailed. Also, some things like the research environment, which is especially important for career development grants, may be directly applicable to your grant.
Help the reviewer
In general, reviewing grants is a voluntary undertaking. Imagine the reviewer reading your grant at a home filled with screaming children or, alternatively, flying in cramped quarters. Neither situation is stress-free, so put yourself in those positions and decide what you can do to make the reviewer’s job easier.
Use figures and tables to summarize the text, and consider coming back to the figure from your Specific Aims to refer to the specific parts of the proposal. You can decrease reviewer fatigue by using line breaks and fonts to break up sections and highlight important details. This will also be helpful to the reviewers on the panel who were not assigned to your grant and possibly first seeing it during the session.
Learn from rejection
You are either a savant or have not applied for enough grants if you have not received a rejection letter. Often, reviewers provide you with constructive comments, which (after a session of crying in the corner in a fetal position), you can use to improve your grant. Resubmission works!
Apply widely
Identify different possible grants, and work with your mentors on a strategy that allows you to make your idea versatile and package it for various funding mechanisms. Once you have a grant, you can tailor it to other grants as needed. However, remember that quantity does not replace quality, so many poor grants that are not funded will not replace one good one that is funded.
There are multiple approaches to training for the marathon of research, so these tips are not a comprehensive list or mandatory commandments. They have, however, proven invaluable to our mentors and us. Our institutions, societies and government agencies have identified the decline of young scientists and physician-scientists as a major leak in the research pipeline, so there are excellent funding mechanisms that are available to you. Good luck!
We would like to acknowledge Jennifer Weiss, MD, and Sumera Rizvi, MD, for their constructive comments.
Dr. Beyder is with the enteric neuroscience program, a consultant for the department of gastroenterology and hepatology, and an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and physiology at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, Rochester, Minn.; Dr. Twyman-Saint Victor is an assistant professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
A wise person once said, “Research is a marathon and not a sprint.” Grant writing is the training for the marathon, and it requires discipline and fortitude to succeed. We are junior faculty members with mentored career development awards who are transitioning to independence. Below, we provide for our junior faculty colleagues some tips that have helped us train for our marathon in research.
Identify great mentors
We all understand that outstanding mentorship is critical to success. With that said, we often struggle to understand what a good mentor is. In regard to grant writing, you need someone who is willing to use red ink. While positive reinforcement may be good for your self-esteem, your mentor needs to be critical so that you can learn how to present the best possible product. In return, you must be an invested mentee who is respectful of the mentor’s time, is prepared for meetings, and responds appropriately to feedback.
Attend workshops
Your home institution and professional societies hold outstanding workshops that provide didactic lessons on both the logistics and mechanics of grant writing and allow you to network with like-minded peers, potential mentors, and staff from the funding organization. One excellent example is the American Gastroenterological Association/American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AGA/AASLD) Academic Skills workshop.
Decide on a grant mechanism
There are many different grants available through the government, industry, foundations, and your institution. Each grantor may have a variety of mechanisms from pilot awards to larger multiprovider and institution grants. Deciding which grants to apply for can be more of an art than it is a science. Research the opportunities available to you and develop a long-term plan with your mentors.
Start early and have a plan
An effective grant application is prepared in steps, and every step takes longer than anticipated. About 6 months prior to the deadline, read the instructions and consider using something like a Gantt chart to identify all required sections, special requirements (font, spacing, page limits), and anticipated time of completion. Then, structure a reasonable timeline – and stick to it! Remember to allow ample time for all sections, including the career development plan and research environment. Your institution will probably request the documents early, anywhere from 1 to 2 weeks prior to the deadline so that it can be circulated for institutional signatures. Steady progress wins most races.
Specific aims
There is no grant without a great idea, but not all great ideas are funded. So, the first step is to polish your idea, which must be clearly described on the Specific Aims page, which is a one-page summary that lays the framework for the rest of the grant. For the primary reviewers, it should entice them to read the proposal. For others on the review panel, it may be the only section of your grant that they read. Make sure it is clear and concise. If possible, construct a visually pleasing and easy-to-follow figure that encapsulates your proposal.
Circulate
Ideally, every section of the grant will be circulated but it is critical to have others review the Specific Aims at the very least. Ask not only your mentors and those in the field to critique but also those outside of your area and even your friends and unsuspecting family members; they may not know (or care) about the content but should be able to follow the flow and identify grammatical errors. Remember that everyone is busy, so give ample time for people to review the documents.
Read other proposals
Practice makes perfect. So you can either apply for many grants and make the mistakes yourself or read and review as many proposals as you can to learn from your colleagues’ successes and mistakes. Many institutions, mentors, and colleagues will provide copies of prior applications if you ask. Make sure you know which were successful and try to understand why the others were not successful.
When reading the aims and research strategy, pay close attention to how significance and innovation are detailed. Also, some things like the research environment, which is especially important for career development grants, may be directly applicable to your grant.
Help the reviewer
In general, reviewing grants is a voluntary undertaking. Imagine the reviewer reading your grant at a home filled with screaming children or, alternatively, flying in cramped quarters. Neither situation is stress-free, so put yourself in those positions and decide what you can do to make the reviewer’s job easier.
Use figures and tables to summarize the text, and consider coming back to the figure from your Specific Aims to refer to the specific parts of the proposal. You can decrease reviewer fatigue by using line breaks and fonts to break up sections and highlight important details. This will also be helpful to the reviewers on the panel who were not assigned to your grant and possibly first seeing it during the session.
Learn from rejection
You are either a savant or have not applied for enough grants if you have not received a rejection letter. Often, reviewers provide you with constructive comments, which (after a session of crying in the corner in a fetal position), you can use to improve your grant. Resubmission works!
Apply widely
Identify different possible grants, and work with your mentors on a strategy that allows you to make your idea versatile and package it for various funding mechanisms. Once you have a grant, you can tailor it to other grants as needed. However, remember that quantity does not replace quality, so many poor grants that are not funded will not replace one good one that is funded.
There are multiple approaches to training for the marathon of research, so these tips are not a comprehensive list or mandatory commandments. They have, however, proven invaluable to our mentors and us. Our institutions, societies and government agencies have identified the decline of young scientists and physician-scientists as a major leak in the research pipeline, so there are excellent funding mechanisms that are available to you. Good luck!
We would like to acknowledge Jennifer Weiss, MD, and Sumera Rizvi, MD, for their constructive comments.
Dr. Beyder is with the enteric neuroscience program, a consultant for the department of gastroenterology and hepatology, and an assistant professor of biomedical engineering and physiology at the Mayo Clinic School of Medicine, Rochester, Minn.; Dr. Twyman-Saint Victor is an assistant professor of medicine in the division of gastroenterology at the University of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.
