- Harness the Immense Power of Nosiness in NIH RePORTER
As a manager for our career development programs, many questions I get from trainees and faculty can actually be answered by using NIH RePORTER. You can find out all kinds of nosy things like:
Who else on campus has the kind of grant I’m writing (so I can ask if they’d shar...
- Planning to Plan: Gathering Materials for Your Grant Pacing Plan
You’ve decided that maybe a plan for doing your grant submission is a good idea. Check! But how to start?
Here are four concepts (borrowed from the project management profession) to help you get started: 1) assessing feasibility, 2) timelines, 3) milestones, and 4) work breakd...
- #*@*! Plan Is Not a Four-Letter Word.
Writing a grant proposal? Do you have a plan for how you will get it written, reviewed, and submitted on time?
A PLAN? Yes, a plan.
What can a plan do for you? A plan will:
Eliminate your running around with your hair on fire trying to meet the submission deadline.
...
- Acing Your Observational Research Aims
All research proposals – grants, dissertations, internal funding – must ace the description of aims. Many scientific questions are interesting. Not all are useful. You must persuade your readers that the proposed aims/hypotheses to be tested and the related analysis will f...
- Staying on My Good Side
Since the holy trinity important things have come in threes—listen up. You can lose the good will of study section.
1.) Get the details right; misstating the methods or findings of a reference destroys your credibility.
Know every paper you cite. Others who know the science...
- Don’t Crash on Approach
Getting the approach - the methods section of your grant -  fine-tuned is literally the heart of it all. You must land your science smoothly. Study section members know, and recent evidence confirms, your grant’s score is not an equal weighting of component scores. NIH criterion ...
- A Lesson Learned the Hard Way
Periodically I’d like to share a few nuggets of wisdom I’ve learned in my efforts to help guide faculty through the travails of a career in biomedical research. Since I spend a lot of time in winter and spring reviewing grants, that’s where I am going to start. I’m often asked wh...
- Three (Grant) Peeves in a Pod: Check Yourself
Reviewers review. We will notice. These fresh mistakes straight from study section:
1.) Please agree with yourself.
If the abstract says n = 110, the aims say 100, the statistical section says 110, and the budget justification says 100, it makes me cranky.
2.) Please explain...
- Finally! Data on What Study Section Really Cares About
In 2009, NIH revamped their scoring system asking reviewers to provide numbers ranging from 1 (best) to 9 (worst) assessing applications Environment, Investigator, Innovation, Approach, and Significance.
NIH has emphasized Innovation (insert jazz hands), leaving many a weary gra...
- Three (Grant) Peeves in a Pod: Formatting
Ever since the holy trinity important things have come in threes—listen up. Every study section I have been in for years includes the complaint that certain grant authors:
1.) Cheat the font sizes in their tables and figures.
Don’t make me adjust my bifocals. It makes me cran...
