Get Your PMCIDs PDQ

Doing Research

Your paper will be assimilated into the PubMed Central database.

Biosketches, progress reports, and other materials that go to NIH need these digits. Here’s what you need to do.

Does My Paper Need a PMCID?

Your paper falls under the public access policy and requires a PMCID if all of the following are true:

  • The work reported in the paper was supported by federal funds, including NIH, DOD, CDC, VA, and AHRQ. (This includes if you did the work while on a fellowship, training, or career development grant. These grants fund you, not specific projects, so any research you do should cite your grant.)
  • The manuscript was peer reviewed. Case studies, reviews, editorials, and similar items do not require PMCIDs.
  • It was accepted for publication on or after April 7, 2008.
  • It was published in English.

NIH takes this so seriously that your annual progress report will be rejected if you try to include papers that should have a PMCID but don’t. You also can’t include non-compliant papers on biosketches for grant applications.

Possible statuses for a publication in My Bibliography.

How Do I Associate Funding with My Manuscript?

  1. Visit NCBI’s My Bibliography. If not already listed, add the citation to your bibliography on the site. You can do this by searching for the PMID or other citation information, uploading a file, or adding the citation manually.
  2. Once the citation is in your bibliography, you should see a green, blue, or red box to the side of it. (We’ll get to the colors later.) To add grant support, click either “Add Award” or “[Number] Awards.”
  3. A popup will appear allowing you to choose which of your linked awards belong with this manuscript.

How Do I Get a PMCID?

Once your bibliography is complete, you may notice that some citations have a red box next to them. This means you need to either get a PMCID for the paper or tell NCBI that it doesn’t need one.

If the citation is a review, case study, or other non-peer reviewed work, click “Edit Status” and answer that NIH did not support the work in whole or in part.

For papers in need of a PMCID, there are four potential methods to get one.

  • Method A: Journal deposits the article in PubMed Central without author involvement. Hooray! You’re off the hook. List of journals that use Method A.
  • Method B: Author asks publisher to deposit the specific article in PubMed Central. This typically means you have paid an open access fee. List of journals and publishers that use Method B.
  • Method C: Author deposits final peer-reviewed manuscript in PubMed Central via the NIHMS. The work is all on you. Any journal or publisher not listed in the other methods uses Method C.
  • Method D: Author completes submission of final peer-reviewed manuscript the publisher deposits in the NIHMS. List of publishers that use Method D.

If you need to submit the manuscript, you, a co-author, or anyone else on your behalf, such as a research or admin assistant, can do this. Whoever submits will need the final peer-reviewed manuscript (you may need to ask the journal for this), the figure/image files (if separate), which grants funded the work, and the embargo period (default is 12 months). Designate yourself as the reviewer unless your co-authors or PI specify otherwise.

NIH’s excellent guides (with screen caps) to submitting and approving a manuscript in NIHMS

Visit NIHMS

Cite Your Shiny New PMCIDs

When citing your papers, always include the PMCID. If you’ve taken the appropriate actions for your paper based on the methods above but still don’t have a PMCID, do this instead:

  • Add “PMC Journal – In Process” to the end of the citation. This is correct if your journal or publisher uses Method A, B, or D and has not yet finished the process.
  • Cite the NIHMSID instead of the PMCID. Find this in NIHMS by visiting your home page and selecting the appropriate category from the sidebar, then viewing the specific paper’s Manuscript Information page. This should only be done for three months after publication; after that, you need to have a PMCID.

Think of It as the Next Big Adventure

Doing Research

No, not death or marriage or parenthood. Or joining the military, converting to a new religion, moving country or finally accepting that His Dark Materials is a better fantasy epic than Harry Potter. These are all momentous life, events but what I want to talk to you about now is something no less epic in its own way.

I’m talking about cleaning the bench, signing off on the lab book and gifting your pipettes to the next generation. I’m talking about leaving academia.

(I’m a biologist, so anyone in a different academic field can substitute their own way of wrapping up a career).

Five years ago (or so) I joined @NatureComms from my postdoc to begin my new life as an editor. There are two equally true stories I tell to explain my decision to leave academia. In one, I had realized I didn’t want to run my own group and looked at careers outside of academia that would keep me as close as possible to the science I was interested in. In the other, my contract ran out and I had to make a choice about doing another postdoc or making a leap into something different. Both are true – the former is the one I often tell PhD students so they think about what motivates them; the latter is shared with postdocs who have been through the system. Academic war stories, if you will. Take home message is I knew where I wanted to land, but there was a pretty big nudge to make me leap.

So I became an editor. Odd word, “editor,” as I don’t actually do much editing. I evaluate, contextualise, mediate, synthesize, arbitrate, and decide, but rarely ever edit the actual writing of a manuscript. I still move in a world of science and I still call myself a scientist even if I no longer actively research.

I’ve tried to stick to a few guiding principles in this role that keeps you both as part of a scientific community and removed from it at the same time. Foremost among them is that everything depends on the science. I play no favourites and while there are, of course, authors who I’m friends with it is on the understanding that I’ll reject their work just like anyone else’s. (I have. We had a chat about the science, what options were available, and then got a beer.)

And I acknowledge I’m human and am will take the time to discuss my decisions. I can be wrong, I’ve changed my mind following conversations with authors. Just come to debate, not tell me I’m wrong. I’d like to think after a PhD, two postdocs, five years of being an editor, dozens of conferences and reading a truly staggeringly large number of papers I am able to make reasonably coherent decisions.

Like any role, it requires its own skill set, and that’s one that I’ve been able to grow and develop. I’ve learnt I’m pretty good at taking often divergent opinions and critiques (including my own!) and synthesizing an analysis from them. I’ve been able to do it handling areas that engage me intellectually every day – synthetic biology, genome engineering and DNA computing – and in doing so, I’ve had amazing opportunities I probably wouldn’t have had as a postdoc, from giving talks to being interviewed for a book. I’m still chuffed people ask me for my opinion on stuff.

Was leaving academia scary? Oh my, yes. After all, working in a lab was something I had wanted to do since 1993 when I saw Jurassic Park for the first time. Understanding that it perhaps wasn’t for me long-term was scary. A lot of my identity had been interwoven with the idea that I was a scientist and now I had to seriously think about what not being a researcher meant.

Like I said, it was a pretty big adventure starting a new career. A pretty great adventure so far.

You know the Sunday evening dread when thoughts turn to work on Monday? I don’t get that. Oh, I’m busy and the job can be stressful and is often exhausting but I can’t deny I genuinely enjoy it. I look forward to the next exciting paper. And the one after that. And the one after that.

How to Host a Multidisciplinary, Near-Peer Work-in-Progress Group

Doing Research

Work-in-progress groups (WIPs) convene members on a regular schedule for supportive critique of scholarly materials, including presentations, posters, manuscripts, cover letters, grant applications, and responses to reviews.  WIPs are accepted as a career development best practice for enhancing productivity and professional polish.

Though groups are often organized around lab teams or with similar level trainees, I’m an advocate for WIPs that aim to build the “multidisciplinary tribe” by creating a community of scholars across disciplines, who are using varied research approaches, and who are at different career stages.

For three years we have hosted WIPs as a proactive means to connect pre-docs, post-docs, and early career faculty.  Our rationale is that facilitating familiarity in intentionally-formed, near-peer groupings will:

  • Inculcate low-threat approaches for giving and receiving review and critique,
  • Foster greater scientific fluency,
  • Allow members to find new intellectual common ground,
  • Encourage participants’ embracing larger scientific territories in their research,
  • Promote peer mentoring as a norm,
  • Enlarge the professional networks of all participants,
  • Create a group of individuals invested in each others’ success, and
  • Lay the foundations for genuine community among researchers.

These results are being achieved. Interest in forming new WIP sessions is out-stripping our ability to make groups available.

How to Cook Up Your Own WIP

To get started you’ll need:

One or more experienced researchers who are effective mentors in group settings.* Ideally this would include scientists who span the types of research of the intended group as well a statistician or study design methodologist.  Four mentor-level faculty on the WIP roster allows for travel and competing commitments so that you can typically achieve two or three in attendance.

Group of scholars to invite who are actively working on academic materials and can dedicate time to the group. We have hand selected members for light adjacency but not overlap of research areas (e.g. basic neuroscience, imaging, movement disorders, Alzheimer’s, age discrimination, and de-prescribing) and have also formed inclusive groups based solely on personalities we assessed would fit well together.  Either approach can work well, and behind-the-scenes shaping of the group to be invited is helpful.

Ideal members are typically graduate students far enough into dissertation work that they are writing papers and preparing for talks, post-docs, and early career faculty, dedicated to research careers who do not have a heavy clinical or teaching load. Ideal group size is achieved by overshooting on invites and membership.  If you want eight scholars and two mentor-level faculty present at most meetings, inviting 18 to 24 people to a predetermined time and place will get about 12 to 14 members joining the group on an ongoing basis.  With travel, parental leaves, and other competing demands, this will result in 8-10 in attendance at most sessions.  Sample invitation.

Recurring time and place to meet. We suggest weekly or biweekly for 1.5 hours to assure members have opportunities for almost all of their materials to have group review. Plan to take a summer hiatus and a shorter winter break.

Format. Once the group has a routine, they typically use the first 5-10 minutes for updates, to celebrate wins, and to share accountability items like SMART Goals. Then five to 25 minutes for review of the key portions of written materials or to present a practice talk. The balance of the time is used for discussion and suggestions. Repeat as needed to accommodate multiple presenters. To structure discussion time, we’ve used a Zoom In Review method in which feedback is structured from highest conceptual critique to fine detail as time and scholar readiness allows.

Shared calendar for members to book into to reserve slots for reviews and to commit to having materials ready. This promotes accountability to the group and to their professional timelines, as well as helping prevent procrastination. You’ll want some general conventions for which items can fit together in a single session and which can schedule for the full session. For instance, one abstract and a cover letter can both be reviewed in a single meeting. New grant aims or the results section and tables for a manuscript would each reserve a whole session.

Projection system and white board or flip chart to facilitate review of a range of items. The usefulness of the projector extends past rehearsal of talks into live group editing of documents projected on the screen.  A place to write or draw is used by visual thinkers to show what they mean with regard to outline of a section or improvement of a figure, while at other times it serves as a site to make a “parking lot” of issues to be discussed about the work in subsequent sessions or for addressing with mentors when time is running short.

Provide paper copies of items to the group at the meeting for written mark-up and notes. This is essential since materials are reviewed in real time (requiring prework for WIPs consistently fails and adds to burden of participating). Even with effective moderation not all comments will be able to be made in the time allotted. Some edits, such as typos, can easily be passed along on paper and the author/presenter will have more ability to concentrate on feedback if not focused on note taking. For posters, print out in large format like 11×14, for slides print the 3-slides per page version with space for notes.  For review of manuscripts, to constrain the time the group will often need to focus on a single section, but it is helpful to print the whole draft for context.  For response to reviewers, print the reviewers’ comments or grant summary statements and provide any key supporting documents such as the aims page or concerning parts of a manuscript (or be prepared to project the manuscript).

Icing on the Cake

A Coordinator is ideal. If available, they will spend up to two hours a week to send reminders, circulate materials, bring printed items to the meeting location, have projection set up, and coordinate refreshments if possible. In DIY groups without a coordinator, participants are responsible for bringing printed materials and setting up projection.

Funds to pay for snacks, beverages or meals with rotating responsibility for set-up or help of a coordinator. Some of our group leaders and groups have created this perk by contributing to a discretionary fund through the development office so that donated funds can be directed to having lunches together during the WIP.

Getting Started and Building Group Culture

A printer-ready sample of our WIP Table Tent can be printed as tent cards and placed on tables in the room and the information can also be circulated in email as members agree to join the group.

In the first session the rationale for multidisciplinary, near-peer groups should be introduced by the faculty mentors or scholars who formed the group. Emphasis on the WIP being for review and critique of materials but also for encouragement, for accountability, and for seeking ideas and assistance is key.

In the first meeting, and often the initial few, introductions will be needed. To help people connect, we often ask participants to share:

  • How long they have been at the institution
  • Where their office or lab is located
  • Who their mentors are
  • What the most pressing project is that they are currently working on

We also ask one or two ice-breaker question to accelerate connections between members. Items that work include:  What was the most fun you had last month?  What’s your favorite pastime that’s not related to work?  What’s the dullest trip you’ve ever taken? (Avoid asking about most interesting or exotic trips or adventures because this can stratify the room based on personality, financial means, or family structure.)

Connections form quickly around details the answers reveal like having children, looking for a new home, hobbies, or partners with details in common that are embedded in answers. Groups will start to share resources and life tips if you reintroduce such questions at the start of subsequent sessions and allow discussion to continue for a short time when members bring a trouble-shooting need into the conversation at the start of meetings.

Faculty mentors or other group leaders* should moderate use of time and infuse comments about the value of the group and thank participants for what they bring to the table. Discussion leaders must ensure commitment to gentle but direct comments. They will need to summarize, encourage brevity, or remind members to write down key items to give to the presenter in order to gather input from all in the room. Group leaders need to be prepared to restate or reframe commentary that could be or is being poorly delivered or received. At times this will extend to discussions with the group member outside the WIP to help them absorb and interpret the observations and advice.

To accommodate different levels of comfort and familiarity with critiquing the work of others, we’ve promoted use of the Zoom In Review in which comments are structured from highest conceptual critique to fine detail as time and readiness allows. See sample instruction cards to project before groups start or to laminate and put on the table each session.

If a group meeting finishes review early, employ the remaining time talking about logistics of academic life such as:

  • Common formatting problems in CVs
  • How to write contributions to science for biosketch when you are new in science
  • Tips on networking at national conferences
  • Ideas for reducing costs on conference travel
  • How to access campus resources of high relevance

Sharing solutions across levels of participants enhances trust among members and prevents situations like fatigue or an uncomfortable amount of critique to be channeled leading to the group ending and leaving early. Goal is to reinforce using the time well and not unwittingly incentivizing cutting meetings short.

Testimonials are what keep us multiplying groups.

“Multidisciplinary WIP participation improved my ability to distill my science into clear, compelling language that peers outside my field could understand. I expected to sharpen my aims pages and other grant components when it was my turn to be critiqued, and I did. What I did not anticipate was how much my science would improve from watching my peers in the ‘hot seat.”  – RB, PhD, laboratory-based faculty

“The group have been so much more than reviewing my work in progress. You have invested in my career wholeheartedly and I am grateful for holistic feedback and attention to my career success”. – LR, MD, clinical translational faculty

“I have been exposed to grant writing styles and presentation formats that differ from what I’m used to within my department. This pushes me to think critically about the purpose and audience for each piece of my work and choose the most appropriate style or format rather than using the same template.” – GK, PhD, imaging post-doc fellow

If you’re not WIPing, it’s time to get started!

*Committed groups of early career scholars are capable of forming independent groups, but it can be more difficult. The likelihood of success is related to experience in prior effective groups. If you are an early career scholar and want to be part of a WIP group but haven’t been in one, asking a mentor to assist in forming and moderating until routines are well-established can be helpful. Self-governance with simple written and agreed principles about how the group will run can provide a firm foundation. Be sure to include how new members are invited and what the plan is when the group gets too large for effective participation of all members.

“Zoom In” to Keep Group Review and Critique on Track

Doing Research / Productivity

Work-in-Progress sessions (WIPs) are at risk of getting bogged down at the wrong level of feedback, most often focusing on specific edits or details that may not be the top priority, with the focus often driven by those who speak up first.

Several steps can help deploy the group’s time well and find the right level of discussion:

  • Appoint a moderator to monitor the time and ensure all who have input are heard.
  • Ask the individual whose materials are being reviewed to give a brief (2-3 minutes max) overview of who the audience is for the work and where they feel they most need input.
  • Then use a zoom-in format for finding the right level for review and critique.

Most WIPs will not reach all levels of zooming in. This approach works because it ensures larger concerns are discussed first. Word and sentence edits are not crucial if the whole product is poorly organized or unclear.

To guide discussion at each level, use framing questions and topics like these:

30,000 feet

  • Is content appropriate for the audience?
  • Can the audience/reader summarize the gist accurately?
  • Are materials engaging (i.e., clarity, title, rationale, implications of findings)?
  • Are materials properly formatted?
  • Is speaking volume, intonation, and pace optimal?
  • Is use of space in poster or written material well-allocated?

10,000 feet 

  • Is the information well-organized?
  • Does it unfold in a logical fashion?
  • Was time/space allocation well-distributed?
  • Are methods clear and results flow from methods?
  • Does discussion overreach the results?
  • Are challenges and considerations addressed?

Forest 

  • Are materials attractive and within conventional expectations for style and clarity?
  • Is logic tight connecting rationale, objective, methods and results?
  • Is word choice crisp and consistent?

Trees

Is word choice consistent?

For presentations:

  • Quick slide-by-slide feedback

For written materials:

  • Section-by-section or
  • Paragraph-by-paragraph feedback
  • Include tables and figures

For posters:

Section-by-section feedback

Leaves

  • Font size, readability
  • Table and figure legends
  • Typos

Chlorophyll

  • Choice of stronger words
  • Use of symbols
  • Micro-edits
  • References

Additional Tips

  • Prohibit use of laptops and ask the group to silence devices.
  • Print materials for review in order to allow participants to provide edits and comments that may not fit in the discussion time.
  • Encourage return for additional rounds after revisions.

Save time for participants who have had review and critique in prior sessions to report on progress and to celebrate successes like publications and successful presentations.

Related Posts:

How to start a near-peer work-in-progress group
Avoiding Barriers Between Your Work and Your Reviewer
One-Minute Writing Roundup

Shark Tank for Scientists: NIH’s SBIR/STTR Grants

Doing Research / Grants & Funding

Have you ever searched for something in NIH RePORTER and seen some unusual grantee organizations in the results, maybe ones with “Inc.” or “LLC” in the name rather than “University” or “Medical Center”? If so, you’ve come across grants made to small businesses through the SBIR/STTR programs.

Go from idea to production with SBIR/STTR funding.

The federal government’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) programs grant over $1 billion per year to businesses in the private sector commercializing biomedical technologies, drugs, and devices. Five agencies participate: HHS (NIH), DOD, DOE, NSF, and NASA. Relevant to academic researchers is that the SBIR program encourages, and the STTR program requires, that these small businesses collaborate with a non-profit research institution. These mechanisms tend not to be first in most PIs’ minds, and as a result, at some institutes the paylines are fairly high. For example, in FY2017, the success rate for STTRs at NIMH was 48%. (Use NIH’s Data Book to view success rates for your institute.) Amount of funds per grant varies according to the science, but can be up to $1,710,531 over two years.

I sat down with Robert Freundlich, MD, who recently sat on two study sections for these grants. He told me what these grants are all about and why you might want to collaborate with a small business to apply for one.

What Kind of Science Do They Fund?

SBIR/STTR grants differ from traditional NIH research grants by having commercial potential. Rather than the publications and further grant applications that define success for R01s, the end goal for these grants is to bring a product to market. “Product” is broadly defined and can include devices like artificial joints or implantable monitors, clinical equipment like improved blood testing or imaging units, and drugs. The company that receives the grant can also market and sell the product, or the PIs can sell it to another commercial entity that will bring it to market.

NIH defines two phases for these grants. Phase I is more exploratory, including high-risk-high-reward aims. If you have an idea for a new device, but don’t know if it will work and need some funding to test it, you have a Phase I idea. Phase II projects have solid scientific foundations (i.e., the device definitely works) and now need to continue validation, scale up production, and/or request regulatory approval from the FDA or other agency. Phase II grants are only made to projects that have received a Phase I grant.

As with more familiar grants like R01s, NIH has topics they really want to spend SBIR/STTR money on. Right now, hot topics include opioid addiction and personalized medicine, among others. (NIH’s current medical research initiatives.) If your work fits into one of these initiatives or special focus areas, it may better your chance of getting funded.

Format

SBIR/STTR grants are structured and reviewed largely like R01s, with an overall impact score and scores for significance, investigator(s), innovation, approach, and environment. The business plan should be integrated with the research plan. For a Phase I application, this might mean a “future directions” or “planned Phase II” section explaining that upon completion of Phase I, you will move from prototype to production, request regulatory approval, or start selling the device. Phase II applications often include sections detailing methods of production, marketing plans, expected revenue stream, or other commercialization plans.

These grants allow for and encourage a much more diverse roster of collaborators than is typical for R01s. For SBIRs, the PI must be employed by a small business; for STTRs, the PI can be employed by a small business or the collaborating academic institution. (Other requirements for splitting the work between the collaborating entities.) For both types, applications are strengthened by including private sector investigators who understand how to commercialize a product. Also important is to clearly explain who is doing what with the project and how that person’s specific background has given him or her the ability to do their part. For example, if you’re an Assistant Professor with no experience in industry, describe how your co-investigator, the COO from your collaborating small business, who has brought several products to market, is going to guide the commercialization aspects of the grant.

Study Section

No standing study sections exist for these grants; all are ad hoc special emphasis panels. Reviewers range from researchers at academic institutions, to small biotech business CEOs, to federal regulators. Panel members work in a variety of areas from basic to translational or clinical to computer science, unlike study sections you may have encountered where all the members are, say, pulmonologists doing basic science in wet labs. One panel Dr. Freundlich sat on had only two physicians in the whole group.

When writing an application, keep in mind that while reviewers have some scientific background, it’s unlikely to be in your exact area, and they were invited to join the panel because of their expertise in bringing products to market or in federal regulations. Your science must be crystal clear and easy to follow for these people. By that same token, review panels include plenty of folks who will know if there’s a market for a device or drug like yours, and have experience bringing products to market, so your business plan should be solid too.

One way to learn a lot about these grants in a very short amount of time is to join a review panel through the Early Career Reviewer Program. If chosen to join a SBIR/STTR study section, you’ll see plenty of these grants and learn a lot about how they work and how they’re reviewed. It’s also a great opportunity to network with smart people outside of academia.

FURTHER READING

NIH’s SBIR/STTR Portal

Review Criteria

Sample Applications from NIAID

SBIR/STTR Study Section List

Why SBIRs are Different from Academic Grants

Not that Kind of Bias: Tales of Survivorship Bias

Doing Research

I am in my fourth year as a faculty member and experiencing the typical “how do I get these grants funded” struggles that many, if not all, of us face. Over the past year, I have been given a truly staggering amount of conflicting advice from mentors. This has led me to thinking about survivorship bias in the advice we receive from well-meaning mentors, Twitter, blogs (ahem), and books. The irony is not lost on me: after writing advice/experience blogs on and off for almost three years, I am finally writing one on survivorship bias. This time, n= all of us.

Survivorship bias: Survivorship bias is bias that occurs when only survivors are examined. A classic example of this you will see come across Science Twitter is a graphic of an airplane with red dots, which is a reference to airplanes returning from combat during World War II with bullet holes on the wings. History goes, that in an attempt to minimize airplane loss, military intelligence suggested that they reinforce the areas that were targeted. However, Abraham Wald pointed out that it was the bombers that did not return that represented lethal strikes to the airplanes, and airplanes that had returned likely represented non-lethal strikes. Thus, it was more appropriate to reinforce the areas that never returned with bullet holes, like the pilot’s cabin and the engines. In medical research, this amounts to performing a clinical trial and only analyzing the patients who survived the intervention.

Consequences in an academic research career: There are two major points to consider relevant to survivorship bias in an academic research career. The first is perhaps the most important: we obsess over figuring out “what worked” for successful applicants (survivors). For example, to characterize what makes a successful faculty application, we examine postdocs who successfully transitioned into faculty appointments and characterize what their CVs looked like. Every single postdoc association is likely to have the local new PI come in and talk about how to get a tenure-track academic job. Is there value in these types of seminars? Of course, but we all should be disclosing that this is what worked for us, it may not work for others, and others have found success other ways. The other side of survivorship bias in academic research careers is we become surprisingly superstitious and convinced of the importance of certain things, like the number of aims in a grant or the font in which they are written or how the text was justified (or not). Again, each of us is strongly influenced by what has worked or not, no matter how tenuous the correlation.

Everyone in this career path has survivorship bias: Everyone in this career path, from graduate students through tenured faculty, is biased. Many of us will say, “I did X and it resulted in Y,” or “I do not do X because it did Y.” Advice on grant writing is particularly rife with these types of comments, which is unsurprising considering the paylines at some institutes. I have been told to submit something every grant cycle (or only when the grant is ready or more than one grant per cycle). I have been told to only focus on big grants (or only pilot grants or a mix of grants or only non-NIH grants). I have been told to get more papers out before submitting (or only include unpublished preliminary data or submit as soon as possible so paper expectations are low). Whose advice is the right advice?

How to synthesize less-biased advice: My best advice (ha) to even out the biased advice we get is to solicit input from many individuals on broad topics (like how to run a lab, how to organize time, etc.) and get advice from qualified individuals on specific topics (like how to make this grant on Y competitive at study section X). On broad topics, collecting advice is a good approach. For example, there are many ways to run a research program, and some may not be appealing to you. If you do not sample broadly, you might not discover what works for PIs with your management style. Conversely, some advice should come from specific individuals. Advice on grant content from a standing member of a study section from your institution is priceless. Advice on grant content from your fellow new PI with a grant from said study section a little less so, although it is useful to see the expectations for early stage investigators (ESI). Advice from a legend in the field who writes always-funded renewals, who could turn in a piece of paper with “I need $1.25 million for five years” in the spirit of Otto Warburg and still be funded, should probably be used for high-level conceptual advice.

There is one shining piece of good news when it comes to survivorship bias: most of the mistakes your mentors tell you they have made are likely to be survivable. So go forth, take a chance, and make some mistakes. But when you succeed and tell tales of your success, admit that you advice is entirely biased. Stay tuned for more tales!

 

Did I get it wrong? Need to vent? Feel free to send some electrons my way in the comments, via Twitter @PipetteProtag, or through traditional electronic mail pipette.protagonist@gmail.com

Not that Kind of Letter: Tales of Rejection

Doing Research / Grants & Funding

I have been thinking about rejections in science. Rejections come in all shapes and sizes, from the grant you need to build your program, to an awesome rotation student picking another lab, to a manuscript rejection at yet another journal. While I definitely had my share of rejection emails as a graduate student and postdoc, there has been an exponential rise since starting my faculty appointment. So how is a new principal investigator (PI) to deal? As always these days, n=me.

The first rejection of any type hurts the most: There is no magic pill to lessen the blow of the first rejection. Going into my faculty position with my successful K99/R00, I thought securing my first R01 would be challenging, but not impossible. Needless to say, when my first R01 submission swung the other way and scored terribly, it was a brutal awakening. I have put in numerous grants now and while annoyed and concerned about my lack of R01 funding, my recovery time with each unfunded grant has decreased substantially. 

Rejections in science can feel personal: One of the more challenging aspects of rejections in science is that they can feel deeply personal. For example, in grants, not only are your ideas carefully (or perhaps brutally) dissected, but your entire training, publication, and funding history are examined and commented upon. While I do not believe most reviewers aim to be cruel, sometimes objective statements carelessly phrased cut deeply. Similarly, when a talented postdoc or rotation student picks a more established laboratory, it can feel like a judgement on your mentoring philosophy, potential, and research vision.

It is OK to be sad: Mourning the loss of possibilities arising from an unfunded grant, unsecured postdoc, or rejected manuscript is normal. I often mope for a day (or two) and then usually throw myself into something that reaffirms my skills in the area of rejection. For example, on grant rejections, I throw myself back into lab work and moving papers along or look at the holes in the data, which the reviewers pointed out.

Talk about it: Venting is good for the soul. Yes, the reviewer completely missed the mark and how dare they not see the brilliance of my research proposal? How could the rotation student pick that other lab and not see the vision of their thesis that you had outlined? Sometimes it is easier to see the validity of a criticism when you discuss it. Moreover, by talking about rejections we normalize them. Fifty percent of grants in a study section are not discussed! The majority of grants that are discussed are not funded! Rejection is the norm in this job. By talking about it, we accept that it is frequent, normal, and inevitable.

Make a plan and move forward: After you have gone through the five stages of grief, make a plan. How are you going to address reviewer comments on your triaged grant? Prepare to spend some time with those horrible pink sheets and figure out what really did not work. Not sure what went wrong? Ask for help from your peers, mentors, community members. Sometimes realizing that you are not competitive for a grant or your lab is not the right fit for graduate students is an important part of moving forward.

Find a community that celebrates wins: There are many more losses than wins in this job. It is simply the nature of our chosen profession, and one way to lessen the blows of these seemingly endless rejections is to find a community that celebrates each other’s victories, great and small. Be this Twitter, New PI Slack, your department, or a group of assistant professors, find your people. Knowing you did not get the grant, but one of your friends did makes the rejection sting less.

These are my approaches to dealing with rejection, and I am sure there are many more. Whatever your approach, do not let the fear of rejection keep you from applying for grants, awards, and recruiting talented trainees! The worst they can say is “no”. Stay tuned for more tales!

 

Still have questions? More confused than when you started? Need to vent about the process? Feel free to send some electrons my way in the comments, via Twitter @PipetteProtag, or through traditional electronic mail pipette.protagonist@gmail.com

More Resources

More Friendly Advice: When Rejection Isn’t Really Rejection

Fighting Rejection: Three Little Reviewers

Dealing with Rejection

 

 

Thoughts from a Self-Proclaimed Interdisciplinarian

Doing Research

I am scientist trained in sociology, social work and public health (behavioral sciences, to be exact), who did a postdoc in a Pharmacy department and is now a tenure-track Assistant Professor in a College of Nursing. There are pros, cons and lessons learned from my interdisciplinary and inter-professional journey worth sharing as you consider your next job or career move. 

Pros

My training gives me an incredibly unique and holistic perspective that I bring to my research. My field of research is complex and multifactorial. Because I live between disciplines, I can borrow from a variety of disciplinary frameworks and approaches to address issues and collaborate with others.

I have developed broad professional networks across institutions, departments and disciplines. These scientific and professional networks have introduced me to numerous colleagues across the country who work in my field, and helped me secure professional development opportunities, such as conference travel awards (American Association for Cancer Research Travel Grants) and sponsored research training opportunities. These networks also allow me to be a resource to the students I mentor and to other faculty looking for various career and professional development resources.

My background also opens up new possibilities for funding and publishing. As a postdoc, I applied for and secured a fellowship that commonly targets pharmacy faculty. I am also able to frame my research findings for audiences across a broad variety of discipline specific journals.  

Cons

Sometimes I feel like I don’t have a home. Many academic and research funding institutions are siloed by disciplines, diseases, or health professions. I have not pledged my devotion to a single discipline (although I do get very excited when I meet other social workers!).

In line with this, I have found it hard to find a professional society or organization that can best support my career and professional development. I have been a member of a number of organizations, but often don’t feel that they are meeting my needs or giving me service opportunities needed for tenure and promotion. Stay tuned because I will be attending a new conference in a few weeks that I think may be my unicorn!

Lessons Learned

Be open to the guidance of others. At every major turning point in my scientific training and career, there were colleagues and mentors who suggested I consider opportunities I would have never imagined. Ironically, I was not a good fit for some faculty positions I applied for in social work and public health departments. Yet I ended up in Nursing because a colleague urged me to apply and it’s been a perfect fit for me in so many ways.

Be more concerned with solving problems than with your disciplinary approach. My obsession with creating solutions to reduce health disparities has guided my research and career. The problems we face as scientists are increasingly more complex to understand and solve. I think it’s safe to say that most of these problems cannot be solved by a single discipline. By working with other scientists from different disciplines, we are more likely to reach new solutions. For example, I am currently working with a team of mentors (e.g., behavioral scientist, nurse scientist, epidemiologist) to address the age-old problem of “medication adherence” by developing a multi-level intervention to improve adherence to endocrine therapy among breast cancer survivors. We believe this new approach to an old problem is promising.   

More Resources

It’s All About Teamwork: William Wester

How to PhD: 10 Tips from Hindsight

Resilience as a Common Trait in Researchers

 

Using Timelines to Diagnose Problems in Career Planning

Doing Research / Mentoring

This post builds on a presentation at the 2019 CTSA Annual Meeting of Training Program Directors.

Reviewing intended career progression is a cornerstone of mentorship. Goals for milestones such as manuscript and grant submissions typically dominate discussion. Often goals are described in documents for mentor panel meetings, individual career development plans, or alluded to in career documents like the scholar’s CV or biosketch.

In our early career faculty development programs, we’ve become convinced that looking at something is better than talking (or reading) about it. We find translating intended goals into a single simple image as a timeline is a powerful tool. Preparing the timeline requires a scholar to more deeply examine feasibility of plans by requiring they take into account timing of built in delays such as those:

  • Between grant submission, review, resubmission, review, and funding.
  • Typical in the review-to-publication cycle for journals to which they intend to submit.
  • Allowing for submissions of manuscripts to multiple journals.
  • Caused by small grants and awards pulling attention away from building their core scientific mission and research team if not perfectly aligned.

Our program’s use of timelines began with a basic retrospective examination of outcomes. We saw more timelines like the one below than we hoped. [Note R01 is an oversimplified label in our examples for all large awards including VA Merit, U01, CDC contracts, and other funding at a value of ≥$250K direct for a minimum of three years.]

The majority of our scholars are tenure track when they start their career development award. Most awards were five years long (culminating at the yellow line). At our institution, fairly firm decisions are made about remaining tenure track or changing tracks at the seven-year mark (dark orange warning line).

This is an uncomfortable, risky and potentially costly small lag in funding:

  • The scholar has forfeited the benefits of being allowed up to two years of overlap of their K and first large-scale grant.
  • They have fallen off the K-cliff from 75%+ protected time to PI-level effort for a single grant which creates additional funding needs.
  • At the end of the K the individual does not know the score on their resubmission.
  • They need bridge funding at the end of the K to continue their work.
  • Delays in federal start dates, now common, can compound the pressure.
  • Bridge funding at the end of a K, when work is underway and related staff may have been hired, is costlier than “pre-bridging” by allowing time for pilot work to progress further before starting a K award.
  • Time to launch a new round of submissions is insufficient within the pre-tenure review window.
  • The faculty member’s posture with the department can change from achiever to “needs watching.”
  • If they were tenure track before receiving the K award, they are in a more profound bind.

To best advise mentees and mentors about ideal pace, we then asked what pace was implemented by K and other career development awardees who successfully transitioned from their CDA to R01 or comparable funding. We restricted to individuals who made this transition and then compared the timelines of those who made the transition within five years – the typical period of a career-development award – and those who achieved funding as an independent investigator but did so after more than five years had elapsed.

For simplicity in this aggregate analysis, we included scientific publications related to the content areas or methods of continued research and timing of submission and funding of proposals of varied types. The image below reflects the average timing of publications and R01 submissions within the two groups:

During comparison several elements of mentoring surfaced that required myth busting. Among those who took more than five years to transition many had been told:

  • Earlier than the third year was too early to submit. (Not all mentors were aware of allowance for overlap of K and R.)
  • Explicitly that the fourth year was fine for initial submission and some had been advised to pursue R03 or R21s first, delaying their receipt of funding sufficient to support a research team.
  • They needed more or higher impact publications before submitting.

Some had attempted to submit earlier and found they:

  • Received worse internal reviews than expected and needed to delay to fix flaws.
  • Underestimated the overall complexity of the process.
  • Did not have ideal data about feasibility and proof of concept, having focused on narrow bands of pilot data.
  • Underestimated power and needed to add sites or collaborators.
  • Underestimated costs, discovered this too close to intended submission and needed to re-scope their project.

Combined, these mentor and process factors were most related to delayed success. Very few faculty attributed delays to parenting or challenges outside of work. In aggregate most felt they had been naïve about the need to start earlier.

In response, we initiated grant pacing workshops to break down all the component parts of large grants and develop timelines for completion simultaneous with recommending (or requiring for some groups) that faculty scholars complete, review, and revise a timeline a minimum of twice a year for each mentor panel.

In reviewing these intended timelines (purple line marks when prepared), we have found them key for rapid diagnosis of concerns that are more difficult to detect in formal academic documents, bulleted lists of accomplishments, or text description of goals.

As an example, the faculty member below was rightly perceived by division chief and chair as highly successful,­ producing seven meaningful publications in solid journals, presenting at multiple national meetings including plenary sessions, and receiving a prestigious professional organization scientific award for $125K a year for two years. Everyone was happy, until they thought about the implications of this timeline submitted as part of an annual report. The individual had 18 months on tenure track prior to CDA. In this picture that means Year 5 is actually Year 7 on the tenure clock and Year 7 is Year 9, at which time they face an up-or-out promotion review without knowing until the final hour if they may qualify.

Ideally this would have been prevented by discussing the timeline in Year 1 or 2. Even as late as Year 3 of the CDA, we were able to dispel the idea that the individual could spend a year focusing predominantly on the professional association award. Mentors promoted tight integration of that award with preparation for an R that moved somewhat away from the K. This allowed earlier submission of the R, with less time elapsed before resubmission and, by very good fortune and good science, earlier receipt of funding by almost a full year.

Timelines for evaluations reveal key patterns that mentors and career development leadership can identify and disrupt to be sure timelines reflect the pace at which funding is needed and the milestones implied.

We see these as themes:

  • Distracted mentors losing track of time or providing poor advice that did not emphasize necessary pace for achieving first major grant. These scholars need a real timeline!
  • Over-alignment of K aims to R when some portion has not panned out or findings have proven unenticing. They need encouragement to deploy talents in related, higher value pursuits.
  • Distracted scholars chasing small shiny objects. Among those who submit 7 to 11 smaller value awards during their CDA, none achieved prompt transition to independent funding. Lower numbers are also concerning. They need an ultimatum as time gets short to keep the main thing the main thing.
  • Idea hamsters who submit multiple proposals with a wide range of different methods and hypotheses, and/or those who prepare publications on multiple topics that do not build to an acknowledged area of mastery. Same intervention as distracted scholars.
  • Trust fund recipients who were aggressively wooed and provided robust start-up funds. They are at risk of misperceiving this as a safety net that can help support future salary needs. They often under use the funds in launching the appropriate scale of hiring and research investments. They need coaching on using their resources to accelerate the work and produce a large scale grant sooner.
  • Comfort in poverty shows up as individuals who lack confidence in or do not have a personal vision for their career. They behave as if they are earlier in their careers and fail to exercise agency in decision making. They typically don’t prepare a timeline until pressed or they project too much time will elapse and ruminate on failure. They allow mentors and others to dictate what is needed rather than determining from their own goals. They need consistent encouragement to differentiate from mentors and clarify their passion for research.
  • Time management fails among individuals who do life with their “hair on fire” and have multiple explanations for why key pieces of scientific endeavors or grant preparation derail without acknowledging the lack of sufficient lead time and lack of use for resources like expert review of aims and internal study section that are associated with higher levels of success. These individuals push back their timeline each time they draw it. They need accountability.

The rarest are:

  • Failed scientific ideas when methods cannot be replicated or results of experiments derail intended direction.
  • Mentor departures that disrupt the progress of the early career faculty member by following the mentor or needing new mentoring contacts.

The latter two are unavoidable, even with timelines, and are worthy of other forms of consideration.

The good news is the majority of scholars who start to prepare realistic timelines around the time they decide to seek a K award can march out that plan. They find it helpful and anxiety reducing. Being oriented to what one needs to do and demystifying the steps is empowering.

Download career development timeline template.

Be Proud of Your Accent! Give Confident Conference Presentations

Doing Research / Faculty Life

Is English not your first language?

Currently, and this could well change, most international research is communicated in English. For now at least, all international researchers need to become proficient at speaking English in public. Using interpreters at conferences is truly difficult and a great deal is lost in translation.

Now, it is well known that many people fear public speaking second only to death, so how much more frightening is it to have to give a formal presentation in a language other than your mother tongue? And how does this fear affect your speaking technique?

It’s not the accent, it’s the fear!

In recent years I have worked at Australian universities, training postgraduate students how to communicate their research. During this time, some PhD students undertook some special training for the 3MT© (Three Minute Thesis competition) and as part of this training, we had an expert give a workshop on voice projection and “presence.” This was fun to watch, and it was really all about learning to be comfortable with yourself and speaking out.

Some weeks after attending this workshop, one European student who had a very strong accent asked if she could present a 30-minute seminar to one of my workshops for new PhD students. I said yes, and she came and gave a powerful and exciting talk. All the new students admired her confidence and thought her presentation was great.

It was really enjoyable listening to her speaking now that she was no longer embarrassed by her accent and was projecting her voice fully. Her accent was still very strong, but her full voice projection fully engaged us. Her confidence and overall presence were now so powerful that her sometimes poor grammar, mispronunciation and misuse of words no longer mattered at all!

Fear makes many people swallow their words so that the audience can neither hear nor understand what they are saying. But if they can learn to speak out, whether or not the language and actual words are correct, the audience will still usually be able to understand and enjoy the talk. Communication is far more than words. Certainly, the actual words are very important whenever someone is trying to explain detailed and important research, but props like diagrams and figures can be used to fill in some of the details.

It is actually much more important to have great projection and appropriate body language than to have the exact words and pronunciation.

Can you be over-confident? Strong English accents, dialects and speed

Lacking confidence is, however, not the only problem in clear communication in English. Native English speakers who have strong dialects and accents are often extremely hard to understand. If you have a strong accent, even if English is your first language, many people will simply not understand you. You must slow down and if at all possible, reduce your accent.

People who speak too fast can also leave most of the audience bewildered. Since the speed of speech tends to be cultural, you might not be aware of your speed unless you really stop and take notice. Even if your accent is clear, if you speak too fast, you are likely to leave your audience behind!

Always remember that as well as hearing you speak, your audience needs time to process the information you are presenting. You are no doubt extremely familiar with your own work, but for most of the audience, it is the first time that they have heard it. Even the sharpest minds need a few seconds to process new information. Speaking too fast is a poor quality in any presenter.

Difficult, unusual or critical words need to be displayed visually

One very simple way to ensure that your audience understands your key message: Write it down or display it in some type of visual. You should adopt this habit regardless of whether English is your first language.

Don’t ever run the risk of your audience thinking that you are speaking about anything other than your key topic! You might be surprised how often people come away from a talk with completely the wrong message.

Make sure that this never happens to you.

I provide individualized speaker training at my site.