Reviewers are on a need-to-know basis

I recently reviewed a faculty member's grant application. It was a cool project! I could understand the importance, I had examples of application, I got the gist of how it would be carried out, etc. Only trouble was, there were quite a few paragraphs of technical information that I couldn't understand. Normally, this would be expected since many grant applications must include technical language to show reviewers, who are experts in the field, that you're on the cutting edge. However, the intended sponsor for this grant stated that they had laypeople on their review committee. So, I as a layperson reviewing this grant was a comparable reviewer.

All of this to say that when it comes to grant-writing, less is more. Your challenge is to write to your audience (your reviewers) as concisely as possible to clearly convey the great importance of your project and offer just enough justification and technical details to convince them you will be successful... and that's it! So, seems simple enough, but there are variables to consider as you decide what needs to go into and stay out of your grant application.

Who are your reviewers?
To figure out what your reviewers need to know, you need to first have a sense of who they are. Are they laypeople or experts? Are they in your field or not? Are they familiar with you or your area? To answer these questions, explore the website of your sponsor. Some sponsors will list their reviewers and some will describe the background of their reviewers. Sponsors will also describe the level of detail and background information they expect in their program announcement or grant application guide. Not surprisingly, to know what to tell them, we must first know who reviewers are.

What do they need to know?
Once we have a sense of who our reviewers are, we can then start to formulate what they need to know to make a decision on your project. No matter who they are, you always want to emphasize the importance of your work and the impact your work. You must also convince your reviewers that you will be successful in carrying out your project.

How do you best convey your project?
The language you use to convince your reviewers will vary based on your reviewers. For reviewers who are experts in your field, you'll want to demonstrate your knowledge of the field and relevant scholarship. However, make sure that you are careful that your discussion of the field doesn't get too tangential to your project. Stay focused, show your expertise, and bring it back to your compelling case. Start with your case and end with your case. For laypeople, you'll also want to convince them that you and your project are the way to go, but you'll need to use jargon-free and plain language to show them.

It may sound harsh to say, but at the end of the day, if your grant proposal doesn't speak to your reviewers in whatever way, it's your fault. If you didn't know who they would be or what they needed to know, it's of no use to blame them for that. If your grant is rejected, use the reviewer comments to better understand them as an audience so you can better write for them when you resubmit.

Resources:
Confessions of a Grant Reviewer - Margaret Ring
Crafting a Sales Pitch for Your Grant Reviewer - Robert Porter

So, what do you do? (planning your holiday pitch)

Tis the season of the office holiday party! This may mean large department/university parties or lunches and/or it may mean office parties with your spouse or partner. Either way, you're bound to be asked..."So, what do you do?" We all get the question, we all expect it, but if you're anything like me it still often blind-sides you. This is a particularly difficult question for researchers, because what you do can be complex and hard to explain for different audiences. Sure, you can take the easy way out with, "I'm a Professor of Physics," receive an impressed look from your conversation partner, and ensure no further questions are asked, or you can use the opportunity to practice your research pitch with different audiences. Hey, depending on the party, maybe you're pitching someone who could be a resource.

So, this week I offer some tips on creating your holiday pitch!

Assess your audience
When headed to a social event, give some thought to who will be there and what their interests are. Will there be other researchers and academics at this party? Will there be entrepreneurs? Foundation representatives? Considering your audience beforehand can give you a headstart in planning your pitch, but don't be afraid of asking a question or two of the person you're talking with, such as, "Have you ever heard of the theory of X?" Or, "Are you familiar with Y disease?" Depending on the answer(s) you get to these precursory questions, you can skip over parts or give a brief explanation to set yourself up to describe your research.

Stay focused on impact
Key to giving your holiday pitch is to stay out of the weeds. To best explain your research, your conversationalist will likely be most interested in the importance of your work. What's the end result? If your research works to cure cancer, why not start there and offer more specifics as you go or as they ask? By focusing on the impact, your pitch will be clearer and more compelling.

Do not use jargon
I attended my spouse's office party this weekend (he works for a Tech startup) and when asked what I did, I simply said "I'm in research development." Most people thought this was just great, and the conversation didn't go much further, which was fine with me. But, I found myself wondering what picture they had in their head of research development. I'm quite certain that they weren't picturing me developing grant-writing seminars or writing this blog. Research development is jargon where you really don't know what it is if you aren't working in it and even then it's a pretty institution-dependent field. I say all this because I used jargon at this party to get out of any conversations about my work and I get the sense that some academics might do the same, drop a big word, offer no explanation and just wait for a topic change. However, you're doing amazing research, so share it with people, don't let the conversation drop prematurely. Remember, this is practice!

Offer scenarios
In an effort to avoid jargon and to better relate to your audience, think about scenarios or metaphors you can use to explain your research. For instance, saying, "Have you ever used a fit bit before?"
When someone says yes, you go on, "Well, I develop the technology that measures how far you've walked in a day." This is a very impact/application-focused way of describing what you do that most people can relate to.

Now, I'm not trying to trick you into a whole month of extra conversations about work that will make you a social outcast at next year's parties. Always, gauge what your conversation partner is interested in. If they aren't interested in really understanding your research, then let it go, ask them what they do and try another prompt next time to spark interest. Perhaps, next year, folks will be tracking you down to catch up and find out what interesting research you've been doing since you talked last.

Resources
Do schools kill creativity? - Sir Ken Robinson (This is a nice example of how to pitch your research and a funny bit about talking about research at parties)
Answering the dreaded "So, what do you do?" question - 99U

Grant Timelines

I don't know about you, but for me this time of year flies faster than any other. I feel like as soon as I've thrown away my jack-o-lantern, there are holiday decorations everywhere you turn. This reminded me of grant timelines (what doesn't!?!). Grant application deadlines often feel very far away, and for more novice grant-writers they may set aside a program announcement as they work on other seemingly, more pressing work. Yet, with a grant deadline on the horizon, the clock is ticking, even if you can't hear it yet.

Below are some things to consider as you create a timeline for your grant-writing.

Grant development is more than just writing a grant
Part of the reason that researchers don't always give themselves enough time to write their grants is that they don't consider all of the pieces of good grant development. For instance, taking the time to research the sponsor and the program to which you're considering applying takes significant time. Just looking through a sponsor's grant application guidelines can be time intensive as they are sometimes over a hundred pages long! Also, as I've discussed before, it's very important to give yourself time to contact and work with a Program Officer (PO) to give you the best chance for success.

A solid grant development timeline is six months
Realizing how much is involved in addition to writing your grant proposal, ORDE recommends a six month grant development timeline. Although you won't begin writing your proposal till closer to three months before, you must begin assessing the fit with a sponsor, working with a PO, and developing your project early on.

The due date should not be the day you turn it in
As you develop your timeline, do not simply look at the due date and count backwards. The problem with this strategy is that planning to turn in your grant application on the deadline is really testing fate in a number or ways. First, you're not alone if you're planning to turn it in on the due date. Sponsor and university systems are flooded with submissions on a big deadline, and things can go wrong. For instance, with NIH applications, they must clear two systems error free before they are considered accepted at the NIH. If you wait till the due date to move through these systems and receive an error that may take some time to correct, you'll really be down to the wire. Also, it's not unheard of that sponsor or university sites go down especially under heavy traffic. So, play it safe and get your proposal in at least a day ahead of the due date.

You must rely on others
Another reason why you really should not wait till the last minute is that you're not the only person involved in your grant application. Working with your grants administrator and submitting your application to the Office of Grants and Contracts (OGC) can take more time than you might anticipate. In addition to carving out additional time for these processes, you should also check in with your grants administrator as early as possible to alert them to your proposal and timeline. Also, double check the time and process required by OGC to avoid any hang ups.

Grants are getting increasingly competitive and some sponsors will reject any application that doesn't follow the rules or that isn't a good fit. Giving yourself the time to avoid these problems will be well worth it!

Resources:
ORDE Grant Development Timeline

Grantitude

As we look toward the Thanksgiving holiday next week, I thought it would be a good opportunity to blog about the opportunities for incorporating gratitude in grant development, or what I'm coining, grantitude. Within fundraising offices, gratitude is an essential part of the equation. Annual Funds will hold thank-a-thons in their phone banks and in the major gift realm, there is a whole professional field focused on stewardship, or folks who are tasked with thanking donors and continuing to cultivate them toward other gifts.

Is this done because these institutions and professionals are just overwhelmed with gratitude? Well, not to be skeptical around Thanksgiving, but no, thank-a-thons and stewardship happen because they've been shown to generate more giving.

Now, it's true that fundraising is different from grant development, however, we can glean some strategies from fundraisers that are applicable.

Always say thank you
At the heart of stewardship is showing appreciation to anyone who gives you money. So, when you receive a grant of any kind, make sure to figure out where to give thanks and do it. Send a thank you note or email to a PO that worked with you in the process, or send a note of thanks to any folks in leadership positions at the agency that it would be appropriate to contact for a quick thanks. This is a nice thing to do and shows appreciation for those who spent time and ultimately money on you and your work, but on the strategic side, it allows you to stand out from your competition. How many researchers think about sending a thank you or showing gratitude for a grant? Probably, not a whole lot, so if you do it, it may give you an edge or at least get your name in front of people you want to know who you are.

Cultivate relationships
These thank yous are a part of continuing the relationship(s) you have with an agency. Chances are, your first grant is not the only one you'll ever try to get from a sponsor, so it makes sense to build your relationship. Aside from saying thank you, make sure you are a good steward of their money - get those pesky progress reports to your PO on time and follow-up with any requests or questions that a sponsor has. Being nice to work with may work to your benefit the next time you go to submit a grant application.

Show grantitude to all involved
Even though they don't have direct responsibility for your being funding, don't forget to show gratitude to reviewers. Now, I don't mean sending them thank you notes (you don't know who they are anyway). I'm saying that in any resubmissions, when responding to reviewer comments, show gratitude for their work in reviewing your proposal, and be gracious in your revisions and explanations. Don't be argumentative; it won't get you anywhere good.

This hopefully gives you few ideas on employing grantitude in your process. The resource below gives other related strategies. Have a happy thanksgiving and may the grant-makers continue to smile on you. :)

Resources
Grant Management - Stewardship - The Grant Helpers.com

The Science of Team Science

Many of today's biggest research questions cannot and will not be answered or solved by a single, lone-wolf researcher. Questions around climate change, diseases, genomics, etc. call for a brilliant and diverse set of researchers and thinkers...working together. Yet, academic institutions, where so many of these researchers are employed, are traditionally geared to support and promote independent researchers.

In the midst of this conundrum, several scholars have begun working together to develop a field that looks at how scientists can best collaborate and be productive. This field is referred to as Team Science, and the study of Team Science is referred to as The Science of Team Science (SciTS).

Team Science looks at several barriers or opportunities to promote effective collaborative science. According to NCI's description of Team Science, they include the following:

• Funding opportunities
• Institutional infrastructure and resources
• Organizational rules particularly around tenure and promotion
• Team processes: table-setting, early agreements, publication ownership, and a feedback loop on how collaboration works for everyone
• Interpersonal dynamics
• And collaborative skills among scientists

SciTS has been digging into these barriers to discover how Team Science can be best developed and promoted. For instance, recent SciTS articles have come out that look at how women are under-represented in team science, particularly in co-authored research and continued collaborative relationships with other Scientists.

Below are SciTS and Team Science resources for you to access if you're trying to better understand how you can effectively collaborate with other researchers while navigating the structural realities that can sometimes be barriers.  

Resources:
The Science of Team Science Website
Team Science Toolkit - NCI
Difference in collaboration patterns across discipline, career, and stages - PLOS Biology Journal
Rosalind's ghost: Biology, collaboration, and the female - PLOS Biology Journal

Sponsor Data Sharing Requirements

As I've discussed in past blogs, major federal funding agencies are demanding that applicants incorporate data management plans into their proposals. But there is much concern among researchers around the expectations for data sharing in these plans.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF) have addressed and clarified applicant expectations to some extent. Even if you aren't interested in applying to the NIH or NSF, it's worth watching how they are developing requirements, as other federal and non-federal agencies will likely follow suit. The points below outline some of the general positions these agencies are adopting:

Program-Directed Policies
Not surprisingly, data and best practices for data sharing is really discipline-specific. Best practices around privacy, sharing, access, and preservation vary wildly by field. Therefore, when you go to look at the general FAQs at the NIH or NSF, many of the responses are, to paraphrase, "it depends." The NSF repeatedly answer these data questions saying that many of the practices will be dictated by one's "community of interest." For these agencies, this basically means that reviewers within a directorate or study section will assess whether a proposal's data management plan meet the standards of their research community.

Addressing sharing and preserving
After the recent reports describing how few research projects could be reproduced, based on the data and methods that remained, the NIH and NSF are demanding more rigorous data management practices. This is partly to resolve the reproduction dilemma, but it is also so that agencies can get more bang for their buck. If new researchers can access the data from past funded projects, they can use it to produce even more research and analysis. This can mean more research for less money. With that said, agencies are asking PI's to share as quickly as is reasonable. The NIH asks for PI's to share data as soon as their publications have been accepted. They also want the data that they funded to produce to be kept in good shape for others.


Talk to POs
I probably could make this a heading in almost every blog I write, but it fits here too! Data and data sharing are complex and the questions surrounding data are often very specific. So, who better to counsel you on how to address these complexities than your friendly neighborhood Program Officer! However, as with all PO conversations, make sure you do your homework and understand your agency's data policies and requirements before reaching out to your PO.

In ending, if you start to hyperventilate when considering all the new requirements being asked of you by funders around data, remember, they're still working it out too, so work things out together!

Resources
NSF Data Management FAQs 
NIH Data Sharing FAQs

To Debate or Not Debate in Grant Development

In the spirit of our final presidential debate last week, I will spare you any political commentary, but will stay with the theme of debate to look at it within grant development.

Researchers are great at debate and why shouldn't you be, you've built a career on making an argument. You need to justify your hypothesis or angle, build a case for funding or other support, convince colleagues of the value of your contributions, etc.

But, even in a seemingly natural field of debate like research, there are still some areas where you should avoid it, as well as at least one place where you can let your debate skills shine. Below are some do's and don'ts when it comes to debate in grant development.

Don't debate with reviewers
Few things are as frustrating as having an anonymous reviewer not "get" your proposal or misinterpret some element of your research and to score you accordingly. Certainly, if your reviews were an opening statement in a debate, you'd be revving to go. However, they're not. They're feedback on your proposal, and the truth is when a reviewer misunderstands your proposal or an element therein, it's unfortunately on you to revise your proposal to better or more clearly address any misunderstandings. When you respond to reviewer comments in your resubmission, be gracious, and describe how you've responded to their comments. Resist  the urge to debate the reviewers or be argumentative. It won't work to your advantage if you frustrate your reviewers.

Don't debate with Program Officers
The same "don't debate" rule holds for conversations and other correspondence with POs. This does not mean that you shouldn't make a case for your research with POs. Nor does it mean that you shouldn't ask questions. It does mean that you want to listen carefully to the feedback and information your PO shares with you. And, it does mean that because the PO is inside the sponsoring agency in which you're interested, you should accept what they tell you are funding priorities. Do not try to debate or change their minds about what sorts of research they should be supporting.

Do debate in your proposal
When writing your grant proposal, you should employ all of your best debate strategies. This means you need to build your case and successfully defend your path forward. Additionally, like any good debater, you need to anticipate what your opponent, or, ahem, reviewer will argue against you. What are the questions or concerns your reviewers might have? Once identified, include responses to those potential questions and concerns.

So, in ending, do bring your best debate skills into the grant development process, but keep them in your grant proposal and do not get into a debate with any representative at the sponsoring agency.

Resources:
Resubmissions: Seeking Feedback - ORDE Video
Can We Talk? Contacting Grant Program Officers - Robert Porter

Building a Routine

"We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit." - Aristotle

We all have routines. With two preschoolers at home, my routine is as much chaos as anything else, but it's still routine. Yet, when I look at certain parts of my routine that I have control over (child chaos is not one), I can notice several parts that I have not intentionally put in place, that if I were to change, might allow me to be more productive. So, today, I offer a couple of tips on building a routine. Most of these come from the book, Manage Your Day-to-Day: Build Your Routine, Find Your Focus, & Sharpen Your Creative Mind, edited by Jocelyn Glei.

Recognize and revise your current routine
As mentioned, we all have some semblance of a routine, but if we're not intentional about setting our routines, we likely have bad habits embedded within them. So, to begin building a more effective routine, begin by assessing your current routine, and plan for one that will allow for you to be more productive.

Do brain-work first
Most folks when they get to work, the first thing they do is check their email. Yet, most people are freshest and can focus best in the morning, and usually our email does not call for focus and concentration, nor is it the most important work we have to do. Therefore, if, like me, the first thing you do in the morning is go through email, consider delaying that task and doing the most important brain-work you have to do first, and then go check email when you're ready for a break from your most focused work.

Make time for renewal
One mistake that busy people make is that in planning their routine or their day, they fill each minute with a task. For most, this is a recipe for burnout or space-out. If I don't incorporate time in my day for a short break, my brain takes one anyway, and I often find I'm less productive than if I'd just planned for a little renewal or break in my day in the first place.
 
Build frequency 
Once you've identified a routine that is balanced and will allow you to be most effective, you need practice; you need to make it...routine. So incorporate it and stick with it. If you get off track or it's not working, tweak your routine plan or just keep at it until it is a habit.

Returning to the Aristotelian quote, if we begin to practice what makes us excellent in our work, we will notice that our habits and routine help us to be excellent!

Resources:
The Daily Routine of 7 Famous Entrepreneurs -  Belle Beth Cooper
5 Steps to Create a Daily Routine That Works for You - Elizabeth Larkin

Data Management Plan

This week, ORDE offered a seminar on Data Management in which Shea Swauger, our Head of Research Support Services at the Auraria Library discussed the ins and outs of data management and what to include in a data management plan. All of this was offered in light of the demand by major funding agencies to include a data management plan in their grant applications.

Below are some of the things that PIs should consider as they put together their data management plan.

Storage
As you consider data storage for your project, be sure to identify all of the different sorts of data you will be producing and consider the amount of data that you think you are going to generate. Also, consider security and access needs that you have and how best to back up the data you are generating. Shea suggested that if your institution can't offer you storage to meet your needs, some cloud options could be the most cost effective and usable solutions. Specifically, he recommended Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud, and Microsoft OneDrive.

Organization
When you're spending your days immersed in your data - gathering, cleaning, analyzing, etc. - your organization feels so natural. However, it's amazing how quickly you can forget what this category was for or what that file name meant. This is why it's a good idea to incorporate metadata. Metadata can be as simple as just incorporating notes to yourself as to what you meant by this or that.

Preservation
Once you've analyzed your data and published your results, what do you do with your data? With increasing demands by national agencies to preserve raw data and to make your research reproducible, it's important that you have a plan to preserve your data. Shea offered a couple of solutions for preserving data, including the new Auraria Institutional Repository or you can find an appropriate data depository at this site.

Dissemination
There is a call from funding agencies for PIs to share their data and make it possible for their research to be reproducible. So, important to your data management plan is the component that outlines your plan for dissemination. More and more, sponsors see data dissemination as a requirement for funding. As you develop your grant proposal, make sure you have a clear understanding of the agency's requirements and recommendations for dissemination and be sure to meet those in your data management plan.

It can seem like a burden to lay out your data management plan at the outset of a project, but not only will a good data management plan make you more competitive for funding, it will save you headaches in the future.

Resources
Data Management Planning Tool - University of California
Data Q

Budget Justification

I had a PI this week ask what should go in her budget justification. She was asking, in part, because her budget seemed quite straightforward. There wasn't much more she wanted to say about it in the budget justification. That's a good thing, but usually grant application guides do not allow you to forego the budget justification. So, below are some tips:

Follow the rules:
Sponsors usually outline the format they want to see in your budget justification. Be sure to read through your grant application guide and to include all the information the sponsor asks for in the budget justification. The sponsor and your institution also have rules around allowable costs. Be sure to check that all of your budget items are allowed, or they'll be a no-go and make it look like you didn't do your homework if unallowable costs slip through in your submission.

Stick to your budget order:
Again, check your application guide for the format for your budget and budget justification and follow those rules to a T. But, in addition to that, if the guidelines do not offer you rules on order of budget and budget justification, make sure to follow the same order in both. This makes it easy for your reviewers to go back and forth between budget and budget justification.

Elaborate on costs that may not be clear:
If there are items in your budget, where your need for them isn't abundantly clear, take extra time to communicate your need and/or describe the items. Or, if you need equipment at a certain quality level that costs more than other versions, you may want to explain in your justification why you need the version you need.

Make sure all costs are reasonable:
It's true that oftentimes when you're awarded a grant, it comes with a budget cut in a negotiation with your Program Officer. This reality can make it tempting for PIs to pad their budget to soften the blow when they're cut. But, resist padding! The truth is that your budget and budget justification are a reflection of you as a project manager and if your budget isn't frugal, that will reflect on you. Most reviewers and POs know when something is padding, so it's more likely your budget will get cut more significantly when they see it.

The budget justification is certainly not an exciting part of your proposal, but it is still essential in showing your competence and skill-level, so make it clear and informative!

Resources:
Writing a budget justification - Appalachian State University
Budget Justification Guidelines - Institute for Social, Behavioral and Economic Research
Budget Justifications - University of California, Irvine

Building a strategic mentoring circle

Mentorship is important to your development as a researcher; Mentors can provide support, advice, and advocacy to early career investigators. But, the traditional mentorship of having one guru to guide you in all things is less useful than strategically developing a mentoring circle.

Below are some considerations as you plan your mentoring circle:

Focus on your needs
Although, there seem to be those people that just seem right to seek out as a mentor, take some time to really assess your mentorship needs. Are you looking for guidance or support within your specific research field? Are you looking for moral support and advice from another academic who has shared your unique position? Or, are you looking for someone to provide insight as you navigate the tenure process? Likely, you have multiple needs. So being clear on what they are can help you identify the right person for each need.

Do a test run
Instead of introducing yourself and asking someone if they will be your mentor, it's a good idea to introduce yourself to a potential mentor and work to build some rapport with them. Remember, you're asking a mentor to invest at least time in you, so you want them to know you and your potential before you ask. Once you've gotten to know your prospective mentor, try asking for their help or a small commitment from them. Perhaps ask them to review a grant proposal or an article for feedback or take them to coffee and ask their advice on something. This way you and the mentor can get a sense of how you might work together before you ask them to make the larger commitment of being a mentor.

Consider the return
As mentioned, you are asking a mentor to make an investment in you, so it's important that they see the value in this mentoring relationship. Sure, your mentor is likely paying it forward, and does not expect an equal give/take relationship, but you must make sure that you're easy to work with and respectful of their time. Come to meetings with agendas and make sure you stick to agreed time limits for meetings. Also, be sure to acknowledge your mentors when you receive accolades for your own work. Offering additional visibility to mentors may not be something they expect, but it shows your appreciation for their investment in you and offers something back.

As with any relationship, it is wise to work on developing clear communication and expectations with your mentors. Be clear on what you're hoping to do and what you'd like their support for, and make sure you understand their expectations of you and the relationship as well.

Resources:
Mentoring: An Essential Leadership Skill - MindTools
Mentoring FAQ - Management Mentors

The three foci of grant development

Grant development is more than just grant writing. It takes sponsor research, Program Officer relationship-building, and idea development.  Yet, when it comes to actually writing the proposal, you're smart not to go in with one focus.

The Venn diagram depicts the three essential foci of a good grant proposal. According to Wood (2012), "In the study of rhetoric, successful communication is traditionally expected to address all three equally. The speaker, or in this case, the principal investigator or project director, needs to establish credibility so that the audience will bother to read the message. Equally important, the speaker must analyze the audience -- in this case the reviewers -- to tailor the message specifically for them. In proposal development, the proposal is your message, and the sponsor's personnel and reviewers are your audience."

So, given Wood's framework, let's dig into these core pieces of the proposal.

Principal Investigator
I know I've said it before, but competitive grant applications don't just propose a fantastic idea and realistic project, but they also show that the PI is the best person to carry-out and/or lead the project and bring the fantastic idea to fruition. Certainly, there are spaces reserved for making this case in a proposal, such as the biosketch, but before you begin writing your proposal, take some time to identify exactly why you are the best person to conduct the research you're proposing.

Reviewers
Reviewers are the audience for your grant proposal, and they play a large role in deciding whether or not your proposal is funded. So, it makes sense to focus on who they are, what they want, and even the climate in which they read your proposal. Some things to remember are reviewers end up reading a lot of proposals in a short period of time. They want to see an exciting/compelling project, but they want the proposal to be easily understandable, well-organized, and clear.

Proposal
Bearing in mind your strengths and your reviewers, you must apply these components in your vehicle for communication - your proposal. Your proposal must first and foremost, propose a project that is a good fit for the sponsor, follows all the rules in the program announcement or proposal guide, and then be clearly written and easy to navigate.

If you can really be excellent in all of these foci, with a great research project, you'll be able to knock it out of the park!

Resources:
What do reviewers really want, anyway? - Robert Porter

Wood, B. (2012). The writing (Chapter 6) in Licklider, M.M. (Ed.). Grant seeking in higher education: Strategies and tools for college faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Writing your personal statement

I've gotten questions or been asked to talk about writing personal statements in the past week, so I thought why not talk about it here? Various sponsors ask for personal statements from PI's, especially for career development grants. But, the personal statement is a mainstay of the NIH biosketch.

So what goes in the personal statement? How personal should it be? How do you put it together?

Of course, the answer to these questions, as with everything in grant development is... it depends. The first thing to realize about a personal statement is that you should not just copy and paste the same one into each grant you submit that calls for one. Depending on the type of grant for which you're applying, you should mold your personal statement to position yourself as the ideal candidate to conduct the project or develop your career.

Having said this, below are some elements to consider incorporating into your personal statement, especially if you are an early career investigator:

Describe your preparation
It's important in your personal statement to give background. Tell the story of how you got to where you are now. Particularly, focus on your productivity and successes you've seen as you've developed as a researcher.

Describe your commitment to career
Reviewers want to understand not only who you are as a researcher, but where you're heading and that you are committed to the research you're doing . With limited grant funding available, sponsoring agencies want to invest in those researchers with the most promise and commitment to their work.

Explain choices
Although sponsors are generally not looking for long explanations for why you did what you did in your career, the personal statement is a good place to briefly address possible points of confusion. If there is a gap in your productivity or you made certain choices because of a need for family leave or due to visa requirements, the personal statement is a good place to share your brief reasoning.

Highlight opportunities
As you discuss your past work and aspirations, show how you have seized past opportunities and how you plan to seize those in the future. Because a research grant is a huge opportunity, reviewers want to see your track record on how you've succeeded with opportunities you received in the past and get a sense of how you will succeed with future opportunities.

State goals 
Along with your commitment to your career, strengthen that commitment by offering both short and long-term goals in your personal statement. Offering long-term goals shares your vision, and short-term goals show your reviewers a realistic path toward that vision.

Incorporating these components into your personal statement can paint a solid picture of you as the researcher and give reviewers a sense of your promise and why an investment in you and your research will be worthwhile.

Resources:
Personal Statement Workshop - University of Alabama at Birmingham
NIH Personal Statement Template - Ball State University

Research Collaboration

This week my spouse sent me an online assessment from RoundPegg to see how our work styles compared. Happily, we shared 94% of the same values, but where our work values diverged, the program showed problematic assumptions we might make about one another (and nailed it - we totally make those assumptions), and showed how we could complement each other in places that our values diverge. Even though we used this tool as a quick marital assessment, it is actually designed to help collaborative teams to communicate and work more effectively together.

This got me thinking again about what makes for good research collaborations and partnerships, and below are some things to consider as you work to build and strengthen your research collaborations.

Develop the collaboration before the project
Although it is generally the case that PIs go in search of collaborators to fill in the gaps of their expertise on a project they're leading, Licklider (2012) suggests that building collaborations first can make for stronger and more competitive teams. She suggests that when researchers who focus on a particular issue from different disciplines and perspectives come together, they can form the most innovative projects and actually do a better job of predicting the future of the issue. This can allow the group to have a competitive edge when program announcements come out looking for the most robust solutions to the very issue the team has been working on.

Develop communications
Collaboration can be a rewarding experience for those involved, but it can also become a research horror story. When collaborations go awry, it is almost always due to a break down in communications. Intragroup conflict also stems from a lack of communication. Although some shy away from it, it's important at the outset of collaboration to identify agreements, such as author order in publications or positions/responsibilities in grant applications. Licklider (2012) also suggests having a plan to cut loose team members who do not uphold the responsibilities to which they agreed.

Consider data management
Data management is usually a challenge when you are the sole investigator on a project, but imagine multiple researchers sharing and building data with each other. The complication factor goes up exponentially the more researchers and the more diverse the researchers who participate in a project. Discussing data management at the outset of a collaboration is important, along with data hygiene, security, and access. If this feels overwhelming, you have resources; a great place to start is to attend our Data Management seminar on September 27th.

Collaboration is not easy, but it does allow researchers to do things they cannot do alone. The number one thing to remember in engaging in collaboration is that it must be a give and take. All participants must contribute to the project albeit in different ways, but they must also receive benefits for their participation.

Resources:
RoundPegg
Licklider, M. (2012). Grant seeking in higher education: Strategies and tools for college faculty. San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.

Planning for Funding

How do you think of your funding trajectory? Do you have a major project you're looking to fund 5-10 years down the road or are you solely focused on getting the next grant to keep your research going? If you fall in the latter group, you may be shooting yourself in the foot without knowing it. According to Licklider and the University of Missouri Grant Writer Network (2012), those researchers who only start thinking about the next grant when their current grant is ending are those who will likely remain at the same level throughout their tenure.

To make sure that your research isn't stagnant or mediocre, they suggest that you create a long-term funding plan where you start small and grow your funding amounts and sources, and of course your research goals and impact.

Growing and Diversifying
If you're a brand new research faculty member, you may not be quite ready to go after the whopper of all grant awards in your field, so instead start building your research enterprise. A good place to start is looking for what internal grants your institution may offer. At CU Denver, on the Denver Campus, faculty can apply for small grants through the Office of Research Services and the Center for Faculty Development. These smaller grants can get you going on a pilot project, but then you should start looking for other small funds that can build on your preliminary data, and allow you to move up the ladder toward the aspirational grants. Be sure to think about this trajectory early so that you are always moving toward the next level of research and funding to support it.

Get to know possible funders
Susan Fitzpatrick and M. Brent Dolezalek, in their article, "Diversifying Your Funding Portfolio," showed that in a survey of major research articles in a Neuroscience journal, 60% reported having a mix of private and public funding to support the research published. This makes sense; as research funding gets more and more competitive, researchers need to diversify their portfolio to make sure if one well dries up for them, they have others. So, to do this, start by doing a search for agencies with which you should be familiar. ORDE offers personalized fund searches for faculty on the Denver  and Anschutz Medical Campuses. Find out more here.

Consider the threads of your research career
To adequately plan for your robust research career, it's important to work backwards. Start by identifying where you want to be in 5-10 years and then work backward to identify the steps or benchmarks you need to get there. First, you likely need to get funding for your research, but to get that funding, you need to compete for it through grant proposals. Identify when you want to have a grant, and remember you should be working on that grant about a year in advance. To write your best grant, you need to have pilot data to help you form your project, and you need to have publications under your belt to be competitive for those grants.

Once you have a research career plan, be diligent about sticking to it. As you develop as a researcher, more and more opportunities will present themselves. Some of these will fit in your plan and get you where you want to go. Others will distract you and even if they seem great at the time, you will pay a price with the time and effort you would have otherwise spent moving toward your goal. So, make sure in all decisions, you're intentional.

Resources
Diversifying Your Funding Portfolio - Susan Fitzpatrick and M. Brent Dolezalek
Charting a Course for a Successful Research Career - Elsevier

Making your grant application easy to read

I've been reviewing some writing recently and found myself making edits or suggestions around sentence length in some places where sentences went on for three-four lines, but left sentences of the same length alone in other places. This got me thinking, what's happening in those long sentences I let slide that made them easier to read than those I revised? To provide some answers to this question and the broader question of what you can do to make your grant writing easier to read, consider these tips:

Use first person, active voice
I've said this before, but I'll say it again, it is much easier to read writing that is written in the first person (using I and we instead of "the PI" or "the research team"). Of course, there are still granting agencies that frown on use of the first person, so if that is the case, always follow their rules first. But, even if you are forced into third person, you can still use active voice.

Third person, passive voice: The experiment will be conducted by the PI.

Third person, active voice: The PI will conduct the experiment.

First person, active voice: I will conduct the experiment.

You'll notice that not only is the first person, active voice example easier to read, but it's also shorter!

Read it aloud
Many writers/editors work to strike a conversational tone in their work. But, how do you do that? Well, try turning the written word into the spoken word to see how it sounds. Try reading what you have written and revise the turns of phrase that don't roll off the tongue the way they did the pen. And, of course, if you can engage someone else in listening to your talk and get their opinion, you've gone one step further to making your writing conversational.

Avoid big and vague words
Research is often dealing with highly technical or theoretical concepts, and of course, these areas lend themselves to some whopper, super-smart-sounding, words. These five dollar words are fantastic to include in your scholarly articles, but when it comes to grant-writing, they will likely not earn you any bonus points. Consider the reviewer who you send to the dictionary a couple of times. With a stack of grant applications next to them, they probably won't thank you for building their vocabulary and may resent the extra time they spend reading when you should have explained things for them.

One thought = One sentence
Circling back to our original query of why some long sentences are easier to read than others, I think where writers often get into trouble is when they try to put more than one thought in a sentence. Aside from considering the tips above, one thing that makes sentences difficult to read is when they become a list of conjunctive clauses. When you find a sentence that is long, and it's riddled with ands, or it is plum full of ors, but you lose the point of it somewhere along the way, and then the writer shifts ideas, or then they try to bring it back around, but you are already lost, and so...you get the point. That last sentence wasn't much longer than others I've used in this blog, but it just wanders on. Even if you had no trouble following it, you were probably getting a little annoyed. So, try to keep your sentences short, but if you need to get lengthy on a couple, do all you can to keep them readable and focused on one idea.


Resources
3 Quick-and-Easy Tips to Make Your Writing Easier to Read and More Effective - Jen Stevens
Making Your Writing Easy to Read - Cheryl Stevens

Don't play Pokemon Go while driving or doing research

I have a four-year-old and a technology-geeked spouse, so you can imagine that the two of them are partaking in the latest Pokemon Go craze. Since it came out, I've seen new people walk through my neighborhood playing and already the reports of accidents related to this game are being reported. I've noticed more car accidents lately, and worry that people are actually playing this while driving (but I hope I'm just paranoid). This game is only the latest in a growing technology craze that while exciting can also add to distractions that researchers find when they're trying to focus.

So, I wanted to seize this opportunity to offer some tactics for managing your technology in case you find it starting to manage you.

email 
email for most of us is a looming load of work that is waiting for us each morning and continues pinging you throughout the day. Certainly, it is important and if you ignore it for too long, you're bound to pay the price later (e.g., your Dean catches you in the hall, saying, "Did you get my email?"). So here are a couple of tips to consider to stay effective and still manage your email.

• Don't check email first thing: for many who are most productive in the morning, it is wise to start with your most important work first thing in the day and save email till later.
• Set times during the day when you check email.
• Create an organization system and rules in your email and delete messages you don't need.
• Turn emails into tasks and then get rid of the email clutter.
• Close email when you're not working on it. (the sound alert and temptation to open email when you're doing something else can get the better of you).

Phone
Now, for many of us, phones are another email device, but it's also your social media device. I sometimes catch myself in a social media spiral where I go from email to facebook to twitter to email again. So, be cognizant of your phone as a distraction. Here are some tips:

• Be intentional and honest about why you're checking your phone. Is it necessary? Are you procrastinating? And make an intentional decision. (Deschene, 2013)
• Consider putting your phone on silent and out of view when trying to focus (note: for parents or those "on call" in any sense, this may not be realistic)
• If you have a social media checking habit, allow yourself to check your phone as a reward for doing solid work on a project. (maybe set a time limit for your reward so you don't get sucked in)
• Remember, multitasking is a myth, if you're checking your phone in a meeting or while on your office phone, you're not focusing well on anything.

As we're still in summer break, and hopefully you're experiencing a reprieve from student emails, take some time to consider how you will manage your email, social media, and other technologies this year to be your most productive and focused self. And, go ahead, play Pokemon Go when you need a break from your research, or take a peek to see if any pokemon are lurking in your lab or the library every so often, but be intentional and safe about it. :)

Resources:
Managing email effectively - mindtools
Multitasking - mindtools
Manage your day-to-day: Build your routine, find your focus & sharpen your creative mind - Glei & Belsky, 2013)

What's the NSF about? Science!

Next week begins the due dates for the National Science Foundation (NSF) CAREER grant applications. These are prestigious awards for Assistant Professors looking to fund an outstanding research project with an exceptional education component. Now, this blog is not for folks working on their CAREER applications, because those folks are feverishly completing their applications! But, for those of you not as familiar with the NSF, I thought I'd offer a bird's-eye-view profile.

Science
As the title of this blog refers, the NSF is all about Science. This probably doesn't seem particularly insightful, but a couple of years ago, I attended an NSF conference where one long-time Program Officer spent time explaining that at the end of the day, the NSF wants to fund good Science. As a research development person, I'm always prompting PI's to consider the implications or potential impact of their work. And, that is still important to the NSF, but if those implications/impact aren't founded on strong, rigorous, and cutting-edge science, then the NSF will pass on even the most exciting of projects.

Education
Now, as soon as I tell you the NSF is all about Science, I'm going to tell you that they're also about education. Now, again, the NSF is first and foremost interested in funding great science. But, they are also invested in building the pipeline of future STEM professionals. For example, the CAREER awards are given to researchers who propose an innovative research project, as well as an education plan that is integrated with that research. They want to see the research that they fund benefiting and including tomorrow's researchers. They are particularly interested in STEM education that focuses on women, people of color, and others who are underrepresented in STEM.

Broader impact, intellectual merit
Most NSF grant applications ask applicants to define and describe the broader impact and intellectual merit of their project.

The NSF describes these criteria:

• Intellectual Merit: The Intellectual Merit criterion encompasses the potential to advance knowledge.
• Broader Impacts: The Broader Impacts criterion encompasses the potential to benefit society and contribute to the achievement of specific, desired societal outcomes. (PAPPG, pg III-2)

Thus, Intellectual Merit includes any aspects of a research project that will contribute to its field. Ask yourself, how will your research move the needle for other research in your area? Broader Impacts is a bit more visionary. What difference will your research make beyond your immediate field? Who will your research benefit and in what way? Might your research improve health, society, technology? Will it save money? Or will it saves lives? All of these constitute your broader impacts at NSF.

Directorates
The NSF has a diverse group of 10 research areas: Biological Sciences; Computer and Information Science and Engineering; Education and Human Resources, Engineering, Environmental Research and Education; Geosciences; Integrative Activities; International Science and Engineering; Mathematical and Physical Sciences; and Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences. Once you identify which directorate your research might fit in, it's always a good idea to get in touch with the NSF Program Officer in your area.

The NSF is a great organization and makes heavy investment in STEM research, but always remember, when you go to write your grant proposal for the NSF, they are Science first!

Resources:
NSF Home Page
NSF PAPPG
NSF Research Areas
Additional NSF Resources/Tips - ORDE 

Planning and visioning

Pinned on the wall next to my desk is a messy, hand-drawn career/life timeline I drew for myself on the back of an airplane ticket from Denver to Atlanta in 2012. It goes back to when I was 21 to allow for some retrospect and is mapped out to when I'm 50 (I'm about in the middle of this right now). It includes career benchmarks and anticipated transitions and even when I anticipated having my second child. It then notes how old both of my children would be at these different transition periods.

My inclusion of my children and their ages in my timeline reminds me of something Dr. Jean Kutner, Professor in the School of Medicine once said: "There's no such thing as a work/life balance, there's just life." At any rate, given that we're nearing the middle of the academic summer break, it seems like a good time to think about and reflect on planning and visioning. Below, I walk you through some approaches to visioning and planning

To start off, consider where you want to be in about five years. As a researcher, what do you want to be known for? What projects do you want to have completed? Based on your five year vision, you want to work backwards to identify benchmarks in three major areas: funding, publications, and data collection.

Based on the goals you've identified in year five, begin by identifying what projects you will need to complete to achieve them. Once you've done this, start to identify when you will need to secure funding for the major projects you've identified. Then take another step back and identify the pilot data and/or the publications you will need to be competitive for the funding you will seek, and that should point to where you should be starting.

Below is a generic five year timeline that asks questions at different points that you can use to fill in the blanks:

As noted in the focus and flexibility video below, your research career needs to be "laser-focused," but should also be flexible. You need to be open to the right opportunities and you need to say no to those opportunities that might take you off your course. Always bear in mind your end goal even as it too may evolve.

Resources
Rethinking Work/Life Balance - ORDE Seminar with Dr. Jean Kutner
Maintaing Focus and Flexibility - ORDE Seminar with Dr. Jean Kutner
Balancing Competing Professional Commitments - SGIM, Dr. Jean Kutner (See page 9)

NIH Updates: Rigor and Reproducibility

You've probably heard the discussion around NIH projects and the questions around rigor and responsibility taking place in the last few years. But what does this mean for your next grant application?

The updates around rigor and reproducibility focus in four areas: premise, design, variables, and authentication.

Premise: Sure, PIs have always needed to show preliminary data or results when applying to the NIH, but now you need to take it a bit further. In addition to discussing your preliminary work, you must also discuss the strengths and weaknesses of it. You must now vet the foundation of your project in your grant application.

Design: The NIH is expecting more rigorous experimental design; their definition of rigorous includes the use of methods that are reproducible. As they state, "Robust results are obtained using methods designed to avoid bias and can be reproduced under well-controlled and reported experimental conditions." (NIH website, 2016)

Variables: A couple years ago, Sally Rocky, former Director of Extramural Research at the NIH, reported that a good majority of projects funded by the NIH did not include female animal models. In response to this particular overarching bias, the NIH now expects that sex as well as other relevant variables be accounted for in project design in funded grant applications.

Authentication: According to Hughes (2007), "between 18-36% of cell lines might be misidentified or cross-contaminated." Thus the NIH "expects that key biological and/or chemical resources will be regularly authenticated to ensure their identity and validity for use in the proposed studies" (NIH website, 2016). For AMC researchers, the Barbara Davis Center's Molecular Biology Service Center
does offer authentication services.

The NIH put the following diagram together to look at the various reasons and implications for their new rigor and reproducibility. The link and other resources are available below.

Resources:
NIH New Grant Guidelines Diagram
Updated Application Instructions
Presentation from the Department of Medicine - Jenny Kemp, PhD

New investigator grants

ORDE has spent the last several weeks updating our New Investigator e-book, which is just out. I thought I would focus the blog on some things to consider when looking for a new investigator grant program. Below are four questions you'll want to answer before applying to any new investigator grant program.

How does the agency define new investigator?
If you're a new investigator, you're a new investigator, right? Well, maybe. Different agencies define new investigator differently. Some are looking at how many years since you received your terminal degree(s). Some are looking at how long you've been in your research position. And, some are looking at whether or not you've received major funding previously.

Is it a mentored grant?
Some new investigator programs are the same sort of research-focused programs as those that are not for new investigators. And others are considered mentored awards, where in your proposal you must address your own career development plan, and also identify a mentor who will work with you throughout the award period. The NIH Career Development or K awards are generally framed in this way. While K applicants must identify a research project in their proposal, the larger focus is on the candidate, their mentor, and their career development. On the other hand, the NSF's CAREER program is research-focused. While applicants are wise to show how their CAREER project fits in with their and their department's larger research goals, this is peripheral to the research project itself. Other agencies run the gamut.

Do your past grants affect eligibility?
At some agencies, the new investigator programs are targeted at bringing very early career investigators and their research up to speed. Thus, if you have shown that you are competitive for major funding previously, this could make you ineligible for some new investigator awards. For instance, at the NIH, if you have secured major funding as the PI, e.g., received an R01, you lose your new investigator status and would not be a good candidate for a K award. But, for the NSF CAREER program, about half  of CAREER awardees have received previous awards from the NSF and it puts them in a better place to compete for the CAREER and certainly does not make them ineligible.

What are the goals of the program?
The questions above really all lead to this question. Before you decide whether or not to apply for a new investigator grant, you must first understand the goals of the agency and the new investigator program. Is the agency hoping to create new independent investigators with their program by funding career development? Or is the agency looking to promote those newer investigators who have already proven that they are independent and productive researchers? When you understand the program, you can consider if it is a good fit for you at your current stage.

Resources:
New Investigator e-book - ORDE
ORDE Funding resources

The proposal abstract: Sell your idea early

Last week I attended the annual research development conference (NORDP), and had a chance to hear from my favorite grant coach, Robert Porter, PhD. Dr. Porter was touting the importance of the grant abstract for selling an idea to reviewers at the outset. More specifically, for NIH applicants, he was referring to the Specific Aims and for NSF applicants, the Project Summary. He made the point that when reading grants, reviewers make up their minds about a proposal in the first two paragraphs or at least in the first couple pages. Thus, it is essential that your core argument fall in the opening of your proposal.

Dr. Porter recommended the following three paragraph formula for writing your abstract:

Paragraph 1: Lay out your problem

1. Grab the reader's interest
2. Explain why it's important
3. Summarize the state of the art and limitations
4. Describe challenges to solving the problem

You want to begin your proposal by driving home the urgency for your project. Explaining what's wrong, what needs to be done, and setting up the importance and need for your research is essential. Porter suggests that you use words like "exciting," or "unprecedented" to convey confidence. However, I find that this language often comes across as hyperbole. It's always better to show how your project is exciting or unprecedented instead of just saying it is.

Paragraph 2: State your solution

1. Describe your concept and credibility
2. Describe the project's fundamental purpose

This is the section where you want to put the meat on the bones of your argument. You've communicated the need and excitement for your project, now you have to give your reviewers confidence that you can actually deliver something substantial.

Paragraph 3: Create a vision

1. Show how your work will advance the field
2.  Envision the world with the problem solved

This is really the icing on the cake that directly relates your vision for your project with that of the agency to which you're applying. Show the big picture of your project; let them know that this is the just the exciting start to even larger results. But, at the same time, never forget that your agency also has a vision and a plan for what they want to do. Your vision should be aligned perfectly with theirs and you should say how they are aligned directly.

Resources:
Crafting a Sales Pitch for Your Grant Proposal - Robert Porter
Six Critical Questions to Launch a Successful Grant Proposal - Robert Porter

Getting and giving peer feedback

Peer feedback is really a crucial tool for faculty researchers. It is core to the review processes for publications and for grant proposals. But even beyond this, peer feedback is essential for getting your manuscript or your grant proposal into shape before you submit. However, giving and receiving feedback is oftentimes an overlooked skill, but one that can make all the difference for you and your colleagues when employed well.

At ORDE, we recommend that PIs get three internal reviews of their grant and integrate the feedback before submitting. One of your reviewers should be a layperson and the other two should be experts in your field, but not familiar with your project (you don't want your peer reviewer intuiting things in your proposal that aren't there; you want them to identify what's missing).

Getting feedback
When asking for feedback from your peers, be specific with the kind of feedback you want. I've found that when asking for feedback on my writing, if I don't explain what sort of feedback I'm looking for, my reviewers tend to resort to their grammar school training and focus on punctuation and spelling rather than advising me on clarity.

Along with giving your reviewers instructions on what you want them to look for in your proposal, also give them enough time to adequately accomplish the task. If you're waiting till the last minute to pull things together, and then dropping it on your colleague's desk, not only will you frustrate that colleague and likely get sub-par feedback, but you probably won't have time to really use the feedback they do give you. On that same point, give your colleague a heads up. Ask them if they can review your proposal weeks in advance, tell them when you will send it to them, and agree on when they can have feedback back to you.

Lastly, be sure to thank your peer(s) for investing their time in you and your proposal. Make sure you offer to return the favor and let them know how important their feedback was to you. And, circle back around when you get that grant to thank them for their role in your success.

Giving feedback
When your colleague comes back around to ask you to review her proposal, some of the same tips apply. First of all, ask your colleague to plan ahead to ensure you have adequate time to review the proposal and she has adequate time to incorporate useful suggestions. Also, ask your colleague what she wants you to look for. Is she still tweaking her idea? Is she open to methodological suggestions? Does she want feedback on clarity or persuasiveness? If she asks you to proof it, you may want to suggest that they find an editor for that.

Giving feedback doesn't seem like a difficult concept, but many folks are uncomfortable with giving constructive feedback to a friend or colleague. You don't want to hurt any one's feelings after all. I actually think the reason people stick to grammar and spelling feedback is because they're nervous about offending a colleague. Yet, constructive feedback is essential to get better. However, good editors or reviewers understand how sensitive people are about their work. The editing adage, "murder your darlings" is often used, because getting feedback on your latest pride and joy can feel quite personal.

So, to deliver your necessary but perhaps sensitive feedback, some suggest a sandwich approach. Begin by telling your colleague everything you liked about their proposal, then move into some constructive critique, and end with more positive. In using this approach, it's important to be sincere in what you found as strengths. And, instead of dividing up the positive attributes, share all of them at the front end and finish by describing how excited you are about their project.

Also important to giving good feedback is being specific with your critique, and making sure your advice is usable. We don't call it constructive criticism for nothing. Negative feedback that is not useful or can't be applied is just mean.



I included a discussion of getting and giving feedback, because to be successful, you need to do both. If you make it a habit to ask for feedback but never find time to give it, then it won't belong before your peers are too busy to look at your proposal. Reciprocity is the name of the peer feedback game.

Resources
Giving and Receiving Feedback: A Guide to the Use of Peers in Self Assessment - UTS
The Delicate Art of Giving Feedback - Harvard Business Review

Developing your writing practice

I recently heard one of our faculty members compare writing to exercising. In that, they're both hard to do either one consistently. But both are good for you and you need to practice them to develop your skills. She warned that, like shirking your daily run when planning to run a marathon, you'll be in a lot of pain when you try to write a major piece, be it a manuscript or a grant proposal, when you haven't been writing consistently.

I thought this was an appropriate topic as the semester ends, and for many faculty researchers, their daily schedules change for the summer. Certainly, summer is a good time for a little break, but make sure you don't pay for that break with your writing!

Don't wait to be inspired
I'm happy to report that in all of my bad habits, procrastination isn't one. Yet, I must admit that when I have a major writing project on the horizon, I often go through a short spurt of paralysis. I'm not sure how I want to approach the piece, or it feels a bit insurmountable. However, I recognize when I'm doing this and am able to move through it. I do this in one of two ways. If I really am clueless as to my approach, I turn to the literature. You can't write well, if you haven't read the relevant literature and know what you're contributing. The second way is to just start writing. Be careful not to get stuck in the reading where you just keep looking for the next article instead of starting to write.

Do outline and rewrite
As I've mentioned in previous blogs, free-writing can be a good way to get yourself going even if it's really bad in the beginning. However, if you write your first draft completely off the cuff, oftentimes you have a lot of re-working and re-writing to do. Now, you'll always have re-writing to do even if your first draft is awesome. But, if you've written 20 pages without looking back once, who knows what you're working with (including you). By all means, start free writing, but try drafting the introduction of your paper and then working with that to decide what makes sense and what doesn't, what should you keep and what is off topic. Use this initial writing and brainstorming to create an outline for your piece. Look at the nuggets that come out of your initial thinking and writing and decide how you're going to build on those.

Try to write in chunks or sections and make sure you're on track. Having your piece organized in sections makes it easier to re-write and revise your writing. As you finalize your writing, make sure that it flows and those sections fit together. Also, try to avoid correcting your work at a proofing level (grammar, spelling, and punctuation) too early. Stay at a higher level of editing/revising until you think you've got a final draft.

Do consider your writing practice
As you consider your writing practice for the summer, think about what you're doing now. When do you do your best writing? Are you a morning person or a night owl? Try to plan your daily writing around when you're at your best. Also, look at the bigger picture. What is the flow of your week? What days do you have meetings? What days can you spare uninterrupted time to write? Also, be honest about your bad habits. If you procrastinate or get paralyzed on a new project, recognize it and make a plan to get through it. Take all these things into account and make yourself a summer plan. Identify when you'll write and when you'll exercise. :)

Resources 
How to Develop a Daily Writing Practice - Mattan Griffel
16 Ways to Improve Your Writing Skills  - Dan Shewan

Research collaboration makes it happen

We in ORDE sometimes meet with faculty that have an abundance of great ideas for research for which they are seeking funding. But these great ideas are not always fully developed or in alignment with agency goals. Given the traditional lone-wolf approach in research, many PIs think that if they haven't figured out a whole project by themselves then they won't do it. However, more and more, the most exciting and competitive projects are collaborative. But, if you're not sure how to form these collaborations, here are some tips.

Know your strengths and weaknesses
Before you reach out to collaborators, be clear on where your expertise lies and where it is limited. This will help you to pitch yourself and your project to potential partners and help you to identify the right partner(s).

Identify potential team members' strengths and weaknesses
Once you're clear what your role should be in a project and what roles and needs you must fill to make it come to fruition, you're ready to look for collaborators. Talk to your colleagues and make connections in the areas you have needs. When you identify a potential collaborator, set up an initial conversation to vet them.

Be ready to share
If you want a collaboration to be successful, you shouldn't go into conversations assuming that you're the boss and your collaborator will just provide what's needed. If that's how you want to run things, then you're really looking for a consultant on your project, not a collaborator. Most researchers will not be willing to invest themselves in a project that does not feel like it is theirs. So, be prepared to not only share your idea, but adapt the idea with your new partner(s).

Be ready to assert yourself
On the flip side, a collaboration shouldn't feel like a hand off of your idea to another. Some researchers feel their project is co-opted especially when they seek collaboration with a more seasoned PI. To combat this, be ready to assert yourself and demand a true partnership in the project.

Know what's in it for each researcher
An essential piece to a good collaboration is setting each collaborator up for success. When beginning a collaborative project, it's important to get all motivations out on the table to make sure they're complementary. Also, this is the time to discuss order of authorship of subsequent publications, and who will provide what resources and time to which parts of the project. This can help you avoid confusion or conflict later on.

But is collaboration worth it?
Collaboration is a lot of work, but it seems to be the direction we're going. According to Adams (2012):

• Co-authored pubs tend to get cited more
• The first paper with 1,000+ authors was published in 2004
• The U.S. collaborates with China the most on 3-4% of its Science papers

Resources:
The Rise of Research Networks - Adams (2012)

The mystery of funding decisions

This week, the National Institute on Aging (NIA) put out a blog detailing their complex use of multiple funding lines to make funding decisions in various priority areas. The NIA does this to offer transparency and clarity to researchers. Basically the funding line identifies the minimum score that will be funded in a particular area, such as Alzheimer's and all grants scored better than the funding line are then funded.

The NIA blog joked that to understand their funding system you "need an advanced degree in mathematics," but that got me thinking about the wide range of ways that different agencies make funding decisions. These decisions are often made using some semblance of the following approaches:

Scores/Peer Review
Many agencies have a rigorous peer review process to assess the science or the approach proposed by the researcher. Some agencies, such as the NIH and NSF, recruit reviewers with the right expertise to assess the proposed science in their grant applications. However, even at these institutions, there are oftentimes grant reviewers who are not experts in your precise area reviewing your grant. This makes it important to strike a balance in your grant writing that speaks to the experts reading your grant, but also is clear and compelling to those who are not experts in your area.

Priorities
When it comes down to it, not all grants that score well in peer review are funded, and in fact some grants that receive slightly worse scores may get funded ahead of the most stellar if they are a better fit for the agency's priorities. Although PIs sometimes look at agencies as piggy banks, that is certainly not how those in an agency see themselves. Instead of seeing their responsibility as handing out money to do the best research, they see themselves as the stewards of a mission with distinct goals in which they are invested. Thus, it is essential that grant applications incorporate the mission and goals of an agency for them to realize success.

Researcher
Who you are as the researcher, or who composes your research team needs to be the right fit for the project you're proposing. As we often tell our researchers, you must show reviewers that you are the best person to conduct the research you're proposing. Unfortunately, it's not enough to come up with a truly great research project. You need to have that and you need to have the dream team or be the dream PI to carry it out.

It's also true that in the grants world, for many agencies, it's who you know. Some of our PIs who have been funded by the Department of Defense (DoD) suggest that this is a big part of the DoD's funding decisions. The DoD likes to fund researchers that they know and that they know do good work. This speaks to why it's so important to reach out to and work with Program Officers at agencies when they are available to you. Working with a PO gives you a leg up in understanding what an agency wants, but also lets the PO know you, which can also give you an advantage in some cases.

Director
At many agencies, the Director is the one who gets to make final funding decisions and is charged with making the best decision for the agency. This is true for Program Directors at the NSF and Institute and Center Directors at the NIH. Certainly, this is frustrating to PI's when a Director makes an ultimate decision that does not fund them, but the Director has a purview of all of these other mechanisms and can make the best decision for the agency to further their mission.

Not all agencies use all of these approaches to determine funding, so it's important for you to do your homework on the agency, their mission, goals, and their processes even before you sit down to write your proposal.

Resources (examples of how funding decisions are made):
Transparency and funding lines - NIA Blog
Grant Review Process - National Endowment for the Arts

Office of Naval Research

Last week, we were pleased to host two program officers from the Office of Naval Research (ONR). The ONR is one of multiple branches of the US Department of Defense that sponsors research related to their mission. More specifically, ONR interests include mathematics, computer science, electronics, machine learning/intelligence, sensors, communications, ocean engineering and acoustics, materials research (including biomaterials), non-destructive evaluation, cognition, biometrics, computational neuroscience, decisionmaking, gut microbiology, microbial fuel cells, force health protection, stress physiology, aviation technology, unmanned air systems, turbine engine technology, and many more.

Linda Chrisey, one of the program officers who visited both the Denver and Anschutz Medical Campuses is responsible for the following research areas at ONR:

Synthetic Biology (for sensing/information processing, electrobiosynthesis).  She funds work in microbes and 1-2 projects in plants and fungi.  Typically non-biomedical, except for syn bio as applied to gut microbiota (below)

Gut Microbiology (Gut-Brain-Axis, role in behavior/cognitive performance, effects of stressors such as circadian rhythm or sleep disruption, environmental changes such as altitude/O2 levels, rapid cycling of brown fat, synthetic biology manipulation of gut microbiota).

Microbial Fuel Cells (non-biomedical applications. Microbial fuel cells for powering of devices in remote locations (undersea, riverine); microbial electrochemical systems for shipboard waste treatment)

Marine biofouling and its control (interkingdom signaling that influences biofouling community development; mechanisms involved with bioadhesion/settlement by macrofoulers.)

Although it is generally a good idea to talk with a program officer before submitting a grant application to the funding agency, this is especially important at the ONR. Dr. Chrisey encouraged new researchers to call her (or the appropriate PO) or send a brief (one or two paragraphs) description of their project before moving into the proposal development process.

The ONR's proposal development process:
1) PI determines suitability of proposed project to ONR mission, programs, and specific topic areas
2) PI contacts program officer for assistance and questions about applying for funding
3) Program officer requests white paper
4) PI receives informal feedback from program officer, encouraging or discouraging full proposal
5) PI submits proposal
6) ONR Evaluation Panel reviews proposal
7) ONR scientific community makes final funding recommendations
8) Recommendations are forwarded to ONR Contracts/Grants Office for negotiation/award
9) PI’s institution receives award notice

Resources:
Know Your Agency Brief: Office of Naval Research
ONR Grant Proposals