Tips for Applying for an NIH K

Last week, ORDE hosted an NIH K Panel seminar. K awards are NIH's mentored career development awards. Our panel was made up of K01, K23, and K99 awardees. As the discussion unfolded, the panel offered several good nuggets for those who are considering applying for a K award.

• Apply for smaller funding first: Work your way up; try applying for smaller grants to build your success.
• Write your application so it's broadly understandable: Make sure all the reviewers will get your research (some may not be experts in your area).
• Have a member of your mentoring team that specializes in every part of your project: For every method, technique, and approach have a known expert on your mentoring team.
• Start applying for your R award three years into your K: Don't wait till you're out of money to look for your next grant. Some K awards will even let you keep your K funding when you get your R.
• Show that your career path is different from your mentor's: Make sure your reviewers know that you and your research are unique and innovative.
• Look up your study section and guess who will be your primary reviewer and cite them: The NIH posts their study section members; you can figure out who will likely be assigned to be primary on your application so cater your writing to them.
• Include a timeline visual: It's not enough to write out your plan; put together a visual that shows your timeline.
• The best time to apply for a grant is when you've just published something great: Once you've published, the field will be abuzz with talk about your great work, so seize on that!

Always remember that the K grants are meant to take an early career scholar with lots of potential and provide them the mentoring and career development they need to be an independent researcher, which for the NIH means you are competitive for an R01 or like award. In all things, show them that you have that potential and that you will be successful with a little help from your K!

Resources:

Research Career Development Awards (K kiosk) - NIH

Ins and Outs of NIH Career Development Awards - Gregory Sempowski (Duke)