Bolster your proposals with tips from the summer

This summer, given that folks were stuck at home, ORDE offered our first ever summer e-Seminar series, focusing on a few key strategies for bolstering your proposal development game. I'm happy to announce that these are all now available on our Vimeo site in case you missed them. Below is the run-down of these seminars and a couple of tips from each. Click on the e-Seminar title to go back and watch these for yourself. 

Writing Your Specific Aims

If we think of the grant proposal as real estate, then the Specific Aims or Project Overview is the front door of our proposal. It tends to be where reviewers start when reading your proposal, and it tends to be where they decide if they like your proposal or not. Given its importance, in this seminar, I suggest that you start your overview with a hook or sentence that grabs your reviewer's attention and highlights the necessity of the work. I also suggest that you end your overview with a vision of your research that reminds your reviewer of the importance of your work.

Working with Program Officers

Program Officers (POs) often can give you additional insight into an agency or grant program to which you may be considering applying. I recommend that you reach out to POs early and often. The two most important times to connect with a Program Officer is early on as you are developing your grant proposal. Once you have a solid one-pager on your research project, reach out to your PO and ask to have a conversation about the fit of your project and solicit advice as to how to best hone your project for their program. The other important time to reach out to a PO is when you are not funded and are making decisions related to resubmissions. After considering the feedback and your options, reach out to a PO to get their advice as to what revisions should be made before resubmitting.

Revising and Resubmitting Your Proposal

When your grant proposal is not funded, it's a bummer (to say the least), however, remember that the researchers who are the most well-funded tend to also be those who have had the most rejections. So, take heart in knowing this too shall pass and funding may lie in your next resubmission. So, once you've gotten past the heartache and read your reviews, you have a decision to make. At the NIH, you can resubmit your grant as a revised proposal with a response to reviews (an A1), or you can submit as a brand new proposal (an A0) - this might make sense if you've done a major overhaul of your proposal. Your last choice is to resubmit to another institute or agency. If, after going through the reviews and talking with your PO, you feel that the problem was really one of fit, it might be time to go in search of a program where your project is a great fit!

Resources:

ORDE Vimeo site