Proposal Checklist

Grant applications are like snowflakes; at first glance, they all seem to be the same thing, but when you look closer at those application guidelines, you can notice all of the small, unique details.

These details, though seemingly small, can have a large impact! For instance, did you know that approximately 60% of proposals aren't even reviewed because they are not a good fit for the agency or they didn't follow the guidelines?

To make sure that you don't become part of this statistic, ORDE is happy to share our revised proposal checklist. Below are some highlights from this list:

Watch font and size: It is oh so tempting to shrink your type size or select a font that is smaller than that prescribed, but don't do it! Follow all margin, spacing, font, and sizing to a T, including image and figure captions. Remember, reviewers are reading many proposals that follow the rules. Don't think they won't notice if you cheat a little bit to make space.

Adhere to the deadline: You want to make sure that you know the date and time the proposal is due, but also double check that you know what time zone they're operating in. Even once you have all those details locked into your calendar, try to get your proposal in a day early so you won't panic if the system isn't working or you get an error when you hit 'submit.'

Make sure you're eligible: Well before you start writing your proposal, double check that you are eligible for the grant. Things like citizenship requirements, years past terminal degree, or your institutional type can knock you out of the running altogether. Even if you think you're eligible, but you're not entirely sure about a requirement, call the agency to make sure that you're not only eligible but a desirable candidate for the grant. There's nothing worse than working hard on a grant that reviewers will quickly decide you're not a good fit for!

Ask for accompanying letters early: If you need letters of support or letters from consultants or other affiliates, ask for them as soon as possible. You won't do yourself any favors in annoying a letter writer by asking him/her to write a letter for you at the last minute. Also, offer to draft the letter for them. That way it's less work for the signatory, and you get a chance to get everything in the letter you think the reviewers will want to see.

It can be frustrating applying to a new agency when you've memorized your normal go-to agency's proposal guidelines, but since they are the ones funding you (hopefully), they get to make the rules. But, on the bright side, really knowing an agency's guidelines well gives you a better sense of the agency and what they're looking for, which will give you a competitive edge.

To see ORDE's full checklist, go here. The Proposal Checklist is the second item down.

Contacting Program Officers

Reaching out to Program Officers (POs) may seem like a simple thing to do, but as we've seen many researchers and scholars are hesitant. Robert Porter in his article, "Can we talk? Contacting Grant Program Officers," suggests that this hesitancy lies in academics being more used to the lack of relationships they have with journal editors.  It would, of course, be inappropriate to contact an editor to see what you could do to get your article published.

For these reasons, researchers sometimes think that it is cheating to reach out to agencies and their POs. Yet, in a poll of former NSF POs at CU, all responding POs emphasized the importance of PIs reaching out to make sure the grants they are developing are in line with the agency's priorities.

Given this importance, below are some tips from POs and research development professionals on initially reaching out to POs.

Start early
POs are busy people, but they get even busier as they approach grant deadlines or as we approach the end of the fiscal year, so make sure that you are preparing early and reaching out at a time when a PO isn't up to his or her ears in questions, requests, and grants.

Do your homework
Before you reach out to an agency in any form, make sure you know about that agency. Be familiar with their website, their mission, how they are organized, and who you should contact.  If you are responding to a program announcement (PA), make sure that you've read it several times.  Nothing makes you look unprepared as asking a question that is answered in a PA or the website.

Send an email
When you're ready, send an email to who you think is the appropriate PO.  Make the email short. Introduce yourself (are you an early career investigator? have you received an award from the agency previously?) and give a quick description of your project (3-5 sentences). Use your subject line to describe why you're reaching out and keep it short.  Something like "Scheduling phone call?" or "Request for feedback" let's the PO quickly know why you're contacting them. Lastly, make sure that there is a call-to-action in your email. This is usually a request for a brief phone call to discuss your project.

Send a one-pager
Some POs at some agencies are ready for you to send a one-pager in your first email, but if you're unsure about it, you can send the email outlined above, but you want to have that project description in your back pocket. One PI told us about her reaching out to a PO and discussing her project only for the PO to ask her to send along her one-pager. The PI spent the rest of the afternoon and night putting together a project description (she hadn't written it yet).

Schedule a call
Usually, when first emailing, you're trying to schedule a call. But, in doing that, you want to remember that although you are busy, the PO is also busy and you are the one that needs to be flexible. You're asking for their time after all.  Give them some times/days and ask if anything would work for a call.


Follow-up
If a week goes by and you haven't heard anything, send another brief email "checking in" on your last note. Be polite and friendly, refer to your previous message, and ask again to schedule a call. Even if a PO is slow to respond to your outreach, do not be slow to respond to them. When they ask for a one-pager, send it within 24 hours, and in your follow-ups, always thank them for their time and note next steps. Anything discussed or agreed to by phone, briefly restate via email. For instance, if the PO said they would put you in touch with another PO, in your follow-up email, say something to the effect of "Thank you so much for reaching out to Dr. X on my behalf; I look forward to following up with her."

I want to leave you with a caveat: there are no hard and fast rules to reaching out to PO's. You must adjust all of the advice above based on the agency you're reaching out to. When doing your homework on the agency, it's a good idea to find someone at your university who has worked with that agency before to give you some insight on their preferences. But, don't let the unknown keep you from reaching out.


Resources
Inside the mind of your Program Officer - Inside Philanthropy
What to say-and not say- to Program Officers - Chronicle of Higher Education

Be productive this summer

With the passing of Memorial Day, we are into summer! Don't blink, you might miss it. To be sure that you are productive this summer, here are some tips...

Set goals
Begin by identifying what you need to accomplish to feel like you were productive and to set yourself up for a highly productive year. Be sure to consider goals in terms of research projects, generating preliminary data, writing grant proposals, developing manuscripts for publications, and any teaching development activities.

Create a schedule
Next, create a schedule. You might want to start off just trying to write an hour a day and then gradually increase that to about three hours a day. Make sure that you stick to your schedule and find a place to work that you can focus. Once you have your schedule and your place, continue your routine to build your habits. I'm reminded of Steven King's habits of sitting in the same place every day, having a glass of water and taking a vitamin. He does these simple things ritually to let his mind and body know that it's time to write. Try building these sorts of habits.

If you miss a goal, let it go
Although these habits and repetitive scheduling can help you to be productive, it's important to not let it be the determiner of your success. For instance, if you're not able to meet a goal or not able to write for a full hour one day, let it go, and come back the next day. And, don't try to force yourself to make up for it by writing twice as much the next day, just let it go and carry on.

Think about planning for fall early
As you know, summer will be over quickly, so in the midst of all of your productivity, don't forget about your fall responsibilities. Plan your class prep in with your summer goals, so you don't face a rude awakening at the end of the summer, scrambling to get all your classes ready.

Resources:
Harness Your Clean Slate Moment - Katelyn Knox
Planning a Productive Summer - The Chronicle of Higher Education
No More Post-Summer Regret - InsideHigherEd

Grant tips from the semester

Last week, with help from our dear student assistant, we posted videos from our Spring seminars on our vimeo site. Below, I share the links and a couple of tips from each of these seminars.

NIH K Grant Planning

• K grants are about the wo(man), the plan, and the fan (the candidate, their integrated research/development plan, and their mentor/mentorship team)
• The mentored K grants are targeted toward early career faculty and postdocs who need additional training/mentoring through the K to be ready to go after a major grant independently, like an R01.

Working with Community and External Partners

• A good partnership requires good communication and a relationship that benefits all partners.
• When reaching out to organizations, begin with someone you would work with and discuss how you might work together to build buy-in at lower levels before going to the decision-maker.

Career Programs

• While candidates for the NIH K cannot have had a major independent award previously, many NSF CAREER recipients have had NSF independent awards previously.
• For any career grant, it's helpful to start off by identifying where you want to be as a researcher in five years and to map out what you need to do to get there.

Pitching Your Research

• Understand who your audience is and what they want.
• Keep your message simple.
• Make your pitch conversational.

National Science Foundation 

• When developing your project, reach out to a Program Officer to get input.
• Remember, the NSF is looking to fund good science, first and foremost.

Writing an ORS Grant Proposal

• Write these grants for the layperson.
• Do not use jargon.
• Explain your research and why it's important.

Those are a couple of quick tips from each of these seminars, I encourage you to check out the videos for those relevant seminars that you missed this spring.

Resources:

ORDE Website

ORDE Vimeo Site

Work/Life Balance

Summer may seem like a weird time to practice work/life balance. However, practicing work/life balance when you are not feeling overloaded, as you may feel in the fall, is ideal. With that in mind, I attended a workshop this week put on by the Colorado School of Public Health on work/life balance, presented by Dr. Gwen Fisher and Kelly Cave.

Work/life balance is achieved when you feel content in all areas of your life or feel like you have enough time to allocate to all the things that are important to you. If you don't feel satisfied with how much time and attention you have to spend on different aspects of your life including work, family, and personal time, there are some things you can do. You can increase resources or decrease demands. Below I offer some suggestions under both categories, gleaned from the workshop.

Increase resources:
When it comes to the resources that make the biggest difference in terms of work/life balance, the best resource to have is time. However, since we cannot create more time, it's important to look at ways that we can conserve time. This can mean things like finding an editor to review articles and/or grant proposals or finding and training a graduate student that you can delegate some tasks to. Another way to save time is to be judicious in the extra responsibilities you take on. It's important that you master saying no to things that are not necessary or worth the additional stress in your life. Make sure that you're not getting so busy that you're cutting into sleep, exercise, or family time. Other ways to save time are to avoid traveling during high-traffic times.

If you're not sure where all your time goes, try logging your time for a few days to see how much time you are spending on things. You may be surprised and realize areas that you could save time. Multitasking is a deceptively large time suck. Although most people think that multitasking saves time, research shows that people really can't focus on multiple things at the same time, and they actually lose time switching to new things and remembering/refocusing what they're doing. So, instead, prioritize and do one thing at a time.

Reduce demand:
Prioritizing can help you to get the work that needs to be done done and can alleviate some of the pressure that you feel in the short-term. Setting reasonable expectations with colleagues is another way that can reduce demand, especially in the near future.

In the workshop, one of the facilitators introduced the idea of telepressure, which refers to the stress or urge to continually respond to messages through email, text, social media, etc. This constancy of telepressure can create unnecessary stress, so consider finding times to turn off your technology, especially around bedtime.

Self-care:
When things get stressful, it's easy to kick it into overdrive in the short term. Problem is when this gets to be longer term, there are serious health repercussions. So remember, taking care of yourself makes you more productive during your working time. So make sure you get the sleep you need and consistently exercise. Also, take the breaks that you need. Perhaps go for walking meetings or on walks as a break to your work. It's important not to keep at it until you feel like you're banging your head against the wall.

Resources:
6 Tips for Better Work-Life Balance - Deborah Jian Lee, Forbes
Work Life Balance - Mental Health America

What's your plan for the summer?

As the semester begins to wind down, or heightens to a frenzy (based on what side of grading you are on), you should begin planning your summer. Certainly, make sure you spend some time relaxing and unwinding when that last paper is graded. But, also plan for how to be productive in your research over the summer, so that you feel you accomplished an appropriate amount come fall.

To decide what you will do, check in with your research plan. What research plan? Aha! If you don't have a research plan that is moving you toward your 5-10 year goals, spend the first part of your summer devising or updating your research plan to help keep you on track.

Below are items that your research plan should include:

Begin with the end in mind: Take a moment to envision where you want to be in 10 years. To do that, think about where you want to be in 5 years. Once you've dreamed a little bit and gotten excited about your opportunities, you can work backward to benchmark where you need to be at the end of each year.

Identify publications: To get where you want to be, where do you need to bolster your publications and what kind of publications do they need to be to best position yourself for grants and in recruiting partners and collaborators?

Identify funding sources: You will likely need funding to achieve what you're planning. What are those sources? What are those agencies looking for? When are their deadlines? How long will it take between developing your grant proposal and having the money, if funded? It's important that you account for things like rejections and planned resubmissions and alternate plans for when you don't receive the funding you were hoping for the first or second time.

Plan for preliminary data collection: Most sponsors expect applicants to have some preliminary data before they apply. This preliminary data demonstrates to the sponsor that the researcher can and will execute a successful research project if funded. So be sure as you map out your research plan that you have also planned for preliminary data collection or small projects that show you will likely be successful in your research.

An article in Science suggests that you should develop a 3-5 page research plan before you hit the job market to show your future colleagues that you are worth the investment you're asking them to make in you and your work. However, if you have secured a faculty position without a research plan, that's great! Now, go and write one. :)

Resources
Writing a Research Plan - Jim Austin (Science)
Charting a course for a successful research career - Alan M Johnson (Elsevier)

Reviewers tips for writing a grant proposal

Earlier this week, we held a grant-writing seminar and had one of our internal grant review committees send us tips they would give to those applying for any grant proposal. Here they are:

• Read the guidelines carefully, following all instructions in terms of font size, margins, spacing, and page limits and use the most current template.
• Grab your reviewers’ attention immediately with a compelling abstract.
• Summarize the importance and value of your project in the abstract and offer a brief description of your project.
• Write clearly and concisely, explaining concepts and methods such that a non-expert/layperson will understand.
• Spell out all acronyms and define technical terms on the first use, but severely limit this use
• Describe the significance and impact of your work.
• Identify the research question(s) you will be answering with this project and connect these to the overall impact of your project.
• Use visuals that are clear, helpful, and readable (and explain when necessary).
• Have a non-expert/layperson review your application before submitting.
• When proposing to use questionnaires or surveys, please provide sample questions you intend to include.
• Justify your chosen methods – why are the methods you have chosen the best for this project?
• If you are proposing a small sample size, why is this approach appropriate?
• Justify your budget, don’t just make it up.
• In your budget justification, explain why you are requesting funding for each item and how it benefits your research project.
• Carefully check for spelling/grammar errors in your application.

All in all,

1. Don’t do anything that will frustrate your reviewers.
2. Write an abstract that can standalone and give a compelling overview of your project.
3. Don’t use jargon (technical language not accessible for a layperson/non-expert).
4. Write a methods section that clearly describes how you will conduct your project.