Increasing the odds of NIH funding part Science part Art

1. Increasing the odds of NIH funding part Science part Art

3. What does NIH look for? Projects of high scientific caliber Investigator-initiated research Unique research projects

5. Find a Mentor • You can never have too many!! • Formal vs. informal mentoring relationships. • One mentor can’t serve for every purpose. • Men can be mentors too. • Ideal mentor: • Successful • Well funded • Well published • Renown local, national, international scene • Secure (not threatened by your success)

6. When to start writing? • Yesterday, or better last year • Preferably during post-doc fellowship • Grants written over longer time are better

7. Distinguish yourself from the crowd

8. Ground preparation for Grant submission • Join relevant society • Participate in national meetings • Send an abstract • Introduce yourself to key players • Ask a question • Publish a few papers on your topic • Get to know the “old boys and girls”… • Get involved in relevant associations

9. NIH grant preparation • Strategy is very important • advanced discussions • what institute(s) (RFA or PA) • what study section or SEP? • stay on the radar screen • obtain the best scored grant as an example

10. scientific merit score program considerations availability of funds institutes set pay lines, paying up to a given percentile score last minute funding not uncommon Who gets funded?

11. Each NIH application is peer-reviewed by an independent group of experts usually through CSR study Section or SEP (+ ad hoc reviewers) triage process priority score Review criteria Significance approach innovation investigator environment NIH grant review

13. numerical score (100-500) and a percentile are given to the application summary statement is prepared that provides the reviewers’ comments and critiques secondary review by the National Advisory Council of the assigned institute time from submission to funding 10 months NIH grant review

14. NIH grant preparation Read the instructions! and follow all of them! This is the easy part

15. Do and Don’t or You Won’t • DO • Call program staff ahead of time to learn what's hot-and what's not • Keep research goals simple and clear • Ask colleagues to critique your grant application before submission • Use testable hypothesis

16. Do and Don’t or You Won’t • Don’t • promise the world in one project • stack a grant application with too much history and extra information • be vague in describing experiments • dash off and send a grant application without • carefully reviewing it • get discouraged if your grant isn't funded the first time out

17. Science of the proposal is of utmost importance new idea, well rationalized novel hypothesis cutting edge methods tell a research story (not a list of methods) discuss challenges and alternative approaches figures and tables consistent with text cite work of potential reviewers if relevant don't stick out your neck collaborators and consultants Include timeline NIH grant preparation

18. Be meticulous carefully justify budget (even in modular grant) updated biosketch letters of support should be detailed additional progress Presentation of the proposal is important large font (minimum Arial 11) small paragraphs simple figures and tables consistency in formatting Include list of abbreviations NIH grant preparation"A sloppy application = a sloppy scientist"

19. The reviewer’s perspective • Evaluate the application relative to the "state of the science" and not relative to other applications • Impossible to do this without generalizing or comparing • Few common (dogmatic?) principles • Knowledge of the principles increases your odds • Read instructions for reviewers and review criteria • Just remember -- your goal is to instruct the reviewer on how to review your application

20. Your cover letter • Ask for a study section or SEP type of expertise • Ask for a primary and secondary funding institute • Infrequently – ask to exclude a reviewer (competitor)

21. scientific merit program considerations availability of funds institutes set pay lines, paying up to a given percentile score “last minute” funding not uncommon who gets funded?

22. Frequent negative peer-review comments • Problem not important enough • Not significant to health-related research • Study unlikely to produce useful information • Studies based on a shaky hypothesis or data • Alternative hypotheses not considered • Methods unsuited to the objective • Problem more complex than investigator realizes • Too little detail in the Research Plan to convince • Issue is scientifically premature • Over-ambitious Research Plan with an unrealistically large amount of work • Direction or sense of priority not clearly defined, no logical sequence • Lack of focus in hypotheses, aims, or Research Plan • Lack of original or new ideas

23. Investigator inexperienced with the proposed methods • Proposed project a “fishing expedition” lacking hypothesis • Proposal driven by technology, i.e., a method in search of a problem (e.g. the ….omics epidemic) • Rationale for experiments not provided • Experiments too dependent on success of an initial proposed experiment. Lack of alternative methods • Proposed model system not appropriate to address the proposed questions • Relevant controls not included • Proposal lacking enough preliminary data or preliminary data do not support project's feasibility • Insufficient consideration of statistical needs • Not clear which data were obtained by the investigator and which were reported by others.

24. NIH grant preparation part Science part Strategy Reapplication strategy

25. Most grants do not get funded on the first round Talk with program officer Can resubmit 2 more times Revised application should address the critiques of the reviewers in the summary statement one by one Stay the course and good things will happen What if I don’t get funded?

26. Obtaining information Carefully read the summary statement and highlight judgment and recommendation statements Do not discuss the grant with any of the reviewers Call the NIH Program Officer to obtain feedback NIH grant reapplication

27. Summary Statement Is the review lethal, can the grant be resuscitated? Should I reapply or write a new grant - Pros and Cons Priority score – Unscored vs. Scored NIH grant reapplication

28. Score 100-150 outstanding 151-200 excellent 201-250 very good 251-300 good unscored = bottom half How likely is an unfunded score to be improved to a funded score? Quantitative: scoreΔ Qualitative: evaluation Comprehending the review

29. Comprehend the review • Evaluation and Discussion of reapplication chance • (call your NIH program official) • encouragement to revise • comments on the hypothesis • request for more experiments • critique on lack of expertise • kiss of death critique

30. NIH grant preparation • You will have a better grant if: • You write it over 2-3 months • You fix everything you know is deficient • You address all the critiques of the reviewers, one by one • You ask other people to read the grant • You cover all bases • You examine every page of the final product

31. Top 10 to avoid 1 – It is so boring, reviewer wakes up at the end of Section D with retrograde amnesia 2 - Section D is 4 pages long 3 - No quote of a seminal publication of your reviewer 4 - Needing magnifying glass to see the figure graph 5 - Reading this sentence causes reviewer apnea 6 - Using more “I” and “we” than any other word 7 - Abbreviations reviewer needs to go to Google to decipher 8 – Listing all ingredients of a buffer 9 - Spell Checker is turned off 10 - Paragraph that extends a page and a half