First Mondays Career Development

1. First MondaysCareer Development Center for Education and Career Development (CECD) NUCATS Institute Clinical and Translational Sciences (CTSA) Faculty Affairs Office, FSM

2. For Clinical Scientists: Designing a Strategy to Achieve the Level and Type of Research That Fits Your Career PlanMarch 1, 2010 Rick McGee, PhD Bill Lowe, MD

3. Where is this session coming from? • Conversations with many clinicians who want to do research but not as their primary professional role • Others challenged to balance multiple work and personal interests/responsibilities • Rising, or at least not abating, challenges getting NIH grants • Heavy emphasis of research training programs on preparing PIs - potential sense of failure if one does not seek or achieve that level of research

4. What are some of the realities? • The number of PIs leading research teams with NIH R01 level support is more or less constant – the $$$ can only support so many • As an academic laboratory-based scientist there are largely two options – 1) PI, 2) Co-I as part of team of PI – later the role the only one expanding • As clinician, more options because one can generate an income outside of research • Translational research requires collaborations of full-time scientists and part-time • Our training models don’t focus much on part-time

5. Academic Advancement/Satisfaction • Recently gone through major review of ‘tracks’ • Clarification of basic separation between tenure and non-tenure tracks • For clinicians, clearer expression of the continuum in amounts of effort distributed between care, research, teaching, service • With research as primary non-clinical focus, advancement really is possible without being a PI • Won’t happen by chance – requires very conscious and careful career planning and control

6. Two strategies for part-time research Time/energy commitment in the range of 20-40% • Create and develop a unique individual identity, expertise and contribution to new knowledge within your field • Likely will require VERY targeted focus – can’t dabble in a bunch of different arenas • Must decide if want to become a visible, albeit small, player in an established area or create a niche in a new or evolving one • Will likely need to be closely aligned with clinical field • Likely closely related to advances in clinical care, or research that is not very expensive in time or $$$

7. Second strategy for part-time research Time/energy commitment in the range of 20-40% • Create and develop collaborations with one or more individuals or groups whose lives are focused on research • Still requires targeted focus but more room for several areas of interest • Still must decide if you want to become visible in established area or create a niche in a new/evolving one • If it is in translational research, will have to exert more effort acquiring knowledge/expertise outside your comfort zone – but this can be great role of training time • It is OK to consciously construct a career as a collaborator if you are not on the tenure track!

8. Fundamentals • Start from what you really enjoy, what interests you – internal motivation is all you can build on during the early phases of research • This is what drives scientists in general – not the external rewards that eventually come if one is successful • Start from what you know well • Start from what you are good at or are confident you can and want to become good at • If you don’t like and/or don’t get statistics, don’t try to build a career on sophisticated mathematical modeling! • But you can go after those problems through collaboration • You don’t have to master everything to succeed

9. Common Pitfalls • Most research training stems from laboratory research • Largest fraction of research dollars • Best way to learn research method – short cycles of planning and executing research • Great preparation for bench science, not for clinical studies • Highest reward for ‘why’ questions - mechanism • Dominated by full-time (150%) scientists • Clinical research training needs to be very different • MSCI great foundation but require too much time • Still need heavy emphasis on learning by doing

10. What we don’t know… • Much more than what we do know • How reviewers will or will not change • How much weight will really be placed on ‘impact’ and how that will be defined by reviewers • How to say in 13 pages what we have barely been able to say in 25 pages for an R01 • How applications with mathematically identical scores will be differentiated and by whom • How the new paradigm will impact beginning, mid and late career scientists • BUT – most of these you can’t control!

11. Comparison of Old and Enhanced Criteria • See handout with Orange banner • Overall Impact – the score that matters • Core Review Criteria – old vs. new • Significance Significance • Approach Investigator(s) • Innovation Innovation • Investigator(s) Approach • Environment Environment

12. Significance – changes… • “…important problem or a critical barrier to progress in the field?” • “If the aims achieved…scientific knowledge, technical capability, and/or clinical practice…” • “How will successful completion of the aims change (vs. affect) ….this field?”

13. Investigator(s) – changes… • “Are the PD/PIs, collaborators and other researchers (not key personnel) well suited (not trained) to carry out the project?” • “If Early Stage Investigators or New Investigators, do they have appropriate experience and training? If established, have they demonstrated an ongoing record of accomplishments that have advanced their field(s)?” • (for multi-PD-PI) “Are their leadership approaches, governance and organizational structure appropriate for the project?”

14. Innovation – changes… • Read the two side by side – hard to tell if they are different or the same…

15. Approach – changes… • “Are potential problems, alternative strategies, and benchmarks for success presented?” vs • “Does the applicant acknowledge potential problems areas and consider alternative tactics? • Issues related to multi-PI and administrative/ management of project removed • New paragraph on clinical research added

16. Environment – changes… • “Will” replaces “Does” as the first word • “Are the institutional support, equipment, and other physical resources available to the investigators adequate for the project proposed?” – more detailed than before

17. New Scoring System/Process • Reviewers read assigned grants at home • Submit reviews and initial scores before meeting • Preliminary decisions of which grants to review made based on preliminary scores • Final decision of grants to review made at start of meeting • Review and final scoring as before, although no requirement to change scores on individual criteria to match final impact score • Impact Score does not have to align with individual criteria in any predictable way

18. New Scoring System/Process • See handout “Scoring System and Procedure” page 4 for score descriptors • Percentiling also addressed there • Bulleted list of reviewer comments on strengths and weakness for each criterion replaces narratives

19. Page Limit Changes • See handout #3 – PHS SF424 (R&R) pages I-22 – I-24 • R02, R13, R21 – 1 page Specific Aims plus 6 page Research Plan • R01 and some others – 1 page Specific Aims plus 12 page Research Plan • K08 and K23 – 12 pages for Candidate Information and Research Strategy

20. Possible Implications – Speculation… • Specific Aims page will continue to be critical to first impressions • Overall writing style must be very compact and crisp – no wasted words! • Seems to be less focus on Background – very targeted historical perspective • Preliminary data will have to be streamlined if you have a lot • Carefully choose the details presented in the experimental design – potentially broader brush than in the past

21. Possible Implications – More Speculation… • Early career investigators continue to be treated differently • Established investigators appear to be evaluated more on long-term track record • Increasingly important to make Impact/novelty/innovation very obvious but it must be legitimate! – Critical to the field if not a direct health impact