CRC Grant writing basics 060618 Grant writing is

CRC Grant writing basics 060618

Grant writing is a skill • Successful grant writing requires training and practice • You have to convince reviewers, and ultimately granting agencies, at whatever level, to give you money to test your idea

Grant writing is a skill • Format differs between funding agencies, but principles are the same – Why should we care? What is the knowledge gap? – Do you have a good idea on how to address it? – Do you have a good research strategy to implement this idea? – Do you have the expertise and the resources to perform the experiments?

• Why should we care? This is critical. Nobody will give you money to work on something with low to no significance • Do you have a good idea? This is where your knowledge and expertise should show. NIH Scientific premise • Do you have a good research strategy? This can be improved and fixed if necessary. NIH Rigor and reproducibility • Do you have the expertise and the resources? This should be the easiest. Look for collaborations.

Scientific writing • Clear precise writing • Know who you are writing for: CRC reviewers from all divisions of Pathology • no jargon, define acronyms and abbreviations • Cite references to support your argument https: //access. clarivate. com/#/login? app=endnote • Read what you are writing aloud. Does it make sense? • Use colleagues to read drafts • “Write and read something everyday”

Pay attention to details • You want reviewers on your side by giving them an application that is easy to read • Typos, format, etc… • Nothing is missing

Abstract • Comes first in the proposal, but should be written last • In ½ page, you should cover all aspects of the proposal – Significance – Novelty – What type of experiments you are going to do • It should be exciting and make the reviewers want to know more • It should match the proposal (copy sentences from it is OK)

Core Hypothesis (or Question) and Specific Aims In 1 page max, give a brief description of the knowledge gap Its significance Your hypothesis or question should be clearly stated - What testing this hypothesis or answering this question would mean to the field - Specific Aim(s): what you want to accomplish and how. A title and few (1 -3) sentences for each • -

Background, significance, novelty • 1 -2 pages • Should be convincing and informative. Use references and your knowledge of the field • Background: the current status of the field • Significance: why should we care • Novelty: has it been done before? Novelty is not required for CRC, but you still want to address / justify, e. g. to confirm something

Preliminary results • Not necessary for CRC application • If you have something that is relevant, show it in a clear and brief manner • Figure, table. • Try to format it to look nice

Experimental plan • • • Rationale Methods of Procedure Experimental Design Interpretation of Results Statistics Potential Problems and Alternative Methods

controls • There is no scientific process without appropriate controls • The question is what are the appropriate controls

statistics • If you have quantitative data, you need stats • Understand the concept of statistical power: is the sample size that you propose to use sufficient to be informative? • If your sample size is limited, explain why and acknowledge the limitations. It is OK for CRC grants, and it is always better than ignoring the problem

Resources • We have this book (in print and in pdf files) • https: //grants. nih. gov/grants/how-toapply-application-guide/format-andwrite/write-your-application. htm

More resources from Dr. Chamala • https: //www. grammarly. com - for grammar, spell check, plagiarism, etc. This is free but with limited features. There is a paid version with full version. • https: //www. mendeley. com - this is the tool for citation manager that so far I found the best. It is free and everything is stored on the cloud with desktop application for access. This supports lot of journal citation format and has a plugin for MS word. • Usually what I do is go to scholar. google. com and search for required journal articles and export the citation in *. ris format (refman) to local desktop and then import into Mendeley with its import functionality. Another cool thing about Mendeley is that it also allows to collaborate using its Group functionality.

UF CTSI resources

Pathology resources • Discuss needs and plan workshop / discussion / mock study sections accordingly • Endnote? • Model of EPIG program for Pathology postdocs • Suggestions are welcome