Specific Aims or Selling your Science in One

Specific Aims or Selling your Science in One Page Pedro Fernandez-Funez Assistant Professor of Neurology and Neuroscience pedro. fernandez@neurology. ufl. edu

• The Specific Aims are the template or master plan for your Research Plan • If this section works well, everything else will fall naturally in place Russell and Morrison 2010

Capturing the votes • Reviewers not assigned to your proposal need to catch up during presentation. Abstract, Aims, Significance and Innovation will provide that information • Include everything that is important and exciting, but without detail • The Aims provide a conceptual framework for the assigned reviewers. The flow of logic has to be so compelling that other reviewers can follow while someone else is talking

• For a compelling flow of logic, all the components of this section need to be appropriately linked, which requires in-depth understanding of what each component is meant to convey Tip: outlining is your key to developing linkage and avoid unnecessary detail Russell and Morrison 2010

Structure of the Specific Aims

Structure of the Specific Aims

The Introduction • Relevance of proposal to human health • Current knowledge, set up the gap in knowledge • Gap in knowledge / unmet need At this point, the reviewers should understand the medical relevance, be up to speed with current knowledge, and should understand that there is a gap in the knowledge base that constitutes an important problem

What, Why, Who • Long-term goal • Objective of this application: the expected product of the research • Central Hypothesis: – Link to objective, provides focus (direction) – Objectively testable – How it was generated (prelim data, work by others) • Rationale: what will become possible that is not possible now

The foundation: The Hypothesis http: //medicine. emory. edu/research/R_series. cfm

Specific Aims paragraph Convey specific about the research Grow from hypothesis, test its parts Brief, informative, attention-getting headlines Each aim should convey WHY that part is proposed, not WHAT will be done • Your aims should answer the question: WHY am I proposing this part? • Avoid descriptive words: compare, correlate, investigate, determine • 3 -4 aims for RO 1, 2 for smaller grants, not interdependent • •

Spelling out your aims

No funding to generate Tg animals Not hypothesis-driven. Open-ended discovery Not hypothesis-driven

Interdependent aims

Specific Aims template (beware of templates)

The Payoff paragraph • Expected outcomes of the research • Positive Impact Linear progression of logic GAP Objective Central Hypothesis Specific Aims Expected Outcomes

Consider a diagram of your aims

From the experts: • Keep it simple – expect that your reviewers will be smart but not necessarily experts in your field. • NIH reviewers are unlikely to review grants directly in their field of expertise

Revise, Revise • As you write your ideas down, they will become clearer • As your ideas become clearer revise your aims page • Writing a grant is a wonderful opportunity to focus the efforts of your lab – What is most important – What has to get done quickly

Final thoughts • Start early • Grant writing is hard work • Administrative stuff takes A LOT OF TIME – Get it done early!!!!!! • Talk through your aims with your colleagues • Refine and revise your aims as you write the body of the grant – it is okay if they change • Writing a grant is fun – it is an opportunity to refocus and take your research to the next level !!!! • Talk with your NIH Program Officer – they have great advice and are your advocate

Good Luck!!!!